We sent out requests for info on aluminum smelters to a wide range of people and organizations. Here are some of the responses we've gotten back so far:

From a CAW-Environmental Committee rep:
    The big thing about aluminium smelters is that they require enormous amounts of energy - where will that come from in Alberni? I think the idea was co-gen from the mill. There are numerous sources of pollution, including perflorocarbons, contributing to greenhouse gas, raised water temps as smelters aren't closed loop, and chemical water pollution. there is also the issue of disposal of spent pot-lining. Alcan in Kitimat is a faithful member of the pollution non-compliance list. Alcan has its water licence to remove 70% of the water from the Nechako River in perpetuity. Very disgusting how we give out licences to our common resources to multi-nationals in perpetuity. I don't know any working class fishermen who have a right to a licence to extract resources in perpetuity. Alcan sells a lot of its power to BC Hydro, which then sells to the US, and under NAFTA could get in a situation where regardless of future local needs, we will be obliged to continue selling that level of power to the US in perpetuity. A large smelter could employ 1000-2000 people. There is a disproportionately high rate of testicular cancer among smelter workers. Where are the local Alberni First Nations on this issue? It's very much a treaty issue, water and fish. That's a lot of money for a feasibility study. Perhaps a strategic plan would be to propose alternate job creation programs that don't off-load into the environment and human health using that money.

This came from Burkhard Mausberg, a chemist with the Canadian Environmental Defense Fund in Toronto:
        According to the NAFTA Commission on Environmental Cooperation's 1997 "Taking Stock" report, the Alcan smelter in Kitimat BC released 485.8 tonnes of hydrogen fluoride into the air. This accounted for just under 9% of all B.C.'s on-site releases (as reported to the National Rollutant Release Inventory), and made the Alcan facility the province's largest on-site polluter. According to the report, the low exposure risks of hydrogen fluoride include irritation of eyes, skin and lungs. The Alcan Kitimat Works is the largest releaser of hydrogen fluoride in Canada (according to the 1997 NPRI summary report). 1998 NPRI data is available on Environment Canada' s website.

Elizabeth May contributed this:
        The EFFECTS of an aluminum smelter ARE HUGE!! Especially of concern are PAH contamination, lots of water and energy consumption.

A fisheries scientist, who also has a masters degree in metal pollutants, contributed the following:
        An aluminum smelter is one of those things that can be fairly benign, but there is always a horrendous risk. There are two problems: Where does the power come from? If you are burning natural gas, you add CO2, - not as much as from coal, but in the amounts required for Aluminum smelting, huge amounts nevertheless. Other sources have their own risks. The other is the actual process used. The Haul Heroult process (by far the most common in the past; I do not know what is planned for P.A.) can and will give off fluoride compounds in various amounts. These can be minute and no problem to control, or large, and difficult to control- or the reverse, large but easy, and minute but difficult. I have not looked into this for some years (since the Kemano II program was talked about), but I do remember that a couple of plants that were built in the eastern US that were upgraded to reduce emissions had to be rebuilt, because the upgrades did not work. Presumably, with the super computers that are available now, that should not be a problem, but I do not know. The other problems are the iron impurities disposal- the pile can be exposed and put dust into the air, and there can be alumina dust. They are not necessarily hazardous in small amounts, but it varies with individuals, and both are extremely erosive - engine wear will go up, etc., if any escapes.  Carbon or graphite dust is not usually a problem outside the plant, but even a small amount can blacken an entire valley. The company record is as important as anything else. One of the problems is that there are huge savings to the companies in terms of scale. A bigger plant costs not much extra to run - overhead per ton of Al produced drops off a lot. Producing exotic alloys is lucrative, but you need a very highly skilled workforce; likewise for the nanostructured composites (even nanostructured copper is harder than most steels, and alumina-titania composites are supposed to be incredibly hard - close to diamond, and incredibly tough - so tough that there is no measurement system that works for them. Doped nickel aluminides are used in jets, as are more prosaic alloys). They have to be close to the place where they are used, because they have to be fabricated into the finished product in a narrow time period - with some of the alloys, their properties change through time so much that they cannot be used commercially after a certain point, and must be re-smelted. To cut to the chase, you could get a lot of spin-offs, to supply parts to Boeing, but the required investment is so huge I do not see it happening. More likely, simply shipping the Al to a specialized foundry for the production of the alloy stock.

This came from the T. Buck Suzuki organization (a fisheries and fisheries union org):
        The main issues are (you probably know all this):
            a) aluminum production requires vast amounts of cheap electricity (usually government subsidized as it is with the cheap water rates for Alcan's use of the Nechako River). What is the electricity source that would be used? I assume it would come from the Hydro grid, which means it would be taxing the Hydro system, potentially requiring more hydro production. In any case, all hydro dams in B.C. have seriously harmed salmon runs -- unfortunately, most of the damage is already done.
            b) smelting produces both air pollution and water pollution - Alcan, for example has been on the provinces non-compliance pollution list many times over the last ten years.
            c) worker health - aluminum smelters are known to have increased cancer rates for their workers.
            d) ozone layer depletion/global warming -- aluminum smelting produces a byproduct (the chemical name eludes me) that is much more hazardous to the ozone layer than most other greenhouse gases (by weight).

A First Nations mining and environment consultant sent the following comment:
        How dya feel bout moving again?   Heh Heh!

Gerald Tilliman, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana (Cancer Alley), member of  Aluminum Workers Local 125 says this:
                                      Now me personally, my throat started swelling over a year ago. And I went to the doctor and it's the beginnings of throat cancer. What's the use of a good industrial job, which is a high paying job, instead of looking for and paying for the American Dream, you're paying a doctor and 9 times out of 10 he's connected to industry also and he won't go to court and say you were gassed.