Alliance Metals gets air quality permit for its proposed secondary aluminium smelting plant in La Paz County

Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has approved Alliance Metals’ application for an air quality permit for its proposed US$30 million secondary aluminium smelting plant in La Paz County, Arizona, a local media report says.

Loren Barton, vice president of Miami-based Alliance Metals USA said that the smelter will include "state-of-the-art technology, infrastructure and mitigation controls to contain emissions and protect air and water quality."

A meeting today, at the proposed site for the facility in Wenden, Arizona, will consider Alliance Metals' request to rezone the land from a “rural area” to an “industrial planned development” area.

The facility would recycle aluminium scrap to produce aluminium ingots for the auto, aerospace or military industries. The facility is expected to commission by the end of 2020 or beginning of 2021.

Barton says the company has consulted La Paz community members to ease their environmental concerns. The company also has reached out to the county’s board of supervisors to inform more about the proposed smelting facility.

“With newer technology we have and better emission capture devices, we’re informing [the community] of our practices and how they’re environmentally sound,” he says. “We’ve hosted job fairs to educate people, and those have gone very well with great turnouts.”

Alliance Metals also is planning to open another smelting plant in Leighton, Alabama by March or April. Barton says the northwest Alabama site is already developed and they are waiting for air quality permit for that site.

The Leighton facility is likely to consume around 120 million pounds of aluminium per year in the beginning. He adds that the smelting facility will be set up to accept a variety of scrap metals, including aluminium, brass and copper.