Residents oppose Alliance Metals' aluminium recycling plant in Arizona on environmental grounds; the company assures safety

Florida-based Alliance Metals, which applied for the permit for an aluminium recycling plant in a farming town in Wenden, Arizona in April 2019, faced with oppositions from local communities. In a public hearing, residents urged environmental regulators not to sign off on the project.

Homeowners and local business people urged officials from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality not to grant an air-quality permit for the proposed Alliance Metals plant in Wenden in order to save the communities from pollution. They said the plant will be dangerously close to residential areas and also to an elementary school.  

The facility is planning to take in scrap aluminium, crush and melt down the metal, and remelt it into making secondary aluminium ingots. The company plans to supply the ingots to the manufacturers for auto, aerospace or military industries.

Representatives of the company insisted the plant wouldn’t harm the environment and would comply with regulations. They added that the US$10 million facility would bring 30 full-time jobs and would boost county tax revenues by more than us$600,000 over the next 10 years.

The proposed aluminium plant was supposed to be built on the site of an old cotton gin. The land is zoned as “rural area” and the company applied for a “conditional-use permit.”

The residents feared that the plant will drive away the “snowbirds” that fill up his property with their RVs each winter.

Erin Jordan, an ADEQ spokesperson, said the agency will review and address comments that it has received, and will decide on the permit based on the review.

Thomas Galvin, an attorney for the company, said that the facility will control emissions of particulate pollution and keeping the emissions at safe levels. Galvin said if ADEQ approves the project, “it’s because they know that there will be no environmental harm to the local community or to the state.”

The plant was planned considering its location close to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Mexico, the markets for aluminium. Alliance Metals has already laid down concrete pads on the property and it promises to bring good-paying jobs to the community.