CHECK IT, THEN PASS IT ON
Not here.
A foreign-owned company has applied for a permit to release 425 tons of hydrogen fluoride a year — more than a ton a day — a few miles upwind of Inola’s schools. That number is theirs, from their own application.
FLUORIDE A YEAR
OF THE BEST PLANTS
MORE THAN A CITY
LIMITS ON THE BOOKS
Emirates Global Aluminium of the U.A.E. and Century Aluminum — filing as Oklahoma Primary Aluminum — want a $4 billion smelter on 350 acres at the Tulsa Port of Inola, making 750,000 tons a year. Their air permit application sits at Oklahoma DEQ now. Prevailing winds here run south to north: from that stack, over this town.
Scrubbers, enclosed storage, continuous monitors, best available control technology — “the lowest-emitting smelter in the world.” The company calls its figures preliminary and says it will run below the limits.
Intentions are not limits. The only enforceable figure is the permit number, and the number they asked for is 425 tons a year. The company notes those limits are set by regulators — people we can still reach.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond sued to block the smelter: emissions “do not respect property lines.”
After six hours of public comment in a packed high school, trustees voted unanimously for a 60-day moratorium.
DEQ is reviewing the air permit. Public participation is written into that process — if people use it.
The moratorium runs out. What replaces it depends on who is still paying attention.
About the 1,000 jobs — nobody in Inola is against work. We are asking that they come with an enforceable fluoride limit a farm town can live beside, a health and soil baseline taken before anything is built, and a power deal that doesn’t land on residential bills. That isn’t opposition. That’s due diligence.
“PROTECT INOLA”
ON FACEBOOK