Reynolds Aluminum Plant
The Reynolds Aluminum plant is located in Longview, Washington, about halfway between Seattle and Portland, Oregon. It opened for business at the beginning of World War II. The company receives supplies of alumina from Australia, which is brought by ship and unloaded on the company's dock next to the Columbia River. The alumina is then turned into materials for Boeing and other major aircraft companies.
The Reynolds plant employed 900 people when operating at peak capacity, and had a payroll of $25 million. It was purchased by Alcoa, which sold it in 2001 to a Chicago businessman named Michael Lynch. Lynch promptly closed the plant down, citing rising electricity costs. He claimed he was going to build a power co-generation plant to power the aluminum plant, and reopen within a year. Instead, he laid off all the workers and struck a deal with the Bonneville Power Administration to sell back all the power the aluminum plant would have used.
It was also found that Lynch under-funded the workers' pension plan by $2.6 million while he was managing the Reynolds plant. While Lynch made millions in his transactions, the Longview economy went into a tailspin that took years to recover from. In 2006, Lynch was put in jail by a Chicago judge for criminal contempt.
Currently, investors are renovating the old Reynolds plant with the intention of developing it into a private port. The property needs extensive environmental cleanup, as the old smelter is contaminated with fluoride, cyanide, and other toxic chemicals in the soil and in the groundwater.
Workers at the Reynolds Aluminum plant were at daily risk of exposure to asbestos and other toxic substances like cyanide. This was especially true before the 1970s, when the dangers became better understood and workers began to wear adequate protection and receive warnings. Asbestos was used in many places in industrial plants, including in pipes, furnaces, insulation, pourers, and even in the safety clothing that workers wore.
Asbestos is generally not harmful while it is intact, but when it is broken loose during repairs or renovation, the invisible fibers become airborne and can be easily inhaled by workers. Asbestos fibers can lodge in the lungs causing scarring to build up for many years. Over time, asbestos can cause breathing problems and diseases such as asbestosis and mesothelioma.
