USA: Expert: Power-Hungry Inola Smelter With Unclear Plans Will Enable Isolationism
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2026 11:13 pm
Expert: Power-Hungry Inola Smelter With Unclear Plans Will Enable Isolationism
In other words, one expert said, it’s for the war effort.
Oklahoma Watch - April 13, 2026
By Elizabeth Caldwell
The Question
During a late March city council meeting in Inola, Kelly Boegemann pointed to a wall logo advertising the area as the hay capital of the world.
“I’m wondering if you guys have figured out what you’re gonna put on the back of the wall there if you put the smelter in,” Boegemann asked the assembled officials.
Inola, about 30 miles east of Tulsa, has celebrated its wealth of silage with a Hay Days Festival since the 1960s. But the area’s future, agricultural and otherwise, is in question as the largest aluminum smelter in the country could be built in the Port of Inola. As to the effects, no one knows for sure or seems willing to say.
Lilly Stephens, speaking at the same city council meeting, summed up the feelings of critics in the community when it comes to Oklahoma Primary Aluminum, the entity behind the smelter.
“OPA is nothing if not consistent,” Stephens said. “Consistently unable to answer my questions. Consistently unable to give me data other than like, ‘Trust me, bro.’”
The Point
One reason for the large scale of the project is President Donald Trump’s isolationist agenda: aluminum is critical for war.
Mimi Sheller, dean at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, is the author of “Aluminum Dreams: The Making of Light Modernity.” She said the smelter, which would be the first facility of its kind to be stood up domestically in about 45 years, only has one obvious advantage.
“It doesn’t make a lot of economic sense,” said Sheller. “It doesn’t make a lot of environmental sense. It only makes sense within a military strategic national security context where you have alienated all of your allies.”
The need for domestic aluminum is heightened by Iran’s March bombing of two large smelters in the Middle East, and by Trump’s tariffs, which are as high as 50%, even though aluminum is produced more cheaply in Canada.
Domestic electricity prices could be a start-up issue. The smelter has already been promised hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies from the state; now OPA is haggling with Public Service Company of Oklahoma for a critical power contract.
In 2024, President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy chose Chicago-based Century Aluminum to receive up to $500 million to build an environmentally friendly smelter powered by 100% renewable or nuclear energy. Oklahoma has a mix of power sources, but the enormous amount of electricity needed will be funneled away from area residents.
“That clean energy is going to be negotiated into contracts for data centers, smelters, whoever can get a piece of it,” Sheller said. “But it otherwise it would have gone to consumers.”
The Consumers
Last month, Inola residents crowded into their local high school for a much-anticipated open house held by OPA. Their questions, they said, about their children, homes, gardens and livestock in the path of the smelter’s pollution went unanswered.
When compared to the most sophisticated smelters in the world, public records indicate Inola’s plant will be allowed to emit twice as much pollution in some cases. Hydrogen fluoride, a potent toxin to plants that can cause cattle to starve due to tooth deformities, is a main concern. Inola’s facility, according to its air permit, will be allowed to emit 425 tons of the colorless gas annually, or more than a ton a day, if approved. How exactly the surrounding area, composed mainly of farmland and forest, will be affected is unclear.
The effects of fluoride emissions are usually more pronounced close to a source, but there are a lot of factors when zooming out, as a 2021 Norwegian study notes: one smelter saw few effects beyond a single kilometer, while a fenced population of deer 13 kilometers away from another smelter showed extreme fluoride exposure. Meteorological patterns and other variables matter.
Carl Day, whose family has been in the area for a century, owns an estimated $4 million worth of cattle. His closest pasture is two miles from the smelter and he fears being put out of business. Day said every representative he spoke to told him he would have to wait for “EPA permits to come out” to get more information. In any case, he doesn’t feel the smelter is a fit for Green Country.
“Progress is good, building stuff is good, but it needs to be in areas capable of handling it and that want it,” Day said.
Julianne Flathers posted up amid the project’s informational displays with her five children, all carrying homemade signs of opposition. While managing a stroller and a struggling baby, Flathers described her 100-acre sheep and cattle farm within five miles of the smelter. Her family also tends one of Inola’s famous hay fields. She gestured to her kids.
The Flathers family protests at a March open house held by Oklahoma Primary Aluminum. (Elizabeth Caldwell/Oklahoma Watch)
“It’s for them I’m opposing the smelter,” Flathers said. “I’m concerned for their health and the health of our livestock.”
Flathers said she had not been approached by either company.
Details on health concerns were in short supply. Isaac Bethea, an orthopedic physician’s assistant in the area, said representatives he spoke to claimed to be unaware of fluorosis, a painful condition affecting teeth and bones that can be caused as fluoride accumulates in bodies. Bethea had little patience for the kind words offered by a representative instead.
“We’re not worried about having our feelings hurt,” Bethea said. “We’re worried about our children. We want severe fines if limits are violated. We want things in writing that make us feel better.”
The Company
Ziad Fares is a project director for Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Global Aluminum, the majority owner of OPA, in partnership with Century Aluminum. Fares said the morning after the March open house that it was an initial effort, encouraging people to visit an office the company has in Inola with daily operating hours. However, it’s unclear when more details about operations will be communicated.
“This is a complex project,” said Fares. “It takes time to get all the answers. We are still in the design phase with our engineering consultants. All of that will have an impact on the answers we can give.”
Fares emphasized the smelter will operate within legal environmental limits. But being safe isn’t the same as being the best, and the company has repeatedly promised best-in-class performance when it comes to environmental controls. Fares addressed that point by bringing up the company’s reputation around environmental, social and governance, or ESG, considerations.
Jasminka Jaksic, sustainability manager with EGA, said current numbers on emissions are not final.
“Those first submissions are based on a high limit, but that’s not necessarily what we intend to run this facility on,” Jaksic said. “Our intention is always to keep improving.”
One problem, Inolans say, is that the rules are not strict or even real. Oklahoma has no air standards for fluoride. Federally, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency computed its allowable hydrogen fluoride limits with data from the country’s newest domestic smelters that are nearly 50 years old, though those limits have been periodically updated. Jaksic, an Australian based in the Middle East, isn’t one to tell lawmakers their business, though.
“I am in no position to say EPA limits are not adequate,” Jaksic said.
Century Aluminum, the minority partner, has not always met EPA limits, as The Frontier recently reported.
The End
Meanwhile, Lilly Stephens and other Inolans are being asked to trust a project of unprecedented scale that may raise energy rates, mark the rural landscape with smokestacks and spread pollution across agricultural land.
“How am I supposed to protect my poultry with their hollow bones?” Stephens asked the city council.
So far, she has not gotten an answer.
SOURCE:
https://oklahomawatch.org/2026/04/13/ex ... lationism/
In other words, one expert said, it’s for the war effort.
Oklahoma Watch - April 13, 2026
By Elizabeth Caldwell
The Question
During a late March city council meeting in Inola, Kelly Boegemann pointed to a wall logo advertising the area as the hay capital of the world.
“I’m wondering if you guys have figured out what you’re gonna put on the back of the wall there if you put the smelter in,” Boegemann asked the assembled officials.
Inola, about 30 miles east of Tulsa, has celebrated its wealth of silage with a Hay Days Festival since the 1960s. But the area’s future, agricultural and otherwise, is in question as the largest aluminum smelter in the country could be built in the Port of Inola. As to the effects, no one knows for sure or seems willing to say.
Lilly Stephens, speaking at the same city council meeting, summed up the feelings of critics in the community when it comes to Oklahoma Primary Aluminum, the entity behind the smelter.
“OPA is nothing if not consistent,” Stephens said. “Consistently unable to answer my questions. Consistently unable to give me data other than like, ‘Trust me, bro.’”
The Point
One reason for the large scale of the project is President Donald Trump’s isolationist agenda: aluminum is critical for war.
Mimi Sheller, dean at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, is the author of “Aluminum Dreams: The Making of Light Modernity.” She said the smelter, which would be the first facility of its kind to be stood up domestically in about 45 years, only has one obvious advantage.
“It doesn’t make a lot of economic sense,” said Sheller. “It doesn’t make a lot of environmental sense. It only makes sense within a military strategic national security context where you have alienated all of your allies.”
The need for domestic aluminum is heightened by Iran’s March bombing of two large smelters in the Middle East, and by Trump’s tariffs, which are as high as 50%, even though aluminum is produced more cheaply in Canada.
Domestic electricity prices could be a start-up issue. The smelter has already been promised hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies from the state; now OPA is haggling with Public Service Company of Oklahoma for a critical power contract.
In 2024, President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy chose Chicago-based Century Aluminum to receive up to $500 million to build an environmentally friendly smelter powered by 100% renewable or nuclear energy. Oklahoma has a mix of power sources, but the enormous amount of electricity needed will be funneled away from area residents.
“That clean energy is going to be negotiated into contracts for data centers, smelters, whoever can get a piece of it,” Sheller said. “But it otherwise it would have gone to consumers.”
The Consumers
Last month, Inola residents crowded into their local high school for a much-anticipated open house held by OPA. Their questions, they said, about their children, homes, gardens and livestock in the path of the smelter’s pollution went unanswered.
When compared to the most sophisticated smelters in the world, public records indicate Inola’s plant will be allowed to emit twice as much pollution in some cases. Hydrogen fluoride, a potent toxin to plants that can cause cattle to starve due to tooth deformities, is a main concern. Inola’s facility, according to its air permit, will be allowed to emit 425 tons of the colorless gas annually, or more than a ton a day, if approved. How exactly the surrounding area, composed mainly of farmland and forest, will be affected is unclear.
The effects of fluoride emissions are usually more pronounced close to a source, but there are a lot of factors when zooming out, as a 2021 Norwegian study notes: one smelter saw few effects beyond a single kilometer, while a fenced population of deer 13 kilometers away from another smelter showed extreme fluoride exposure. Meteorological patterns and other variables matter.
Carl Day, whose family has been in the area for a century, owns an estimated $4 million worth of cattle. His closest pasture is two miles from the smelter and he fears being put out of business. Day said every representative he spoke to told him he would have to wait for “EPA permits to come out” to get more information. In any case, he doesn’t feel the smelter is a fit for Green Country.
“Progress is good, building stuff is good, but it needs to be in areas capable of handling it and that want it,” Day said.
Julianne Flathers posted up amid the project’s informational displays with her five children, all carrying homemade signs of opposition. While managing a stroller and a struggling baby, Flathers described her 100-acre sheep and cattle farm within five miles of the smelter. Her family also tends one of Inola’s famous hay fields. She gestured to her kids.
The Flathers family protests at a March open house held by Oklahoma Primary Aluminum. (Elizabeth Caldwell/Oklahoma Watch)
“It’s for them I’m opposing the smelter,” Flathers said. “I’m concerned for their health and the health of our livestock.”
Flathers said she had not been approached by either company.
Details on health concerns were in short supply. Isaac Bethea, an orthopedic physician’s assistant in the area, said representatives he spoke to claimed to be unaware of fluorosis, a painful condition affecting teeth and bones that can be caused as fluoride accumulates in bodies. Bethea had little patience for the kind words offered by a representative instead.
“We’re not worried about having our feelings hurt,” Bethea said. “We’re worried about our children. We want severe fines if limits are violated. We want things in writing that make us feel better.”
The Company
Ziad Fares is a project director for Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Global Aluminum, the majority owner of OPA, in partnership with Century Aluminum. Fares said the morning after the March open house that it was an initial effort, encouraging people to visit an office the company has in Inola with daily operating hours. However, it’s unclear when more details about operations will be communicated.
“This is a complex project,” said Fares. “It takes time to get all the answers. We are still in the design phase with our engineering consultants. All of that will have an impact on the answers we can give.”
Fares emphasized the smelter will operate within legal environmental limits. But being safe isn’t the same as being the best, and the company has repeatedly promised best-in-class performance when it comes to environmental controls. Fares addressed that point by bringing up the company’s reputation around environmental, social and governance, or ESG, considerations.
“Our intention is not to operate close to the limits or to surf right next to the limit,” Fares said. “We have our sustainability reports that we issue globally every single year that are read by all our partners. There is a lot of scrutiny on those results.”“OPA is nothing if not consistent. Consistently unable to answer my questions. Consistently unable to give me data other than like, ‘Trust me, bro.’”- Lilly Stephens
Jasminka Jaksic, sustainability manager with EGA, said current numbers on emissions are not final.
“Those first submissions are based on a high limit, but that’s not necessarily what we intend to run this facility on,” Jaksic said. “Our intention is always to keep improving.”
One problem, Inolans say, is that the rules are not strict or even real. Oklahoma has no air standards for fluoride. Federally, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency computed its allowable hydrogen fluoride limits with data from the country’s newest domestic smelters that are nearly 50 years old, though those limits have been periodically updated. Jaksic, an Australian based in the Middle East, isn’t one to tell lawmakers their business, though.
“I am in no position to say EPA limits are not adequate,” Jaksic said.
Century Aluminum, the minority partner, has not always met EPA limits, as The Frontier recently reported.
The End
Meanwhile, Lilly Stephens and other Inolans are being asked to trust a project of unprecedented scale that may raise energy rates, mark the rural landscape with smokestacks and spread pollution across agricultural land.
“How am I supposed to protect my poultry with their hollow bones?” Stephens asked the city council.
So far, she has not gotten an answer.
SOURCE:
https://oklahomawatch.org/2026/04/13/ex ... lationism/