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The aluminum manufacturer, Alumax, Incorporated, of Ontario, CA, and Pechiney, the French aluminum giant, originally built this facility in 1966. Pechiney had just purchased Howmet Corporation (previously known as Howe Sound based in Greenwich, CT,) in 1965, and it was this subsidiary that supervised operations here with Alumax. In 2012, 640 people worked at the Alcoa Intalco plant, operating then at only 1/3rd of its peak capacity. Its location was nearby to the BP Oil Refinery at Cherry Point, WA, which supplied raw materials to the Ferndale factory. According to Alcoa's web site for this facility: "Alcoa Intalco Works produces primary aluminum metal by the Hall-Heroult reduction process. The plant has three operational potlines, with two of the three potlines idled. The smelter is capable of producing 278,000 mtpy. Its current capacity is approximately 90,000 mtpy." (See "Overview,"Accessed 08/15/2012.) The company site also indicated that the raw material alumina derived from bauxite ore was transported to the plant from Australia, and that two tons of the alumina would yield through the Hall-Heroult reduction process one ton of aluminum. It described the production process: "Intalco is a smelter that dissolves the alumina in a cryolite bath inside large, carbon-lined cells called pots. When a powerful electric current is passed through the bath, aluminum metal separates from the chemical solution and is siphoned off. That molten aluminum goes into furnaces for precise mixing with other metals to form various alloys with specific properties designed for particular uses. It is then poured into molds or cast into ingots. This is the finished product, which leaves Intalco primarily by truck. Further fabrication may include casting, rolling, forging, drawing or extruding to make thousands of different finished products from beverage cans to jet aircraft – either by Alcoa or by its customers." Intalco's location was crucial to its economical operation; located near to a port allowed the alumina to be transported economically. Alcoa also received

Tel: 360.384.7061 (2012).

PCAD id: 18036