Mile 145.4 - LBD Noranda Alumina Gramercy

145.4 LBD Noranda Alumina Gramercy

The orange facility just downriver from Rain CII is the Noranda Alumina refinery. The orange color comes from bauxite (aluminum ore). Construction on the alumina refinery began in 1957 with the first shipment of alumina occurring two years later. Ocean going freighters supply the plant with bauxite from the bauxite mine in Jamaica. Utilizing the Bayer process (dissolving the aluminum oxide in the bauxite with caustic soda under pressure) to chemically extract alumina from bauxite, the original plant was designed to produce 438,000 metric tonnes of alumina per year. The plant has undergone several expansions and modernizations since then to increase the output of alumina to 1.2 million metric tonnes per year. The Gramercy facility was originally owned by Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation. In 2004, Noranda formed a joint partnership with Century Aluminum and purchased the Gramercy refinery and the St. Ann bauxite mining operations from Kaiser. In 2009, Noranda became sole owner of the refinery, which now operates as Noranda Alumina, LLC.

After the aluminum oxide is removed, all of the rest of the bauxite (minus aluminum) is leftover in a caustic red waste referred to as red mud. Over a million pounds of red mud waste from Noranda is dumped each year into more than 800 acres of waste pits behind the facility. There is also mercury in the bauxite and it was discovered in 2014 that the Noranda facility has been emitting far more mercury than regulators were aware of or that the facility is permitted to emit. In 2013 alone Noranda emitted 1,803 pounds of mercury into the environment. State regulators are still trying to determine the extent of any mercury contamination from the facility. In addition to 1,803 pounds of mercury Noranda Alumina Gramercy released 948,231 pounds of toxins into the air and 25,607 pounds into the river in 2013. (Paul Orr)