Aluminum Shovels Move Dirt on $600M Alcoa Upgrade

MASSENA, NY-Years in the planning and approvals stages, Alcoa's $600-million-plus Massena Modernization Project reached the groundbreaking stage Monday as federal, state and local officials moved dirt with shovels made from aluminum. The long-range MMP originated as a 2007 agreement between Alcoa and New York State for the New York Power Authority to provide 478 megawatts of low-cost hydroelectric power in exchange for the aluminum manufacturing giant modernizing its facilities here and keeping about 1,000 jobs in the Empire State.

“It has been a long time coming,” said John D. Martin, president of Alcoa's US Primary Products division, at Monday afternoon's ceremony. “This has been a long, hard road.” Alcoa is the largest private employer in the state north of Syracuse.

As part of a $52-million commitment toward the project's next phase, which entails site preparation for the construction of a new smelting facility at the Massena East plant that will eventually produce 144,000 metric tons of aluminum per year, Alcoa is contributing $10 million to the state's North Country Economic Development Loan Fund. The fund is available to manufacturers, agri-business, clean/green and biotech, assemblers, wholesale distributors, warehouses, BIDs or not-for-profit entities for the purpose of revitalization, according to the Cuomo administration.

Alcoa says the most significant part of the MMP will be the construction of a new potroom at the East Plant and replacing the current “Soderberg” technology at that facility with the more modern “pre-bake” technology that is used at Massena West.  “Pots” are the steel-lined containers in which molten aluminum is smelted, arranged in long rows in large buildings called potrooms.  

The new potroom at Massena East will be similar in appearance and operation to the Massena West potrooms. Massena West will also see upgrades to its facilities as part of the MMP.

Work to be done through 2015 in preparation for construction of the potline includes the relocation of transmission lines; upgrades to the East Plant's ore gallery; installation of a power management system which will allow the company to better manage electricity consumption at both plants; grading of the site; and the installation of a new substation in partnership with NYPA.

Enactment of the plan was also pegged to US Environmental Protection Agency approval of a $243-million remediation plan for the Grasse River near the Massena facility, addressing two decades of industrial contamination by Alcoa and Reynolds Aluminum. The EPA signed off on the plan this past April.

The NCEDF is one element of the long-term NYPA-Alcoa hydropower contract inked in 2009, which extends to 2045. If certain conditions are met, Alcoa may exercise an option to extend service for 10 years beyond 2045.

Alcoa has been a customer of NYPA since the beginning; the company was in fact the authority's first customer. It signed its original supply contract with NYPA in 1955, three years before the authority's first generating facility came on line. About 60% of the power supplied by NYPA's St. Lawrence-FDR facility powers Alcoa's Massena smelters.