Trinidad blocks Alcoa aluminum smelter
Trinidad has scuttled a proposed $1.5-billion Alcoa Inc. aluminum smelter that faced increasing opposition over environmental concerns, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said in published comments.
“We have decided to immediately discontinue all plans to establish an industrial estate in Cap-de-Ville,” a farming village in southwest Trinidad, Manning was quoted as saying in Trinidad and Tobago’s Newsday newspaper.
The announcement was a victory for dozens of Cap-de-Ville farmers and fishermen who set up a protest camp to block construction, saying the smelter would poison their water supply for generations.
U.S. aluminum maker Alcoa, based in Pittsburgh, had signed a preliminary deal with the government to own and operate the smelter for 30 years.
The facility would have produced 375,000 tons of aluminum a year and employed as many as 800 workers, the company has said.
Representatives of Alcoa, which had insisted that the smelter would be environmentally safe, could not be immediately contacted about Manning’s comments in a Christmas Eve address.
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