Intalco
“We did very well in the Senate’s capital budget proposal,” Sefzik said. “I am especially excited about the $10 million appropriation for Intalco. Restart is looking more and more like reality.”
They include funding for the missing link of the Jim Kaemingk, Sr. Trail in Lynden, and a pump station and housing for the developmentally disabled in Blaine. All told, the Senate capital budget proposal provides $11.8 million for the 42nd Legislative District.
The Whatcom County aluminum smelter was mothballed by Alcoa in 2020 due to falling metal prices and weakening demand. Aluminum prices have since rebounded, and a private equity firm, Blue Wolf Capital Partners, is negotiating to purchase and reopen the plant, pending an agreement on electricity supply. The state’s $10 million would pay for efficiency upgrades and pollution reduction efforts, making Intalco one of just two aluminum plants nationally that produce ‘green aluminum.’
Restart also would allow restoration of 700 high-wage jobs lost when the factory closed.
“Intalco restart will have a ripple effect throughout our local and state economy, as general prosperity leads to further job creation,”
Sen. Simon Sefzik at the Washington State Capitol, January 21, 2022.
Sefzik said. “Intalco already is one of the cleanest aluminum plants around, because it does not rely on coal-fired electricity. The current plan builds on that, with upgrades that would reduce Intalco’s greenhouse-gas footprint by 90 percent. Intalco deserves a future, and the Legislature is helping make the dream come true.”
This year’s capital budget supplements the two-year funding plan adopted by lawmakers last year. It pays for public works construction statewide and primarily is financed with long-term state bonds. Another proposal is due from the House.
Other appropriations contained in the Senate capital budget proposal include:
- $300,000 for the Jim Kaemingk, Sr. Trail in Lynden. Money would be used to complete a half-mile trail link between Depot Road and North 8th Street, including a bridge over Fishtrap Creek. The trail segment would link two miles of trail already developed in the city.
- $500,000 for the East Blaine Water Pump Station. Part of an infrastructure-development program for fast-growing East Blaine, the pump station would provide water and fire protection for 1,450 new housing units. The area’s higher elevation requires a water booster pump station. Total cost of the project is $1.5 million; with the appropriation the state would pick up one-third of the cost.
- $381,000 for a Blaine housing project coordinated by the Foundation for the Challenged. Money would be used to build a three-bedroom wheelchair accessible house for persons with disabilities. Another $762,301 has been committed by other sources.
Sucking on the taxpayers teat. Again.
The citizens of Lynden can’t fund their own trail? How does this trail benefit the taxpayers of Seattle? Tacoma? Etc.
The Blaine pumping station benefits who?
Private equity is buying a private business, yet the taxpayers must pay for improvementa. Does anyone see a problem with the big picture? Government increasingly raising taxes to dole out favors.
I am thinking the same thing, Eric.
Do rural landowners get help installing their water and wells from the State? No, in fact, it is just the opposite, as the state wants to charge well owners money, if they even allow them to miraculously have water sometimes.
Yet, if you live in a city the state helps to pay for homeowners’ water costs. Then too, rural landowners now have to pay for city people in Lynden to have a nice little trail? So rural homeowners pay for their own trail on their own property, as well as city property for urban homeowners. This is just not right.
Why?
All this is glaringly unfair and is the result of city voters having more power in the voting booth than rural voters. More people live in cities, and so they smother the rural vote at election time and rural families pay a big price.
This is not a matter of “one person one vote”, when the cultures, costs, and realities of living in rural areas are so different than in an urban environment. These are two completely different worlds. Yet, rural areas cannot compete with the power of the city, with city concentrations of capital and people overwhelming rural voting numbers consistently. Due to the Growth Management Act banning rural housing, this is unequal dispersion of power is going to get a lot worse. Rural landowners are going to get smooshed.
This distressing situation has a name. It is called the “tyranny of the majority” and occurs when you have what is called a pure democracy, where only the majority rules at voting time.
Actually, this is at the heart of a very serious problem we are now facing in the state. Last winter, with the increasing problem of flooding rivers, only Seattle and King County will have the power to solve the stressful issue due to its massive urban population at voting time. Thus, the solution will be urban-driven and likely wrong. Most ironically, this is a problem that Seattle did not even have to cope with.
This unjust muck of a mess is the system in place at the state level all over America the Beautiful. Except it is not so beautiful for rural people. Yet, at the federal level, where we have a US Senate vote that is determined by “area” rather than population, here, people in rural states finally have a voice in government. But having a voice in only the federal government is not what one would call “freedom.” Rather, it makes the rural areas as mere “colonies” ruled over by imperialist cities…where as in the old days, colonies had no vote but were used for their resources. IS not this the heart of the case? Yet, lefties decry imperialism when they cannot see their own in modern times. It is true.
This Federal system of voting needs to operate at the county level in state government. Yes, this is the format that should be enacted at the state level, or rural people will forever be 2nd rate citizens ruled by cities.
So, my rural friends, if you feel that something is terribly wrong, but you cannot quite put your finger on it, this is it.
Thomas Jefferson would be most upset at this injustice, as voting parity is primary for rural people in seeking the grand “pursuit of happiness” and is a foremost requirement of the Constitution.
Ooops…I said the C word.
Trouble.