Nearly 500 people will lose their jobs when a North Sound factory goes idle.
Ferndale’s aluminum smelter Alcoa’s Intalco Works says it can’t afford to operate anymore so it’s shutting down most of its plant there and also in Wenatchee.
The county doesn’t have a lot of large employers outside of federal, state, city, school, and hospital jobs—so this loss is the county’s largest in recent history and is very concerning for the community.
The corner where Benson’s Market sits, just outside Ferndale, doesn’t look like it would be very busy, but nestled in between acres and acres of farmland are some of Whatcom County’s biggest businesses, including oil refineries and Alcoa.
And Raj Cheema knows it.
“Most of the evening traffic I have is those companies. All those guys are in and out grabbing beer, grabbing snacks. Red bull, drinks,” she told KIRO 7.
Raj says 15 percent of her customers—at least—work off Mountain View Road, and she’s invested in them.
“The beer cave I built especially for the traffic from the refineries and the other companies because they wanted more variety,” she explained, pointing out a walk-in beer refrigerator she and her husband built about a year ago.
Now she’s worried it was all for not.
“Oh my God, what am I going to do?” she exclaimed when asked for her initial reaction to learning of the Alcoa idle.
Of the 580 jobs at Alcoa in Ferndale—not including contractors-- likely only around 100 will be spared.
The company says the rest will be cut by March.
“It’s very disappointing. It’s been a long fight to keep them here and keep those families and working people in our community. That smelter is a piece of our community’s history,” says Guy Occhiogrosso, the president of the Bellingham-Whatcom Chamber of Commerce.
Guy says they’re high-paying jobs as well—on average workers make between $80,000 and $90,000 a year.
But Guy says aluminum is no longer profitable to smelt stateside.
That also mean there aren’t a lot of other opportunities for these workers here.
“We don’t have a huge other employer that can absorb that,” he explained. “Obviously with a smelter, it’s a very defined specific job.”
Raj will hate to see them go.
“It’s like building a family here with them,” she said of her customer base, many of whom she’s gotten to know by name.
She just hopes her business doesn’t go with them.
“I am worried,” she concluded.
Whatcom County just lost another big business; more than 100 jobs were cut here in Bellingham earlier this fall when CH2M Hill closed a regional office.
KIRO
