Days like this it is hard not to think of the little town in the Missouri panhandle with America's dirtiest air. In New Madrid, the median AQI is 131, thanks to an aluminum smelter where some smokestacks are just 50 feet high...
-a private equity story-
reuters.com/article/us-usa-pollution-newmadrid-insight/trade-war-tradeoff-how-a-missouri-town-got-americas-dirtiest-air-idUSKBN2391GL
I don't know why the smokestacks are so low. The plant was built in the 1970s in "compliance" with the Clean Air Act.
By locating in a remote town with unusually *clean* air, owners were allowed to emit substantially *more* pollution than the industry standard.
Apollo bought the plant's owner Noranda Aluminum in April 2007, with $214 million cash & $900m debt
2 months later Apollo floated $222m 12-13% Noranda debt & paid itself a $216 million "special dividend."
In 2008 Noranda paid Apollo another $102 million dividend
In 2010 Noranda proposed spending $14 million to lengthen smokestacks to 243 feet to disperse toxic air
Too much, Apollo said
& pocketed another $81.6 million on Noranda's IPO
In 2011 Noranda paid Apollo another $71 million dividend
In 2012 Noranda paid Apollo another $54 million
Noranda tried to offset Apollo's giant sucking sound by aggressively lobbying Missouri officials for a $25 million cut in its annual power bill, an episode nauseatingly detailed in the new @gmorgenson book.
Residents balked.
In April 2015 governor Roy Nixon coughed up the funds
But then that summer a massive molten explosion shut down the plant temporarily. 33 workers were injured & OSHA fined Noranda $7,000, though it appealed & ended up paying less.
Reuters reported the disruption would be a boon for depressed aluminum prices.
And so in 2016 Noranda filed Chapter 11 anyway
Apollo had underfunded pensions by $219 million
The plant shut down
The county school district lost 17% of its budget overnight
The county's average household income immediately dropped $6,000
themissouritimes.com/noranda-files-bankruptcy-legislative-action-likely-only-avenue-for-survival/
Trump tariffs brought the plant & its glorious pollution roaring back in 2018, tho just 1/2 its old 900 workers
Record 2020 turnout in New Madrid went 75% Trump.
Bipartisanship found a "solution" to the dirty air: an $8.5 million zero-interest loan to elongate the smokestacks
And that's about the happiest fucking ending you are going to get from private equity, please read my uplifting essay on our barbarian elite here as long as you are stuck inside despairing about climate change.
prospect.org/culture/books/2023-06-02-days-of-plunder-morgenson-rosner-ballou-review/
moe tkacik
@moetkacik
investigations editor @TheProspect senior fellow @econliberties maureent at prospect.org