Eighty-five will keep jobs at CFAC

The Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. plant won’t shut down entirely after all. The plant has negotiated an agreement with the Bonneville Power Administration for about 35 megawatts of power — enough to keep half of one potline open.

That means about 85 of 200 workers who were to lose their jobs this week will remain on the payroll, said Haley Beaudry, CFAC’s external affairs manager.

CFAC had already trimmed 125 jobs in the summer of 2008.

CFAC was under a contract with BPA that began in 2006 and ran through 2011. That contract monetized part of the plant’s power supply, in effect, subsidizing some of the power cost to the company. That contract allowed for 140 megawatts of power.

But that contract was struck down by a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling late last year.

BPA and CFAC then had to go back to the negotiating table and were able to hammer out a short-term deal that will run through the company’s second quarter and through the end of the federal fiscal year.

In the meantime, CFAC will continue to try to negotiate a longer-term deal, Beaudry said.

He said there was no set timeline in the negotiations.

“You just work on it until it’s done,” Beaudry said. “We just keep going.”

Beaudry credited Montana’s congressional delegation, BPA administrator Steven Wright, and state representatives Dee Brown and Ryan Zinke for lobbying for the plant.

“We’re the underdog,” he said.

The plant, when fully operational, has five potlines and uses about 300 megawatts of power.

It is one of the largest buildings in Montana.