SAVING ICELAND BLOCKADES RIO TINTO-ALCAN’S SMELTER IN ICELAND

Aug 01 2008
“STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF ÞJÓRSÁ FOR ARMS PRODUCTION!”

HAFNARFJORDUR, ICELAND — Activists from Sav­ing Ice­land have today begun stop­ping traf­fic to and from Rio Tinto-Alcan’s alu­mini­um smelter in Straumsvík, Haf­nar­fjor­dur, by chain­ing them­selves to the gates of the plant. Sav­ing Ice­land is protest­ing against Rio Tinto-Alcan’s plans to increase their alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty on the island, the con­se­quences of which would would be that sig­nif­i­cant parts of Iceland’s unique envi­ron­ment would have to be destroyed for ener­gy gen­er­a­tion. The activists are also protest­ing against the worlds largest alu­mini­um producer’s involve­ment with the arms indus­try.

Rio Tin­to-Alcan wants to increase its pro­duc­tion in Straumsvík by 40 thou­sand tons per year with­out enlarg­ing the smelter build­ing itself. At the same time the com­pa­ny is plan­ning to build a sec­ond alu­mini­um smelter in the towns of Keil­isnes or Þor­lák­shöfn (1).

Reyk­javík Ener­gy (Orku­vei­ta Reyk­javíkur) pulled out from an ener­gy deal with Rio Tin­to-Alcan because of strong pub­lic oppo­si­tion to their expan­sion, result­ing in the geot­her­mal­ly active Bitra moun­tain being saved.(2)

At the same time, Landsvirkjun (the nation­al ener­gy com­pa­ny) is plan­ning to go ahead with the con­struc­tion of three dams in the Thjórsá riv­er, south Ice­land, as well as one in the adjoin­ing Tung­naá riv­er. They have already signed an ener­gy expan­sion con­tract with Rio Tin­to-Alcan (4). In Decem­ber 2006, the two com­pa­nies signed a con­tract which stat­ed that Rio Tin­to-Alcan would share the cost of the three dams in Thjórsá (5).

Cor­rup­tion in Haf­nar­fjörður
In the end of March 2007, a pub­lic ref­er­en­dum took place in Haf­nar­fjör­dur, where a major­i­ty in the city vot­ed against the enlarge­ment of their Rio Tinto-Alcan’s smelter. Lúd­vík Geirs­son, may­or of Haf­nar­fjör­dur, said that the ref­er­en­dum was a “vic­to­ry for democ­ra­cy” and added that he would fol­low the con­clu­sion (6). Rio Tin­to-Alcan announced that they were then con­sid­er­ing to move their pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty to to Thor­lák­shöfn.

Only three months lat­er, Lúd­vík sat at a meet­ing with Ran­nveig Rist, direc­tor of Alcan in Ice­land, and Michael Jacques, direc­tor of Alcan Pri­ma­ry Met­al Group, where they dis­cussed the future of Alcan in Ice­land. One idea dis­cussed was to increase the Straumsvik smelter’s capac­i­ty into the sea, on top of a land­fill mound, rather than onto a lava rock area cleared by Alcan in antic­i­pa­tion of a pos­i­tive result from the ref­er­en­dum (7). Many see this as a betray­al of the ref­er­en­dum spir­it, which was not in regards to the speci­fici­ties of Alcan’s expan­sion but their expan­sion alto­geth­er.

“Is this real­ly what Geirs­son calls the ‘vic­to­ry of democ­ra­cy’? Bro­ken promis­es?” says Snor­ri Páll Jóns­son Úlfhildar­son, from Sav­ing Ice­land. “His behav­iour show clear­ly how much pow­er the alu­mini­um cor­po­ra­tions have here in Ice­land. The author­i­ties seem to not dare to speak or act against these cor­po­ra­tions will.”

Alcan’s links with the arms indus­try
August 30th, 2006, Alcan signed a long-term con­tract for their involve­ment with the pro­duc­tion of the F‑35 Join­t­er Strike Fight­er, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the arms pro­duc­ers Lock­heed Mar­tin, Nothrop-Grum­man and BAE Sys­tems (8).

“This is not a respectable com­pa­ny” says Sofie Larsen from Sav­ing Ice­land. “Until now, Alcoa has got the most atten­tion here in Ice­land when it comes to the links between alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion and the arms indus­try. Yet, Alcan is no bet­ter at all, since the com­pa­ny is con­tract­ed to sev­er­al dif­fer­ent weapon pro­duc­ers.”

Alcan pro­duces alu­minum for EADS (Euro­pean Aero­space and Defense and Space) (9), whose line of mil­i­tary heli­copters and fight­er jets includes the Eurofight­er Tycoon, Mirage F1 and EF18 Hor­net. EADS is also a lead in the pro­duc­tion of mis­siles (10).

“On it’s web­site, EADS claims that the company’s prod­uct is only sold to coun­tries who ´guar­an­tee a respon­si­ble approach to high-tech mil­i­tary air sys­tems´” says Sofie, ”but on the same site, one can find videos which glo­ri­fy Nazi Germany’s air­force (11). What kind of ethics is that?”

The damming of Thjórsá riv­er
Despite strong local resis­tance from farm­ers unwill­ing to give up their land for Rio Tinto-Alcan’s expan­sion, Landsvirkjun have been work­ing full time to push through the four dam project. Landsvirkjun has again and again gone up to the riv­er, try­ing to get farm­ers to agree with the con­struc­tion. When they received a let­ter signed by nine of the ten farm­ers affect­ed by the Urridafoss water­fall Thjórsá dam, stat­ing that they refused to par­tic­i­pate in any fur­ther dis­cus­sions with the ener­gy agency, Landsvirkjun threat­ened to force­ful­ly expro­pri­ate their land.

Recent­ly the dis­trict coun­cil of Flóahrep­pur made an agree­ment with Landsvirkjun to include the Urridafoss dam into their dis­trict plan. Jón Árni Vig­nis­son, a farmer who lives by Thjórsá, said that they had done so after Landsvirkjun had promised to pump funds into a vari­ety of their minor infra­struc­ture projects: road, water sup­ply and mobile phone recep­tion improve­ments (12). Essen­tial­ly, the local gov­ern­ment had been bribed.

The enlarge­ment of Rio Tinto-Alcan’s capac­i­ties in Ice­land and the damming of the Thjórsá riv­er are high­ly cor­rupt projects which Sav­ing Ice­land demands the imme­di­ate halt­ing of.

Ref­er­ences:

(1) Mbl.is, Álfram­leiðs­la hjá Alcan aukin um 22 prósent, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(2) Mbl.is, Fyrirhugaðar framkvæmdir og orkusala hal­dast í hen­dur, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(3) Mbl.is, 200 mw orkusala úr sögun­ni, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(4) Vísir.is, Alcan kep­pir áfram um orku Þjórsár, http://visir.is/article/20070909/FRETTIR…
(5) Heimasíða Rio Tin­to-Alcan á Íslan­di, http://www.riotintoalcan.is/?PageID=12&a…
(6 )Mbl.is, Sig­ur fyrir lýðræðið, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(7) Mbl.is, Álver á land­fyllingu, http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2007/06…
(8) Vef­síða Alcan, http://www.alcan.com/web/publishing.nsf/…(JSF
(9) Vef­síða ABC Mon­ey, http://www.abcmoney.co.uk/news/132007869…
(10) Vef­síða EADS, http://www.eads.com/1024/en/businet/defe…
(11) Myn­d­band sem segir sögu EADS, http://www.eads.com/xml/content/OF000000…
(12) Sunnlen­s­ka Frét­tablaðið, 30. tölublað, Eigum mar­ga aðra valkosti, bls. 8–9, 24. Júlí 2008