Twin Aluminum Plants Reunited Deal Places Plants Under Common Ownership For A Second Time

Two Northwest aluminum plants that once had the same owner before being sold to separate parties in the 1980s will rejoin under common ownership next year.

The plants at Goldendale, Wash., and at The Dalles, Ore., were built by Harvey Aluminum and later operated by Martin Marietta Corp.

The plants were idled by low aluminum prices. But former Seattle attorney Brett Wilcox bought the Dalles plant and revived it as Northwest Aluminum Co. in 1986. A year later, Hermiston, Ore., attorney Ken Peterson and an employee group bought and reopened the Goldendale plant as Columbia Aluminum Corp.

Under the new deal, the Columbia employee owners group will buy out Peterson’s majority interest and resell those shares to a company owned by Wilcox.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be completed in March.

Columbia has about 600 employees; Northwest has about 500.

The head of the Columbia employee stock ownership committee said in a statement that the workers “want to concentrate our efforts on our own existing operations in Goldendale, Wash.

“This allows us to do that by bringing in a proven local aluminum producer to finance and lead the buyout.”

The United Steelworkers union represents employees at both plants, which were designed to be sister plants and share an alumina unloading facility in Portland.