After Chris Roam spent 18 years as a sheriff’s deputy in Los Angeles — her second “mid-life crisis” career following more than a decade as a court reporter — she was eager to get on the road with her husband. The couple bought an RV; they were planning to kick off retirement by traveling the country with their two black labs, Sergeant and Pepper. Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
They found themselves in Oklahoma without, they felt, a lot of options. Campsites and parks were closed. There was an aura of fear and paranoia on the road. So they decided to stay.
Near the Port of Inola, the Roams found a rustic piece of land where their previous house would’ve fit into the garden. Chris Roam sat on the porch in the mornings with a cup of coffee and listened to the birds, free to enjoy herself after working her whole life. She used an app to count how many types of birds she heard.
In late January, Chris Roam learned her morning ritual and much more was soon to be changed. The largest smelter in the country, aiming to double the country’s aluminum output, was set to be built a mile from her new home. It was the first facility of its kind to be proposed in the United States in nearly 50 years.
Roam and her neighbors held a community meeting attended by 75 people, a remarkable number for the area. They decided to vote on what to do, forming a small democracy.
“We had to, because the one we have isn’t working,” said Mae Lina Casey, whose house is about five miles from the proposed smelter site.
Both Casey and Roam spoke to the feeling that the community was being left unrepresented. Residents gathered at two city council meetings to no avail. State and federal lawmakers sent polite responses. But nobody seemed to be doing anything as a megafacility, mostly owned by a foreign company, was set to emit tons of pollution into the community each year.
It seemed as if the smelter was a done deal, with orders coming. as they were, from the top: in a slideshow, a representative from the Port of Inola, the owner of the proposed site, included a bullet point saying that Gov. Kevin Stitt celebrated the plant with President Donald Trump while on a visit to the United Arab Emirates in May.
Thomas Harrington, a young chemical engineer who bought his house in Inola after meeting his wife, said he believes local officials want the best for the community but may not have enough knowledge to push back. He, though, has experience in both regulatory emissions control and the paths corporations take to get projects finished, having worked for both Zeeco and Midstream Oil and Gas, companies with different goals.
Harrington pulled public records for the smelter and, after some calculations that factored in the Inola facility’s large size, found the proposed plan would allow twice the amount of hydrogen fluoride emissions as the most sophisticated smelters in the world, which are in Norway.
“That fluoride number being so much higher was what I really dove in and focused on because of how dangerous it is as an emission,” Harrington said. “And it’s really unique to aluminum smelters.”
He called the Norwegian Environmental Authority. The group, which Harrington characterized as much more responsive than the American Environmental Protection Agency, cautioned him about the dangers of fluoride released into the air as a gas. Studies show hydrogen fluoride, even in small quantities, is highly toxic to plants. Animals that eat affected foliage are poisoned. Cattle suffering from fluorosis can have skeletal and dental abnormalities. If exposure is high enough, livestock will die.
In humans, hydrogen fluoride is a respiratory irritant that also burns skin. The colorless gas causes severe damage to the body, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Yet Harrington and others in the community were being promised that the smelter would be the cleanest facility of its kind, top-notch in its environmental controls. So, through the city council, he made an appointment to speak with representatives from the Port of Inola, Emirates Global Aluminum, the majority stakeholder in the project, and ERM, a sustainability consultant working with EGA. Harrington, speaking solo to the representatives with his research in hand, pointed out that the smelter seemed to be a far cry from the cleanest in the world.
“I’m not an aluminum smelting expert by any means,” Harrington said. “But I can compare these two data points. I said, ‘This is the data I got, this is how I compared it. And it’s showing me that you’re worse. Tell me why.’ I’m hopeful to get a lot more answers.”
Harrington said there has been a word game around emissions limits. EGA, which would have a 60% stake in the smelter, with 40% owned by Chicago-based Century Aluminum, sold the project to local officials by pointing out that the smelter is under EPA limits for hydrogen fluoride. But those limits are based on top-performing domestic smelters that are half a century old.
“Obviously, what they didn’t say is our EPA limits are pretty outdated, so I think it’s been a little bit of misinformation going around,” Harrington said. “And you’ve had people from the state chamber of commerce, all these people saying it’s going to be the best, it’s going to be way better than what the EPA wants. There’s not really a context that, oh, maybe the EPA isn’t the best in this case.”
As President Trump tries to reignite domestic industry in his bid to make America more self-reliant, the EPA has moved to roll back dozens of environmental protections, including air pollution standards. According to critics, the administration’s attitude is that any money businesses spend on environmental compliance is wasted, even if Americans suffer.
Harrington said he has come to understand Trump’s “America First” slogan as being focused on the country to the exclusion of individual citizens. America, not Americans.
“When these scenarios come to your community, you realize there is a choice to be made,” he said.
While the smelter would shore up domestic aluminum production, Harrington felt it would ruin the peaceful existence many sought when settling in the rural area.
“I mean, there’s a mustang preservation area nearby,” Harrington said. “They just let the mustangs run on the side of the highway now. It’s a beautiful, beautiful farming and ranching area. And they really said, ‘We’re gonna make it the heaviest-zoned industrial possible.’ I’m just really surprised that there’s not a better location in the U.S.”
Harrington characterized himself as a conservative libertarian, just the type of independent voter Trump is losing ground with. He said he hasn’t made up his mind on whether his political views have shifted, but he’s experienced profound disappointment as the finger is pointed elsewhere at every level.
“And I go, ‘Guys, why is every single one of you shifting who is to blame?’” said Harrington. “Governor Stitt has not once showed up in Inola to talk about this project he says is going to revitalize the entire state. And that for sure pushes me.”
Dale Danker is a union president and an airline mechanic whose property line is about 1,000 yards from the smelter site. While he doesn’t regret his vote for Trump because immigration is top-of-mind for him, he’s disheartened. He pointed to the $275 million in state funds and $545 million in tax increment financing offered in part to the Dubai-based majority partner, EGA.
“By God, if we’re gonna be on the hook for that, why don’t we be on the hook for it for the 40% stakeholder?” Danker said, referring to the domestic partner, Century Aluminum.
When asked how he might vote in the future, Danker said it always depends on who is running.
“If it’s hey, you gotta have a smelter in your yard, or this candidate will have open borders, or this candidate over here that’s of a religion I don’t think meshes well with this United States, I would have to weigh that out,” Danker said. “It’s almost like when you don’t have clean clothes, you go to your laundry basket and you get your cleanest dirty shirt. And sometimes, that’s what it is.”
Chris Roam, whose greatest fear is for the wildlife she sees every morning from her porch, said she regrets her vote for Stitt, and that Trump is betraying America’s children and future as he guts the EPA.
“While I did expect him to promote manufacturing and jobs, we have plenty of factories that have been shuttered,” Roam said. “Making America great to me would mean rehabilitating areas of industrial blight and bringing jobs back to those areas.”
Neither the Port of Inola nor EGA agreed to participate in this story.
Ed. Note: This note was updated on March 11, 2026, to correct an indirect quote.
