A lawsuit over a potential aluminum plant in Benson is still alive after the first court hearing in the case.
Residents allege that the city skipped a step in granting Aluminum Dynamics, Inc. a permit to build an aluminum recycling plant there. A Cochise County judge declined to rule on the city’s and ADI’s motions to dismiss Monday, leaving 60 days to decide whether the lawsuit moves forward.
The suit is part of a larger grassroots backlash to the development plans. Many residents fear the aluminum plant — which is planned for a site between downtown Benson and the San Pedro River — will damage the local environment and emit pollutants into densely-settled areas.
“They want a plant here, I understand that. We also want to live here and we want to have water and clean air,” said plaintiff Misty Bloom after Monday’s hearing.
In August, Bloom, along with her nonprofit, Health Over Wealth Benson, and two other residents, sued Benson and ADI. Their complaint is based on technicalities of zoning laws. Because Benson’s zoning code doesn’t allow industrial buildings to exceed 30 feet, and ADI needs to build to over 80 feet, the city’s zoning board granted the company a conditional use permit.
Plaintiffs argued the board needed to issue a different type of exception, known as a variance, which state law mandates must be approved by a separate local body, the Board of Adjustment.
Their attorney, Adriane Hofmeyr, said this ensures that dramatic exceptions from local zoning codes meet strict standards that were skirted by Benson in its approval of ADI’s permit.
“What they’re proposing is that, for height deviations, the king can simply touch you on the shoulder and you’re free from all legal restraints,” she said during Monday’s hearing.
In their motions to dismiss, defendants argued that plaintiffs don’t have standing to sue because they are not sufficiently harmed by the development plans.
They also argued that variances are only needed for projects that violate local zoning codes. Benson’s code allows its zoning board to issue height exceptions in industrial areas.
“To accept any of the plaintiff’s arguments is to request this court go in and rewrite the (City) of Benson’s code,” said ADI’s attorney, Zachary Rosenberg, at the hearing.
Cochise County Superior Court judge Anne Borowiec took the defendants' motion to dismiss under advisement Monday, giving her 60 days to consider both sides and make a ruling.
After the hearing, Bloom said she felt confident and thanked Borowiec for her “prudence.”
Benson officials declined to comment.
“Aluminum Dynamics complied fully with all City of Benson ordinances and regulatory requirements in obtaining its lawfully granted conditional use permit—a conclusion with which the City of Benson itself agrees in its court filings. The lawsuit filed by Health Over Wealth Benson lacks both legal and factual merit,” wrote an ADI spokesperson in a statement about the case.
The lawsuit’s first hearing comes after months of grassroots opposition to ADI’s plans in Benson. Opponents of the plant have crowded city council meetings and forced recall elections for most of the council. The controversy has seen a city official step down after coordinating pseudonymous Facebook posts with ADI and has caught the attention of Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.
The proposed aluminum recycling facility in Benson would melt down scrap, such as drink cans, into solid ingots that it would send by rail to ADI’s main facility in Columbus, Miss.
After a packed hearing, opponents of aluminum plant reflect on what’s changed##
Opponents of the aluminum plant packed a courtroom in Sierra Vista for Monday’s hearing. Kim and Mike MacPhee, a retired couple from Benson’s neighboring community of St. David, said the plant’s potential impacts on the San Pedro River — one of the Southwest’s last free-flowing rivers and a biodiversity hotspot — should give a wide range of residents power to sue. They also said that Benson and ADI were not transparent in their planning process.
“In my opinion, they did a lot of planning without notifying anyone in the area. That’s not how government should run,” said Kim MacPhee.
That thought was echoed by 74-year-old Al Mattson, who also attended the hearing.
“It seems like they forgot that they’re working for the taxpayers and the citizens, not the other way around,” he said.
The wave of civic engagement sparked by ADI’s plans has permanently changed Benson, according to Bloom, the plaintiff.
“There’s going to be people paying attention for a really long time now,” she said.
Bloom, who raises cattle and homeschools her kids on a rural property just outside the city, said she didn’t pay attention to local politics before catching wind of ADI’s plans. A self-described introvert, she was surprised by the community that’s grown around preserving Benson “as it is.”
“It’s beautiful to see everybody engaged and standing together,” she said.
According to city records, ADI cannot build its plant without exceeding the city’s usual 30-foot limit. But it is unclear whether a successful lawsuit would kill development plans entirely or simply send them back to Benson’s zoning board and Board of Adjustment.
