Auto industry woes hit northwest Washington mines

METALINE FALLS, Wash. -- - The pain of Detroit auto workers facing layoffs and plant closures is mirrored in the mining country of northeastern Washington.
The Pend Oreille Mine, the largest employer in a sparsely populated area north of Spokane near the Canadian border, is closing indefinitely Feb. 16 because of plummeting zinc prices, leaving 217 workers without jobs.
Zinc is used to make steel rustproof for use in cars and trucks, among other products.
The closure notice was a surprise to Sally Dunn, 43, a single mother of three who has worked for five years as a laboratory technician at the mine. She told The Spokesman-Review of Spokane she doubts she can readily find other work that pays $45,000 per year in Pend Oreille County, which has a long history of double-digit unemployment.
About 1,000 people live in Metaline Falls and nearby Ione and Metaline, enjoying scenic vistas of the snowcapped Selkirk Mountains and the Pend Oreille River.
"I thought that we were in a bubble up here, that what was happening wouldn't touch us," Dunn said.
"I don't do a lot of it, but I'm praying," she said. "I hope they reopen this place. I'm fearful they won't."
Zinc dropped from $1.20 a pound to 50 cents a pound over the past year. Other industrial metals did much the same. Aluminum and lead prices fell 60 percent and copper is trading at $1.45 a pound, down from $4 in July.
Since September, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, more than 3,000 mine workers have filed for unemployment.
"Everywhere you look, mines are closing," said Douglass Horn, commodity analyst for the metals research firm CPM Group in New York.
Teck Ltd. of Vancouver, British Columbia, owner of the Pend Oreille Mine, plans to slash 1,400 jobs or 13 percent of its global work force this year, and there's no indication when the zinc operation will resume, said Mark Brown, the mine's general manager.
"We want to our workers," Brown said. "We don't want to create a misplaced sense of hope that the mine will reopen in two months or in a year, because we don't know when it will reopen."
At one time the mine was one of three operating in the area, generating a prosperity reflected in graceful brick buildings such as the Cutter Theatre, a former schoolhouse designed by Spokane architect Kirtland Cutter.
The Pend Oreille Mine was closed for decades before Teck reopened it in 2004, saying it would probably keep operating for about 10 years. Offsetting the relatively mediocre ore deposit was the proximity to Teck's huge smelter in Trail, British Columbia, as well as a six-year bull market for industrial metals.
Despite the efforts by community leaders to attract new shopkeepers to vacant historic buildings and to diversify the area's job base during that period, the county remains dependent on logging, mining and government, "a frontier economy," said Arum Kone, a regional economist for the state Department of Labor and Industries.
Average household income last year was $37,400, the third-lowest in the state, but some of the workers facing layoffs plan to stay.
"There are only so many places you can go to get into trouble, and growing up here, you know them already," said Dunn, who grew up in a logging family in Ione.
"I've survived hard times before," said Shawn Volquardsen, 33, control room operator for the mine's milling operation and a father of two who also has worked as a firefighter, timber cruiser, laborer and heavy equipment operator.
"Some of them are resilient because they've been here for 60 years," said Tara Leininger, mayor of Metaline Falls and pastor of a Congregational church. "They know that the downturn will not be pretty, and that not everyone will be able to stay."
In fact an exodus has begun.
At the Pend Oreille Apartments, 10 tenants have moved out and 15 more gave notice, said owner Skip Chilberg. Selkirk School District Superintendent Nancy Lotze is projecting a loss of 20 students next fall from the current total of 300.
Leininger hopes a national economic stimulus package will bring a construction boom of new bridges and other projects that would increase demand for steel and zinc.
"Then the mine can reopen," she said.