Skip to main content

Another Tale of the Smelter

· 3 min read

Ever wonder what happens when an aluminum smelter decides to play “I’m the biggest copper dealer in Washington State” and you’re left with a forklift in an apple orchard? Spoiler: it’s a lot like a bad episode of Breaking Bad—but with more rust and less meth.

The Smelter That Was Too Fancy for Aluminum​

Picture this: a sprawling aluminum smelter in the Pacific Northwest, flanked by apple orchards on two sides, a county highway on the third, and the mighty Columbia River on the fourth. The view is so serene you could almost hear the moo of a cow in the background—if only the smelter had been a dairy farm. Instead, the plant churned out aluminum conductors with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker.

But the plant’s sister on the east side decided to go full copper. And not just pennies and pennies‑worth of copper—think 3‑inch by 3‑inch, eight‑foot‑tall copper rods that could double as a 2‑story Jenga tower for the most daring of engineers. According to ChatGPT, each rod weighed about 280 lbs. That’s a lot of metal for a single piece of “fancy” scrap.

A Forklift’s Wild Adventure​

One sunny morning, an apple farmer in the orchard (no, he didn’t want his apples, he wanted to know why a forklift was stuck in his orchard) called the plant gate. The smelter’s management, shocked, immediately checked the security footage. What they saw was a forklift rolling out of the stem shop, through a barely‑used side gate, into the orchard, and then… getting stuck in the mud. The operator, clearly in a hurry to “abandon ship,” decided to leave the forklift in the orchard like a forgotten pizza box in the middle of a snowstorm.

Why was it there? Because a band of employees had cooked up the most subtle smuggling ring imaginable. They weren’t just after the massive copper rods; they also hauled copper tabs, shunts, and other scrap copper into the orchard. The forklift served as a “stealth delivery vehicle” for these precious metals. The rods were the headline, but the tabs and shunts added some extra “metal‑mood” to the haul.

The Sheriff, the Jail, and the State Pen​

The Sheriff’s Department got involved, people got fired, people got arrested, and a handful of folks ended up doing time in the state penitentiary. The scrap yard also got hammered by the Sheriff, and it’s safe to say their inventory system was about as organized as a squirrel on a caffeine high.

A news article surfaced in December 2014, detailing the sentencing of one of the criminals. The whole fiasco was a stark reminder that even in the middle of an apple orchard, the law can find its way to the copper Jenga tower.

Comments​

  • A tale of the smelter, a forklift, and a handful of apple farmers
    The thieves were so clever, they made a forklift look like a garden gnome.

  • Another smuggling ring?
    Sounds like a plot from a low‑budget Mission Impossible film—minus the cool gadgets.

  • Cool post. Thieves usually aren't very bright.
    Yeah, because the best plan is always to hide a forklift in an orchard. Classic.

  • Perhaps the smart thieves don't get caught.
    If they’re hiding in an orchard, they should have at least a GPS tracker to avoid the Sheriff.

TL;DR​

Copper rods, a forklift in an apple orchard, a smuggling ring, and a whole lot of jail time. Because when aluminum smelters get too fancy, the law says “no thanks” and the apple farmers say “thanks, but no thanks.”