The company that was planning to build an aluminum recycling plant in Benson has decided not to after all.
Aluminum Dynamics says it’ll develop the facility at an "alternative location" and blames differences with some state officials for the decision.
The plant was controversial in the Cochise County city; that controversy included the recall last month of half of the City Council over this issue.
So why did the company behind the plant decide to move on, and what’s next for the community?
Terri Jo Neff, county political and courts and crime reporter for Herald/Review Media, spoke to The Show more about it.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: And Terri Jo, let’s start by reminding us all about this aluminum recycling plant. What was it all about?
TERRI JO NEFF: Sure. So the Aluminum Dynamics actually was leasing and going to buy a 200-acre parcel. About 20 of those acres were actually going to house this gigantic facility, 88-foot-tall building that was going to heat and then melt scrap aluminum — particularly cans — and then actually pour those into great big 2- to 4-ton ingots or slabs that were then going to be put on a railroad car and shipped to Mississippi, where that recycled aluminum was going to be turned into great big sheets of aluminum, sold off let’s say to car makers, other can companies, things like that. That was their plan.
MARK BRODIE: And this was a pretty unpopular plan in and around Benson, right?
TERRI JO NEFF: Once folks actually learned about it, Mark, it became very unpopular. So Aluminum Dynamics came into Benson, spoke with business leaders, city leaders around June-July of 2024. This was after things kind of went south for them with their planned location in Gila Bend, where they had actually bought acreage intending to build this recycling facility there, but they bought it without getting the necessary zoning permissions. And they ran into some roadblocks there.
So they came down summer of 2024 into Benson, were going to lease this property from Union Pacific Railroad. By October-November of 2024, they were sending out their notices. But as most people have learned now, Arizona’s requirements for notifying neighboring properties is a really, really short distance. So only a couple of dozen — no more than about 90 — potential neighbors, property owners even knew in the fall of 2024 about this plan. And of course, the city didn’t say much publicly because they were waiting to see if the company was even going to come in and get what they needed.
The real knowledge about this this whole plan did not come out until about May of 2025 when suddenly neighbors and people passing by on the highway saw this big hunk of desert. All this groundwork was being done out there, and then people started asking questions, and then they learned about the potential environmental hazards that come from aluminum recycling, as well as the vast amount of water that has to be used.
And this location, Mark, is right next to the San Pedro River.
MARK BRODIE: Well, so this led to a number of members of the Benson City Council being recalled, as you referenced. It was a really unpopular thing in the community. Why did the company ultimately decide to not go forward with this project at this location?
TERRI JO NEFF: Well, in addition to the fact that there was a lawsuit brought, it took several months. Really, the controversy just kept growing throughout 2025. By late ’25 and January of ’26, it was in the courts. Attorney General Kris Mayes had come to town, had one of the biggest political town halls we’ve ever seen in Cochise County.
And her office got involved. She recently announced to us during an interview that she wasn’t against the recycling plant itself. She actually had proposed the company find somewhere else in Cochise County or Arizona to to do it. She was absolutely against this location.
And so her threats essentially — which she’s admitted she threatened a public nuisance lawsuit against the owners of of Aluminum Dynamics, and they they just decided with with the price of of business, they needed to find someplace else.
We have been told that they have applied for various permits in Mississippi nearby where their big main plant is. And we don’t know what the neighbors out there think about that yet.
But there’s just a lot of relief in Benson. Again, the jobs would have been wonderful, very good-paying jobs with full benefits. People loved that part of it. They just were very upset about the environmental and health issues, the water issues, and actually the lack of transparency.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah, so the the company, Aluminum Dynamics, has said that the facility will be built somewhere else. Is the expectation that that somewhere else is is outside of Arizona, maybe in Mississippi?
TERRI JO NEFF: Yeah, that’s going to be — we can’t imagine them even trying in Arizona. There’s just nowhere else. Even though the attorney general had suggested a location that’s about 20 miles from here, still would have been in Cochise County. There’s just no way right now in the political climate that this kind of business is going to come into Arizona.
So Mississippi looks like it’s going to be it. We don’t really know why they never considered that originally. There had to be a reason that they had planned on building outside of Mississippi, but that’s where they want to do it. They say that they believe the economics are still good for the need for this kind of aluminum recycling plant, so we’ll see what happens in the future.
MARK BRODIE: What has the reaction been to the news of of the company saying, “We’re not going to do this in Benson,” in your community?
TERRI JO NEFF: A lot of relief that officials listened. And and I don’t even mean a political relief here because this, interestingly, brought together so many different people of political leanings. We had very conservative ranchers who, of course, have their own thoughts about conservation and things like that; environmentalists; you just had the neighbors, you had small business owners; everybody of all these different walks of life came together, united, and were like, “Wow, you really can take on the big guy and get people to listen.”
The interesting part now is going to be what happens next. The honeymoon is going to be over very quickly for those three new City Council members. The budget, which just got approved the last few days, shows horrible signs for Benson going into the next couple of years, and without some kind of major industry here, there’s going to be some hard decisions.
So what what comes next now really, I think, has a lot of people just as on edge as they did about the fact that the plant might have actually gone into operation.
MARK BRODIE: All right, that is Terri Jo Neff with Herald/Review Media in Cochise County. Terri Jo, thanks so much.
TERRI JO NEFF: Absolutely, you have a great day.
