Inola Passes Emergency Moratorium on Smelter as Residents Launch Ballot Initiative

The moratorium was supposed to buy time. Instead, it detonated every fault line in the fight over the $4 billion aluminum smelter that a UAE state-owned enterprise wants to build on 350 acres along the Verdigris River. On June 29, 2026, the Inola Board of Trustees convened a special session at the high school auditorium, and by the time they adjourned, the town had passed Ordinance No. 2026-06, freezing every permit, approval, and construction authorization for heavy industrial development in the Industrial Heavy district. The corporate response arrived before the ink was dry.

Ordinance No. 2026-06: The Nuclear Option

The moratorium is not a suggestion. It is an emergency ordinance that halts all permits, entitlements, and physical or administrative advancement of construction for any facility classified as "Manufacturing, Heavy" under the Town of Inola Zoning Ordinance. That classification covers smelting, metal processing, and heavy production operations, which is to say, it covers exactly and only the kind of facility Oklahoma Primary Aluminum intends to build.

The initial freeze lasts 60 days. But the ordinance was written to auto-renew for successive 60-day periods unless the Board of Trustees affirmatively votes to revoke it. In practice, the moratorium continues indefinitely until the Board decides it is done. Any person or entity that violates the freeze faces fines of $250 per day per violation, and the Town Attorney is authorized to seek injunctive relief in court.

All pending applications related to any Covered Facility are immediately stayed, regardless of when they were submitted. The ordinance takes effect the moment it passes.

The 60-Day Countdown

The moratorium is not just a pause. It is a mechanism to permanently change the rules. Ordinance No. 2026-06 directs town staff and legal counsel to prepare a formal text amendment to the Zoning Ordinance within 60 days. That amendment would reclassify "Manufacturing, Heavy" from a permitted use, meaning it is allowed by right with no special review, to a specific use that requires a Specific Use Permit before any construction can begin.

Under the proposed reclassification, any future smelter application would face a public hearing, mandatory findings on environmental and health impacts, compatibility with the surrounding community, and adequacy of public facilities. The ordinance calls for buffer and setback standards of at least 1,000 feet from homes and schools, site plan review, and operational performance conditions that the Board can impose and enforce.

In other words, the town is using the moratorium to build a permanent regulatory framework that did not exist when Oklahoma Primary Aluminum selected the site. Whether that framework can survive a legal challenge is the question that will define the next year of this fight.

Tulsa Ports Fires Back: "Regulatory Taking"

Five days before the vote, the City of Tulsa-Rogers County Port Authority sent a letter to the Board of Trustees that read less like a civic communication and more like a legal threat.

Tulsa Ports argued that the proposed moratorium "crosses constitutional permissible boundaries and would amount to a regulatory taking" of its property at the Port of Inola. The letter detailed the investments already committed: an $18 million rail spur under construction, a wastewater treatment facility costing "in excess" of an undisclosed sum, and a $70 million Tax Increment Financing district that the Port Authority described as providing "significant benefit to the Town of Inola." Tulsa Ports also pointed to a $10 million state investment to completely replace Inola's sanitary sewer system, funded in connection with Port development.

The letter's closing was unambiguous: "Any actions taken by the Town of Inola that wrongfully interfere with Tulsa Ports... will necessitate a response to protect the integrity of Tulsa Ports and the Port of Inola."

The word "response" does a lot of work in that sentence. The investments Tulsa Ports cited are specifically the kind of "reasonable investment-backed expectations" that courts evaluate in regulatory takings claims. The letter was laying the foundation for a lawsuit before the moratorium even passed.

Oklahoma Primary Aluminum: "We Will Proceed in Full"

The smelter's operator sent its own letter, signed via DocuSign by Executive Director and Project Manager Ziad Fares. Oklahoma Primary Aluminum, a subsidiary of Emirates Global Aluminium, stated that it is "proud and honored that Inola will be the home of the single largest economic development project in Oklahoma history."

The letter's key sentence: once the project obtains "the required environmental permits from ODEQ, the Project will proceed in full."

That framing is revealing. OPA is betting that state environmental permitting through the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality will clear before the moratorium's regulatory framework can be finalized. If ODEQ issues the permits while the moratorium is still in effect, the legal collision between state-level environmental authorization and municipal zoning authority becomes unavoidable.

The Citizens' Counterstrike: Two Ballot Initiatives

While the Board of Trustees debated ordinances and corporate attorneys sharpened their pens, a group of Inola residents was drafting something far more difficult to litigate away: a direct ballot initiative.

Two initiative petitions are now circulating in the town. The first would require any final Town approval of a large smelting or heavy metal processing facility to be submitted to Inola's registered voters and approved by majority vote before it becomes final. No Board of Trustees vote can substitute for the will of the electorate. If voters reject the facility, a substantially identical application cannot return to the ballot for 24 months.

The second petition attacks the zoning loophole directly. It would amend the Zoning Ordinance to require a Specific Use Permit for any facility that occupies 20 or more acres, requires a major air-quality permit, can produce 50,000 or more metric tons of metal per year, or draws 50 megawatts or more of electricity. That description fits the Oklahoma Primary Aluminum smelter and virtually nothing else. The amendment would mandate public hearings, 1,000-foot minimum setbacks from homes and schools, and Board findings on environmental and health impacts before any permit is issued.

The initiatives are accompanied by a detailed instruction packet that walks non-lawyer volunteers through every step of Oklahoma's municipal petition process. It includes the legal framework under 11 O.S. §§ 15-101 through 15-110, signature thresholds (25% of votes cast in the last municipal Trustee election), the 90-day collection window, and a pre-filing checklist. The packet does not mince words about what comes next: "the target parties (Oklahoma Primary Aluminum / EGA / Century and Tulsa Ports) have already signaled they will litigate."

The Math and the Clock

Under Oklahoma law, the petitioners need signatures from at least 25% of the total votes cast in the most recent Inola Trustee election. For a town of Inola's size, that threshold is estimated at roughly 75 valid signatures. The instruction packet recommends collecting approximately 150 to account for disqualifications due to illegible handwriting, unregistered voters, or duplicate signatures.

Once the petition is filed with the Town Clerk, the 90-day clock starts. Every signature must be witnessed by a circulator who is a registered Oklahoma voter, and every signature sheet must be notarized. The petition text itself must include the full ordinance language. Oklahoma courts have thrown out municipal petitions that failed to attach the complete text. There is no margin for procedural error.

If the signatures are certified as sufficient, the Mayor issues a proclamation setting a special election or placing the measure on the next regular municipal ballot. A simple majority of those voting decides the outcome.

Three Fronts, One Town

The smelter fight is now being waged simultaneously in three arenas. The Attorney General's lawsuit, filed on June 2, seeks a permanent injunction on anticipatory public nuisance grounds. The town's moratorium freezes permits while staff rewrites the zoning code. And the citizen petition drive aims to hand the final decision to voters who were excluded from every closed-door negotiation that brought the project to their doorstep.

Each front has its own vulnerabilities. The AG's case is tangled in gubernatorial primary politics. The moratorium faces a credible regulatory takings challenge from an entity that has already spent tens of millions on infrastructure. And the ballot initiative must survive procedural scrutiny from opponents with unlimited legal resources.

But the three fronts also reinforce each other in ways that Oklahoma Primary Aluminum cannot easily defeat. Even if the moratorium is struck down, the ballot initiative operates independently. Even if the AG's lawsuit fails, the zoning reclassification changes the permitting landscape permanently. The residents of Inola are building redundancy into their resistance.

For the full story of what happened inside that six-hour meeting, including the Trump letter, the Pentagon general, and the residents who stayed until midnight: read our complete account of the Inola smelter showdown.

The moratorium ordinance, the Tulsa Ports letter, the ballot initiative petitions, and the full instruction packet are available as primary-source documents below. Read them and decide for yourself whether a foreign sovereign's industrial ambitions should be decided by the people who have to live next to the smokestacks.

Primary Source Documents ▶

Town Council Agenda Packet
Inola Board of Trustees Agenda Packet, June 29, 2026 (PDF, 24 pages)
Includes the full moratorium ordinance text (Ordinance No. 2026-06), the Tulsa Ports opposition letter, and the Oklahoma Primary Aluminum letter signed by Ziad Fares.

Ballot Initiative Petitions
Public Vote Initiative Petition (DOCX)
Full petition text requiring voter ratification of any large smelting facility approval.

Specific Use Permit Initiative Petition (DOCX)
Full petition text amending the Zoning Ordinance to require a Specific Use Permit with public hearing, 1,000-ft setbacks, and protective conditions.

Filing Instructions
Initiative Petition Instruction & Filing Packet (DOCX)
Step-by-step guide for volunteers covering Oklahoma's municipal initiative process, signature requirements, and legal framework.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and journalistic purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Legal documents, ordinances, petitions, and regulatory filings referenced or linked herein are provided for public transparency and reader reference. They should not be relied upon as a substitute for consultation with a qualified attorney. If you have questions about your legal rights, property interests, or participation in any petition or regulatory process, please consult a licensed Oklahoma attorney. Guerrilla News is an independent journalism outlet and is not affiliated with any party, government agency, or legal proceeding discussed in this report.