Inola Scheduled a Vote on the Smelter. Tulsa Ports Voted to Sue First.

A President, a Governor, the Justice Department and a state port authority stand behind a $4 billion smelter. Standing in front of it: a hay town, its cattle ranchers, and a ballot date of April 7, 2027.

Carolyn has lived two miles south of the Tulsa Port of Inola for 45 years. She raises cattle there.

This fall, she told KTUL, she started doing something she never expected to do on that land.

"I've been looking for places to move in case this happens," she said. "It's just a shame."

"This" is a primary aluminum smelter that the U.S. Justice Department calls the "largest primary aluminum production facility in the United States," planned for the port's ground two miles from her pasture. And on Thursday, Oct. 15, the public agency that owns that ground voted to sue her town for asking to slow it down.

"I think the Port doesn't care about anything but money," Carolyn Ready told the Claremore Daily Progress.

She may be right or wrong about motive. But the record of the last four months shows exactly what the Port and its allies have been willing to do, and in what order.

The Ground Remembers

Inola has stood on this exact patch of Rogers County before, staring down something enormous.

In 1973, Public Service Company of Oklahoma announced plans to build the Black Fox nuclear power plant outside Inola, according to the town's own published history. Public hearings scheduled for one week stretched to 18 months. On June 2, 1979, hundreds of protesters tried to occupy the construction site. Sheriff's deputies arrested every one of them, along with several journalists covering the scene. The story made international headlines.

The fight's best-known leader, Carrie Dickerson, chose a slower weapon: years of legal challenges. Construction estimates climbed from $450 million to an estimated $2.4 billion. On Feb. 16, 1982, PSO canceled Black Fox.

"She saved the state of Oklahoma hundreds of millions of dollars," supporter Stratton Taylor later said, "and we owe her a tremendous debt."

In 2019, PSO gave more than 2,000 acres of that land to the City of Tulsa-Rogers County Port Authority, Public Radio Tulsa reported. It became the Tulsa Port of Inola.

Forty-seven years after the arrests, the people of Inola are again asking for time on the same ground. This time, the other side has learned to use the courthouse, too.

Six Hours in June

Inola calls itself the "Hay Capital of the World." It sits about 25 miles east of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma Voice reported, the kind of town where a board of trustees meeting usually means water lines and street repairs.

On Monday, June 29, 2026, it meant something else.

The meeting ran through nearly six hours of public comments, presentations from state and federal officials, and discussions behind closed doors. Residents worried aloud about hydrogen fluoride settling on the plants and livestock around them. "There are so many unanswered questions about the environmental impacts that this smelter is going to have," resident Christine "Chris" Roam said.

Then a federal official stood up with a letter from the President of the United States.

Audrey Robertson, an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy, read Donald Trump's words aloud to a small-town board:

"I strongly urge you to approve the Oklahoma aluminum smelter without delay."

Other letters had arrived before the meeting, and they did not urge. They warned.

Tulsa Ports lawyer Randy Shorb wrote that "Any actions taken by the Town of Inola that wrongfully interfere with Tulsa Port's stated purpose will necessitate a response to protect the integrity of Tulsa Ports and the Port of Inola."

Ziad Fares, executive director of Oklahoma Primary Aluminum, the local arm of United Arab Emirates-based Emirates Global Aluminium, wrote that "tens of millions of dollars" had already gone into the project. Then he spelled out the cost of resistance: "Such litigation would impose substantial expense on Inola."

Picture the trustees at that table. A presidential letter in the air. A port authority's lawyer on paper. A foreign-owned developer telling them, in writing, what a fight would cost their town.

They voted anyway. Unanimously. A 60-day pause.

Let the People Vote

Residents went further. Kerissa Stonebarger filed an initiative petition in July to ban primary aluminum smelting inside town limits. When the town first said the petition fell short, petitioners went to Rogers County District Court, and the court ruled they had enough. The Rogers County Election Board verified 201 signatures from registered Inola voters, FOX23 reported.

The Port's board had already set its sights on that petition. On Sept. 17, it voted unanimously to authorize its lawyers to challenge the initiative, KOSU reported. Board Chairwoman Deanne Hughes said the authority would "defend the port's property rights."

The fight over the petition has not gone the challengers' way. Century Aluminum, Aluminum Oklahoma and the Port withdrew their own motions to intervene in the petition case on Oct. 2. On Oct. 20, Rogers County District Judge Sue Nigh refused to let three residents, Trent and Allie Bynum and Melissa Powers, join the case to reopen the signature count. The Bynums appeared through Adam Doverspike, the same lawyer who appeared for the Port Authority. The protest window under state law closed Aug. 18, the judge wrote. "The statute afforded them one window; they let it pass, their protest rights are time-barred."

On Sept. 14, the board extended the moratorium through April 7, 2027, and sent that citizen-written ban to Inola's voters on the same date.

Not a ban by board fiat. A ballot. The question handed to the people who would live downwind.

Gov. Kevin Stitt called it "a damaging precedent." "Changing the rules in the middle of a multi-year permitting process undermines the certainty job creators need," he said.

Oklahoma Primary Aluminum said the town's actions violate Oklahoma law and the U.S. Constitution.

And on Oct. 15, in Catoosa, the board of the City of Tulsa-Rogers County Port Authority voted unanimously to authorize its law firm, GableGotwals, to sue the Town of Inola and any necessary town officials. The target: town ordinances and actions that restrict industrial development at the Port of Inola, including the moratorium.

Shorb's June letter promised "a response." Four months later, the response had a law firm.

The Weight on One Side

Lay the two sides next to each other and the picture draws itself.

Tulsa Ports says it has built more than $100 million in infrastructure at the Port of Inola and in the town over seven years, and that it uses no public appropriations for operations or legal costs.

Inola has a town hall and a small-town budget.

Thomas Harrington, who moved there six years ago, told News On 6 he wonders whether the town can afford to fight at all, against the resources of the Port Authority and the smelter's owners.

That is how this works. A lawsuit does not need to win to do its job. Every hour a town attorney spends answering it gets paid by the people who asked for the vote. The developer's own June letter named the pressure before the Port ever applied it.

Three Hundred Seventy Feet

The fight is not abstract for the people closest to the fence line.

Brian Hill's home sits about 370 feet from the site, according to the federal lawsuit he and three neighbors filed against the Department of Energy. Julie Sanders lives about 1.6 miles away, Timothy Brown about 1.8 miles. Samuel Bethea's property lies less than half a mile from the plant's footprint.

Their complaint cites an outside expert's estimate that hydrogen fluoride emissions could exceed 1,000 tons a year. Oklahoma Primary Aluminum says its revised plan cut its proposed fluoride emissions intensity limits by more than one-third, and that its September application shows the project "will not cause an exceedance of the ozone standard."

The state's top lawyer does not take the company's word for it. "The people of Rogers County stand to lose their health, their herds and their livelihoods," Attorney General Drummond said.

Neither, yet, does the state's environmental agency. On Oct. 7, DEQ told the developer it "must demonstrate that allowable emission increases would not" cause federal violations, and asked for more evidence behind its numbers. DEQ's Charles Marshall, PhD, told KJRH the agency wants the detail "so that they can be absolutely sure."

Drummond's office says a preliminary estimate puts the project's ozone impact within four percent of the federal significance threshold. DEQ says the emissions fall below it.

Four percent. That thin margin is the reason a town might reasonably want to wait for the final answer.

Gov. Stitt said Inola changed the rules mid-game. The record shows something simpler. The state's own regulators are still checking the math, and Inola asked to see the result before its people vote.

The Rule That Will Not Apply

While Inola waited, DEQ proposed an update to its air rules that would let a major new polluter buy emission credits from other Oklahoma facilities within 100 miles, KGOU reported, with no requirement that those credits clean the air where the new plant's pollution actually lands.

Drummond objected on Oct. 8. "Nothing requires the applicant to show, or DEQ to find, that those credits actually occur" where the modeled exceedance would happen, he wrote. He asked DEQ to bar the option for any application already filed.

DEQ spokesperson Skylar McElhaney said the rule would not take effect for more than a year and would not apply to the smelter's current application. Drummond's office said it would welcome that clarification in writing.

So would every family within two miles of the fence.

Meanwhile, at the Courthouse in Claremore

The smelter is not the only industrial plan pressing toward Inola. On Monday, Oct. 19, the Rogers County Board of County Commissioners placed Case #2688, a 1,588-acre industrial park planned unit development near Inola, on its agenda. The planning commission had recommended approval 5-0 on Oct. 5.

A Guerrilla News review of the commissioners' meeting packet found a pre-drafted, unsigned resolution approving the case, written in the past tense as though the public hearing had already happened. The packet held no staff report, no PUD statement, no map and no protest letters for the case.

As of Thursday, Oct. 22, Rogers County had posted no minutes or other record of what the commissioners did with Case #2688. The county has posted no minutes for any meeting since Sept. 28.

Pre-drafted resolutions are routine. One that narrates a hearing in the past tense before residents speak tells you how much the hearing was expected to change.

"It Can Happen to Any Small Rural Community"

The people of Inola keep saying the same thing, and it carries well beyond Rogers County.

"Economic development should never mean that our small town loses its right to determine our own future," Roam, who runs the Protect Inola Facebook page, told KJRH. "[I]f this can happen to us, it can happen to any small rural community in Oklahoma."

"The people of Inola want development, we want to see growth," Harrington said. "We just want to see positive growth."

Nobody in those quotes asked to stop Oklahoma from building. They asked who gets to decide what gets built beside their cattle and their homes, and whether the answer can come from a ballot box instead of a law firm.

What to Do Now

1. Watch the docket. Search Rogers County District Court on OSCN for any Tulsa Ports filing against the Town of Inola. Oklahoma Energy Today reported on Oct. 19 that the Ports had filed suit; as of Oct. 22, Guerrilla News had not located the petition in court records.
2. Show up in Inola. Attend Board of Trustees meetings and ask, on the record, how the town will fund its defense and whether it will seek help from its insurer or the Attorney General.
3. Put it in writing to DEQ. Ask DEQ to confirm in writing that any offset rule it adopts will never apply to the Oklahoma Primary Aluminum application.
4. Request the records. Under the Oklahoma Open Records Act, 51 O.S. § 24A.1 et seq., ask the Port Authority for its engagement letter with GableGotwals, all invoices for smelter-related litigation, and all communications with Oklahoma Primary Aluminum, Century Aluminum or Emirates Global Aluminium about the Town of Inola.
5. Ask your own town council. If a state port authority can sue a town for letting its voters decide, what protects yours?

Forty-seven years ago, Inola's neighbors stood on this ground and were arrested for it. The plant they feared never got built. Carrie Dickerson beat it with patience and paperwork.

Inola is asking for patience again. One more winter. One spring morning at the polls.

April 7, 2027.

Carolyn Ready is still looking at places to move. Whether she has to may depend on whether anyone lets her town vote first.

Earlier Guerrilla News Coverage

• A Trump Letter, a Pentagon General, and 425 Tons of Fluoride: Inside Inola's 6-Hour Smelter Showdown
• Inola Passes Emergency Moratorium on Smelter as Residents Launch Ballot Initiative
• Rogers County Commissioners Hide Development Meetings Behind Vague Agenda Language

Editor's Note

Quotations are drawn from published reports by Oklahoma Voice (July 1, 2026), KOKH FOX 25 (Sept. 3, 2026), Public Radio Tulsa (Sept. 16, 2026), KGOU (Oct. 12, 2026), KTUL (Oct. 15, 2026), KJRH (Oct. 9 and Oct. 16, 2026), News On 6 (Oct. 16, 2026), the Claremore Daily Progress (Oct. 18, 2026) and Oklahoma Energy Today (Aug. 2026 and Oct. 19, 2026); from press releases of the U.S. Department of Justice (Aug. 28, 2026) and the Oklahoma Attorney General (Oct. 8, 2026); from the Town of Inola's published history of the Black Fox protest; and from Rogers County District Court records in Stonebarger v. Deputy Town Clerk of Inola, CV-2026-160. KTUL identified Carolyn by first name; the Claremore Daily Progress identified Carolyn Ready as a resident living two miles south of the site. KTUL and KJRH both identify Christine "Chris" Roam with Protect Inola.

No allegation of unlawful conduct is made against Tulsa Ports, Oklahoma Primary Aluminum, Century Aluminum, Emirates Global Aluminium or any public official. Authorizing a lawsuit is lawful. That is the problem this article describes.

Tulsa Ports has declined to comment to other news outlets, citing ongoing legal proceedings.

This article discusses law and records requests. It is not legal advice.

Corrections: ron@guerrilla.news

Sources

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