Pioneer drops ribbon on chlorine plant expansion

Greg Harman

Friday, May 5, 2000 | 11:02 a.m.

Officials at Pioneer Chlor Alkali Co.'s chlorine plant in Henderson hope that new equipment brought on-line this week will enable the Houston-based company to boost local production and expand foreign and domestic sales.

The Henderson plant, contracted to provide much of the Las Vegas Valley with bleach, has been forced in recent years to import bleach from a sister plant in Southern California to provide for the area's growing needs, said Ron Ciora, vice president of bleach and packaged chlorine.

"This will allow us to accommodate the growing market for bleach in the Las Vegas area," Ciora said.

It also will help the company expand sales into Arizona, California, Utah and Mexico.

With the new equipment, the plant will increase its annual bleach production from 4 million gallons to 36 million gallons this year. The unit raises the plant's potential production to 82 million gallons per year, Plant Manager Gary Sulik said.

The expansion will not increase the number of employees at the plant, currently 141.

Sulik shied at discussing how much the new machinery cost the company, saying only it was "very significant."

Bleach is used to treat wastewater, disinfect drinking water, clean clothes and sanitize swimming pools and fountains.

Increasing populations coupled with tightening federal regulations on drinking water standards are raising the demand for the product.

Separately, Sam Chamberlain, Pioneer vice president of environmental, health and safety, said the company is working toward "zero discharge" of wastewater by 2003.

"Very little water will be discharged at all -- that's our ultimate game plan," Chamberlain said. "It will take streams going to the ponds, go back to the source of those streams and clean them up (internally)."

The official ribbon-cutting ceremony, attended Wednesday by state and local representatives, ran into trouble when dozens of plant workers and executives failed to produce the all-so crucial steel shears.

The blue ribbon was instead ceremonially dropped instead of snipped.

"I need to start collecting scissors, I guess," a bemused Sulik told colleagues after the ceremony. "I'll get a lot of them, I think."