Summer of '93: Heat, dirt and dropping acid

Economists are saying this is the worst summer job market in more than half a century.

Reading all the hubbub about how difficult it is for teens to find a summer job makes me thankful for the employment opportunity I had as a young’un.* I didn’t work at a fast-food joint, a movie theater or any of the other usual places.

My job was a really good one – I worked at a copper mine.

While my friends were spending their air-conditioned summer toiling for minimum wage, I was donning a hard-hat, a respirator and polyester work clothes (you’ll understand later) to earn more than $11 an hour (not too shabby for 1993 ) at ASARCO Inc.’s Ray open pit mine near Kearny, Ariz. The Ray complex is not far from my hometown, which was also a mining town.

Back then, ASARCO had a small summer job program for employees’ college-age children. The last few years of my father’s 40-year mining career were spent driving huge dump trucks (the kind with the 20-foot-tall wheels that you see on the Discovery Channel) inside the pit.

I worked there two summers and one Christmas break. The first job was working in the “concentrator,” the mill that produced blackish-green copper concentrate, the powder that is later refined into the shiny, ductile metal we all know and love.

The centerpiece was a gigantic rotating drum filled with steel balls the size of grapefruit that smashed fist-size chunks of ore to a fine slurry. Ear plugs were mandatory. Most of that summer was spent blasting rocks and muck off conveyor belts and the basement floor with a high-pressure water hose.

My next job was at the pit “crusher,” another loud place. The cacophony of a four-story mortar and pestle reducing man-size boulders to gravel, however, is not your primary concern when you are covered in dust at the bottom of a 1,500-foot hole during summertime in Arizona.

Crusher duty involved more conveyor belt cleaning, this time with a shovel and a compressed air cannon.

My final assignment at ASARCO was by far the most interesting – the SX-EW (solid extraction/electrowinning) plant. Workers just called it the “tankhouse.”

It was the only place I saw actual copper, but it was arguably the least glamorous place at the mine. Here’s the best way I can describe the experience: Picture a two-story warehouse. On the second floor are dozens of leaky, swimming pool-size vats of sulfuric acid. On the first floor you use a hose to spray the acid and other falling debris into a drain.

I disregarded my co-workers’ advice to wear 100-percent polyester clothes, which they said was more acid-resistant than natural fibers. After coming home the first day wearing Swiss-cheese khakis, I immediately went out and bought some polyester Dickies.

The azure acid was weak enough that it was only mildly irritating if it got on your skin. My work buddy, however, landed a trip to the infirmary when some of the concentrated stuff dripped on his shoulder, burning a hole through his shirt.

When I wasn’t on acid-rain duty, I was upstairs helping make copper cathodes. The fuming vats of acid contained copper ions that had been “leached” out of large mounds of low-grade ore by a sprinkler system spraying (you guessed it) acid. When electrified, the ions would stick to a plate and create a thin copper sheet. The sheet was placed in another vat, where it sat for several days until it grew into a shiny, 300-pound slab of 99 percent pure copper.

In the end, I earned a few thousand dollars for college, gained 15 pounds of muscle and learned some lessons that were far more valuable than anything I could have picked up in class.

So, kids, if you still haven’t found a summer job, don’t give up. If you have found one, I hope it’s as profitable and enlightening as the one I had.

I also hope it doesn’t involve acid.

FULL-TIME JOBS MIGHT BE HARD TO COME BY, TOO: The slack economy continues to claim local victims. Last week, Goody’s Family Clothing announced it would close its stores in south Augusta and North Augusta as part of a 69-store elimination plan, and the Save-A-Lot grocery store on Wrightsboro Road shut its doors Friday. Furniture General (formerly known as General Freight Furniture) is having a going- out- of- business sale.

THE WATERMARK: I’m starting to get a tad nervous about the lack of activity at the proposed riverfront hotel/office/residential complex near the old train depot at Fifth and Reynolds streets.

I might just be high strung.

AFFLUENCE – IT’S ALL RELATIVE: A couple of weeks back I mentioned the state’s “tier” system, which allows counties to offer tax incentives to businesses based on its per capita income. My diatribe, which was delivered via the Columbia County economic development perspective, caught the notice of a Richmond County economic development official. He had some interesting feedback to offer.

But first, here’s a refresher on how the tier system works: Companies that fall into any one of six categories – manufacturing, telecommunications, warehouse-distribution, research and development, processing, and tourism – are eligible for state tax credits based on the number of jobs they create. The number of jobs and the amount they get to write off varies based on the county in which the business chooses to locate.

The more “affluent” the county, the smaller the write-off, and vice versa.

In Georgia’s 16 Tier 4 counties, which includes Columbia County, a company would have to employ 25 people to receive up to a $1,250-per-job tax credit. At the other end of the spectrum, if that company were to locate in Richmond County, Burke County, Lincoln County or 68 other Tier 1 counties, it would only have to create five jobs to qualify for up to $4,000 in per-job tax credits.

This could go a long way to explaining why Bass Pro Shops chose to the Villages at Riverwatch property (in Richmond County) for its megastore instead of at a rival site off Interstate 20 near Grovetown (in Columbia County). When all things are equal (access to transportation, labor costs, etc.) the deciding factor always comes down to incentives.
Now, here’s the interesting part, as our Richmond County friend points out: The per capita income used to calculate the tier is based on where workers live , not where they earn their income. Thus, in a market such as Augusta-Aiken, it’s easy to see why Richmond County – despite being the economic center of the region and boasting nearly all the amenities (ballet, opera, airport, sporting events, etc.) – is considered “poor” by the state. It’s not that wealth isn’t being created; it’s that the wealth is increasingly residing in Columbia and Aiken counties, where most new housing construction is occurring.

“Imagine what the rankings would be if it were reversed ... if it were based on the per capita income of where you work,” the official said.

Food for thought, I suppose.

Richmond County has many poor residents, but I don’t consider it a “poor” county. In the eyes of the state’s tier system, however, the label will stick until the county finds a way to keep the affluence it creates.

* Warning: Personal anecdote alert!

Hey, cut me some slack – news is slow in the summertime. If you know something I don’t – and you probably do – give me a call at (706) 823-3486 or drop me a line at damon.cline@augustahronicle.com.