Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Kalama wine bottle plant to restart, kick out 100 million bottles

The Kalama plant should be ready to restart in July, producing 100 million bottles a year for West Coast wineries.
Fabio Coatti
/
Flickr
The Kalama plant should be ready to restart in July, producing 100 million bottles a year for West Coast wineries.

KALAMA, Wash. — Workers have jackhammered out tons of glass that hardened in an electrical furnace after it failed at a wine bottle plant at Kalama.

The old furnace has been removed and the Bennu Glass company is installing a new furnace that will be fueled by liquid oxygen to heat molten glass to 2,800 degrees.

The Daily News reports the plant should be ready to restart in July, producing 100 million bottles a year for West Coast wineries.

The plant at the Port of Kalama was crippled by a molten glass leak and shut down in 2009. Bennu bought the plant last year at auction.

The Associated Press (“AP”) is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. On any given day, more than half the world’s population sees news from the AP. Founded in 1846, the AP today is one of the largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering. The AP considers itself to be the backbone of the world’s information system, serving thousands of daily newspaper, radio, television, and online customers with coverage in text, photos, graphics, audio and video.