Smokestacks at the closed Asarco plant in El Paso poke through a cover of fog along the Rio Grande Valley. The company wants to reopen the plant.

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EL PASO, Texas — The 828-foot smokestack dominates western El Paso's skyline and, emblazoned with the name Asarco, is the symbol of Texas' first smelter — built in 1887 and shut down in 1999 when copper prices crashed around the world.

News that the once-valued neighbor, seen as a quality employer for generations of local residents, wants to reopen has caused dread among local officials, residents and activists who believe the financially troubled company wants to profit at the expense of their health.

According to Tucson-based Asarco's permit application with the state, the company wants to pump several thousand tons of pollutants — including sulfur dioxide, lead and carbon monoxide — into the air annually.

Other top area polluters include a wall-tile manufacturer, the U.S. Army at Fort Bliss, a copper-refining plant, a pair of oil refineries, and an air conditioning and heating component manufacturer, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Asarco officials say manufacturing plants and poorly regulated vehicle emissions from Mexico also contribute to El Paso's air pollution.

Opponents, who include the mayor and City Council, say Asarco will not only pollute air around El Paso but parts of New Mexico and Mexico as well.

Asarco and its supporters, including former employees, say the smelter is a model of environmental responsibility — although they acknowledge state environmental permit violations in the past. They also say the operation will create hundreds of high-paying jobs and estimate a $1 billion economic boom for the region.

With copper prices hovering around $3.50 a pound — up from 68 cents a pound when the plant closed — reopening the plant that can produce about 150,000 tons of copper a year could be very lucrative for Asarco. The company is in federal bankruptcy proceedings in Corpus Christi and faces as much as $6.5 billion in environmental liabilities.

"You can always make a good economic argument, but this is a health and safety issue," said Edward Hernandez, a 45-year-old El Paso civil rights lawyer with a 7-year-old asthmatic daughter.

Hernandez moved to El Paso's Sunset Heights neighborhood, which overlooks the plant, a few years before the plant closed. Until recently, his three children, ranging in age from 4 to 11, weren't allowed to play in the family's yard because of lead and other contaminants in the soil.

The EPA ordered Asarco to pay for the removal of the tainted soil.

City Councilwoman Susie Byrd said she remembers inhaling sulfur-laden air during her youth soccer games in the 1980s. For Byrd, the coughing and wheezing brought on by the cloud of smoke aren't welcome back for any number of jobs created.

The El Paso City Council, officials from neighboring Sunland Park, N.M., and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, recently signed a joint resolution against Asarco. They hope state environmental officials deciding Asarco's future in El Paso will consider their plea.

Lairy Johnson, the plant's environmental manager, said Asarco never has and won't now cause pollution in the area. Periodic clouds of pollution over El Paso, he said, have persisted since Asarco idled its operations.

Johnson said several environmental studies, including one Asarco paid for, have shown that as long as the company abides by the rules of its permit, the smelting operation won't "cause or contribute to a condition of air pollution," one requirement to win a permit renewal from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

"We are the standard for copper smelters," Johnson said of its environmental measures. "It is not a health risk."

But Asarco has acknowledged previous permit violations. During an administrative court hearing last year in El Paso, a former plant manager said the company did at times release more toxins than allowed under the previous permit. A lawyer for the company argued that Asarco still didn't violate state or federal regulations.

Eric Betterton, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said as long as the Asarco smelter does not produce levels of pollution beyond federal safety limits, there is likely little or no health risk to area residents. But, he said, that does not mean the added pollution will go unnoticed.

If the plant does open — the Texas environmental commission is expected to rule on the permit application later this year — Asarco is expected to hire about 290 people. Johnson said the jobs will be largely union, with wages of about $20 an hour and health and retirement benefits.

"El Paso is not being asked to trade air quality for economic prosperity," Johnson said.

Former employees like Frank Gallardo, many of whom say the health concerns are overblown, say they just want their jobs back.