The plant was built between 1916 and 1919 to supply energy to the hydrometallurgic factory at nearby Saint-Chély-du-Tarn.
The Sherritt process is a hydrometallurgical process named for Sherritt Gordon Mines Ltd. (now Sherritt International) of Sherridon and Lynn Lake Manitoba Canada, based on the older Forward process developed by Dr. Frank Forward for the recovery of copper and nickel from those same mines.
Atwater is the son of noted avalanche control pioneer and author Montgomery Atwater; the grandson of Maxwell Atwater, the first mining engineer to employ flotation hydrometallurgy in North America; and the grandson of Mary Meigs Atwater, the ‘Dean of American Hand Weaving’.