Sunday, April 25, 2010 —
Now that Alcoa has announced the permanent closure of its Badin Works smelting plant, the company must allow for the proper and necessary environmental investigation of the site before it runs away with profits from our water and leaves us with a toxic mess.
In the decades that Alcoa operated that smelter, it discharged pollutants into the air, lands and waterways. Known contaminants in-cluded cyanide, fluoride, PCBs, solvents, metals, hydrocarbons, benzene, naphthalene and methane, all of which are hazardous to humans and aquatic life.
This resulted in environmental degradation at Badin Lake, including a Fish Consumption Advi-sory about the health risk of eating its fish. Yet Alcoa refuses to discuss the matter, much less address it.
There are no provisions to clean up contamination leftover from decades of its smelter operations in Alcoa’s Relicensing Settle-ment Agreement it offers as part of its relicensing application for the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project.
As no one except Alcoa knows exactly where the smelter’s industrial hazardous waste is buried, there is no indication to what extent the contamination has affected Badin Lake and the people who have used this lake for generations.
I challenge Alcoa to allow for full investigation of the site so that the extent of its contamination can be determined and the firm will take responsibility for its pollution and take appropriate financial actions to remedy it, as they have done in other similar cases. Our health and our future will pay a devastating long-term cost if this does not occur.
Dean Naujoks,
The Yadkin Riverkeeper
Alcoa News Updates
Alcoa must agree to environmental investigation
- Alcoa News Updates
-
-
Questionable land transfer by Alcoa comes under attack
N.C. Senator Stan Bingham of Davidson County and Yadkin Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks have asked the state to investigate the possibly illegal lobbying efforts on behalf of Alcoa in the ongoing dispute concerning the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project.
-
Alcoa must agree to environmental investigation
Now that Alcoa has announced the permanent closure of its Badin Works smelting plant, the company must allow for the proper and necessary environmental investigation of the site before it runs away with profits from our water and leaves us with a toxic mess.
-
What have the commissioners done to this county?
Things happen in very interesting ways.
As we plan for the 100th birthday of Badin, Alcoa announces it will be shutting down and demolishing the Alcoa plant.
Very ironic when you think that the town of Badin was started because of the plant. The town was started by the French and then bought by Americans, and today is a worldwide company. Alcoa has been a good employer and steward of the people and the land. -
Candidates weigh-in on Alcoa, dams
As the May 4 Primary gets closer, local candidates are weighing-in on the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project and leaving no doubt where they stand. At Thursday evening’s Millennium Club Forum, the seven Republican candidates for county commissioner left no gray matter in where they stood.
-
Alcoa to close Badin Works
Alcoa announced this week that it will permanently close two idle smelting plants, including the Badin Works plant in Badin. This is a step that will allow Alcoa to continue moving forward with its ongoing plans to redevelop the Badin Works site to attract new industry and new jobs to Badin and Stanly County, officials said in a press release
-
Riverkeeper to paddle Yadkin to raise awareness in battle against Alcoa
The Yadkin Riverkeeper has announced plans to paddle the Yadkin River in April from Caldwell County to the Pee Dee River connection near the South Carolina border to raise awareness of the battle against Alcoa’s relicensing of the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project as well as the increasing pressures the Yadkin faces that threaten its vitality from human development, habitat degradation and sedimentation issues.
-
Commissioners respond to Alcoa attack
Editor’s Note: Friday the Stanly County Commissioners responded to the latest ad campaign from Alcoa regarding the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project and the ongoing relicensing battle. The statement from the commissioners is run in its entirety.
-
War for Yadkin Project heats up
In March 2008 as the clock approached the midnight hour and Alcoa Power Generating, Inc. (APGI) seemingly had a second 50-year lease in hand to control the four dams on the Yadkin River, approximately 200 citizens from Stanly County march-ed outside the General Assembly in Raleigh in protest.
Delivering their position, County Commissioner Lindsey Dunevant said: “We don’t want to give away our water rights for the next 50 years.”
In response, then Gov. Mike Easley asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to award APGI a one-year license, not a 50-year one, giving all involved another year to study the issue. - Response to Naujoks letter I want to provide your readers with some factual information to refute the unfounded allegations about Alcoa’s environmental record that were made by Yadkin Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks in a Dec. 1 letter (“Let’s focus on the real issues regarding the Yadkin River Hydroelectric Project”).
-
Give back the Yadkin
The Yadkin, the state's second largest river (only the Cape Fear is bigger), is a gentle giant as it traverses the northwest foothills from Wilkesboro to Elkin to Pilot Mountain State Park in Surry County. From there, it turns south toward Salisbury, gathering size and force from its various tributaries until, passing the Uwharrie mountain range, it's squeezed from 1,000 feet wide to less than 100 feet in the gorge known as "the Narrows." Over a 38-mile stretch from above High Rock Mountain to just below the Narrows, the Yadkin falls almost 400 feet in elevation, further concentrating its power.
- More Alcoa News Updates Headlines
-
