Media Coverage

Gov. Perdue wants to take over operations. Aluminum maker awaits state permit for license.

The source of contaminated fish in Badin Lake, scene of a long-running dispute over Alcoa's now-closed aluminum smelter, remains unknown nearly a year after state officials warned the public.

Alcoa has acknowledged contamination from its plant, 45 miles northeast of Charlotte, which for decades was Stanly County's biggest employer. But the company says there is no proof it is responsible for the tainted fish that led to a state warning in February.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, say a state investigation is dead in the water.

Toxic fish are only part of Alcoa's struggles with its community. In a rare move, Gov. Bev Perdue wants the state to take over the aluminum maker's hydroelectric operations on 38 miles of the Yadkin River. And a judge has put on hold a key state permit Alcoa needs to renew its federal hydro license.

The contamination controversy focuses on chemical compounds known as PCBs, used as a lubricant for electrical equipment. PCBs were banned in 1977 because they probably cause cancer, but are still found in soil and water.

N.C. officials have documented PCB contamination in sediment below Badin Lake's dam, from capacitors dumped years ago. They also found it in soil at Alcoa's smelter and in lake sediment near the plant. None pose public health risks, they have said.

But when state health officials found PCBs in fish, they warned pregnant women, those of child-bearing age and children not to eat catfish and largemouth bass caught in the lake. Others, they said, should eat those fish no more than once a week.

Sides soon formed over Alcoa's role.

"We need to clean up the source of contamination and stop the hemorrhaging of contaminants into the waterway," said Yadkin River keeper Dean Naujoks, who blames Alcoa. "Once we start that, we're almost certain to find more and more contaminants washing into the river."

Naujoks had experience with PCB contamination on the upper Neuse River, where industrial property in Raleigh became a Superfund federal hazardous-waste cleanup site. He's frustrated by what he calls the state's inaction on probing the source of the Yadkin contamination.

"They've made it clear they don't have the resources to investigate," he said.

The N.C. Division of Water Quality says it can't comment because of related lawsuits now before state administrative courts.

But in past cases involving PCBs in fish tissue, spokeswoman Susan Massengale said, the affected water bodies have been added to the state's list of impaired waterways. That listing triggers a study of the pollutant's source and how to control it.

John Rodgers, a Clemson University water-quality expert hired by Alcoa's critics, found a link between the PCBs Alcoa used and PCBs found in Badin Lake's fish and mud.

State scientists aren't so sure. The state's fish testing didn't address the source of PCB contamination. But a review by the N.C. Division of Waste Management said "it would be extremely difficult and unlikely to conclude that these (related chemicals) are due solely from any one source with any degree of confidence."

The division says it forwarded the information to the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees company cleanups of toxic substances.

Alcoa's own PCB expert reached an opposite conclusion from Rodgers. The PCBs found in Badin Lake, said New Jersey scientist David Glaser, are nearly identical to PCBs found in fish in seven other N.C. lakes the EPA has sampled.

Alcoa has challenged the fish advisory, arguing the state didn't follow proper procedure in its fish tests.

"They put out the fish advisory based on one bass," said Gene Ellis, a company spokesman. "We just happen to believe that sends the wrong message about Badin Lake."