Media Coverage

YADKIN RIVERKEEPER ALLEGES PCB CONTAMINATION IN BADIN LAKE CAUSED BY ALUMINUM-MAKER’S OPERATIONS

Dean Najouks, the Yadkin Riverkeeper, is confident that Stanly County will win its pending appeal of a water quality certification issued by the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources to aluminum-maker Alcoa for the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project. He sees that as the first step in a process that would return the region’s most important resource undefined the Yadkin River undefinedback to the people.

If the county wins in court, it could derail Alcoa’s relicensing efforts to seize another 50 years of control over the water rights along a 38-mile stretch of the river that passes through Davie, Davidson, Rowan, Montgomery and Stanly counties. However, if Stanly County loses in court, it could help pave the way for Alcoa undefined a multi-billion dollar international conglomerate and the world’s largest producer of aluminum undefined to receive water rights to a vast section of the Yadkin River that encompasses High Rock, Tuckertown, Narrows and Falls reservoirs for the next 50 years from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC.

After hearing the arguments of Stanly County attorneys, Administrative Law Judge Joe Webster granted an injunction May 26 barring the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources, commonly known as DENR, from issuing a 401 Water Quality Certification to Alcoa until the full appeal is heard. Najouks said the case is headed for mediation next month but he fully expects it to be settled in front of a judge.

“We’re going to court and I’m very confident we’re going to win because the law is on our side,” Najouks said.

The county’s appeal of the water quality certification alleges that DENR neglected to follow federal Clean Water Act requirements when it issued its certification last May. At the heart of the issue is the extent of contamination of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in the waters surrounding Alcoa’s Badin Works smelter plant on the Yadkin River.

Alcoa shuttered the plant in 2002.

“The state of North Carolina has not done an adequate job,” Najouks said. “We need the [US Environmental Protection Agency] to do more testing and find out what the public health situation is. NC DENR, for whatever reason has not done a thorough enough job to determine the real extent of contamination at that site undefined that’s PCBs and whatever else we may find.”

Najouks believes the PCB contamination reported by the state agency represents the tip of the iceberg.

“I will bet my entire reputation that once we get more funding to do testing, we will find much more contamination on that site,” he said.

PCBs can cause anemia, acne-like skin conditions, damage to the liver, stomach or thyroid gland, changes in the immune system or reproductive system and behavioral problems, according to the NC Department of Health and Human Services.

Gene Ellis, a spokesman for Alcoa, said the concentrations of the PCBs in the sediments in the vicinity of Alcoa’s aluminum smelter are below the concentrations the Environmental Protection Agency would require for any cleanup effort.

“A cleanup wouldn’t typically be warranted at levels that are that low,” Ellis said.

Ellis also denied charges by Najouks and others that Alcoa’s hydroelectric plant on Badin Lake is churning up PCBs and jettisoning them farther downstream.

“We know from sampling that the county has done and the state has done, the sediments that contain those PCBs across from the Badin Works site are not migrating toward the dam,” Ellis said. “The discharges from the dam do not reflect any PCBs at all. There are pretty good indications that we’re not moving anything downstream.”

Despite Alcoa’s claims, the state issued a fish consumption advisory for Badin Lake between Stanly and Montgomery counties last February due to elevated levels of PCBs found in large mouth bass and catfish. Alcoa filed a legal appeal of the state’s fish advisory two months later. The company claimed that the state “changed its stated evaluation criteria after the study was complete and held Badin Lake to a different standard than other lakes and rivers in North Carolina,” according to a company website. Alcoa stated that the state’s advisory was based on the findings in a single largemouth bass.

Najouks said Alcoa fought the posting of signs alerting the public about dangers from eating “potentially cancer-causing fish” until Stanly County received the results of its own independent study of the source of the PCBs in Badin Lake.

AN INDEPENDENT STUDY

Stanly County hired professor John Rodgers of Clemson University to perform a study on fish tissue and sediment collected near the Badin Works site last year. Rodgers’ study made a clear connection between the PCB contamination in fish and soil samples to Alcoa’s Badin Works operation.

Bruce Thompson, a registered lob byist for Stanly County, summarized Rodgers’ findings in an Aug. 3 memo to the members of the NC House Water Resources Committee.

Thompson’s memo explains that PCBs include 209 possible forms, known as “congeners,” which serve as fingerprints that allow scientists to trace PCBs back to their source. Rodgers found that most of the PCB congeners found in fish tissue and sediment samples taken from Badin Lake could be traced back to Alcoa’s Badin Works aluminum smelting operation, Thompson reported.

“This important information shows how poor of a steward Alcoa has been of the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project,” Thompson stated. “Not only has Alcoa abandoned the Badin Works and the jobs that were there, it has left a toxic legacy that remains in the fish and sediments of Badin Lake. The Rodgers study is further proof of why the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project should be returned to the citizens.”

Thompson concluded his letter with a plea to committee members to support Senate Bill 967, which would have created a Yadkin River Trust to take over the operations of the Yadkin Project from Alcoa. Three days later, however, the bill failed on its second reading.

BUILDING A COALITION

Gov. Beverly Perdue is siding with Najouks, the Stanly County Commission and the Yadkin River Coalition in their fight against Alcoa.

The governor’s office filed a “friend of the court” brief during the May hearing in Judge Webster’s court stating Perdue’s vigorous opposition to Alcoa’s re-licensing of water rights to the Yadkin.

Perdue’s office also filed papers in September with FERC “seeking return of the right to plan the use of the Yadkin River flows and the Yadkin hydroelectric project for the benefit of the people of North Carolina.”

“Fifty years ago, we endorsed Alcoa’s request for a federal license to operate hydroelectric dams because the project created jobs for up to 1,000 North Carolinians,” Perdue said in a press release. “Today, those jobs are gone, and so is the reason for the license.”

Roger Dick, a Stanly County banker, also highlights economic development in his opposition to Alcoa. Years ago, Stanly County leaders began looking at long-range strategic planning for their community, Dick said, and it became apparent that the people were being denied the benefit of the region’s greatest natural resource. So when it came time for Alcoa to reapply for its water rights license, members of the community took a stand.

“Why at this point in history would anyone trade water, because water is life?” Dick asked rhetorically. “Some of the poorest counties in our state are the richest in terms of this commodity called water. Why would you let it get away from you? No [corporation] can lay claim to the public waters.”

Dick said he experienced an epiphany when he began researching the history of organizations like the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Santee Cooper Electrical Authority in South Carolina. Dick said he saw a connection between community’s ability to hold on to its hydroelectric power and its ability to retain its manufacturing base. Critics of Alcoa, including Dick, have charged that the company is using the water from the Yadkin to fuel its hydroelectric plant and selling that electricity off the grid to other communities. “This is not something that should ever be allowed to fall into private hands for private benefit; it’s a monopoly and monopolies are not good,” Dick said. “We have a water shortage; we have double digit unemployment. This is a resource that provides both water and employment and the law says it belongs to us.”

Dick and Najouks both point to what they call Alcoa’s record of poor environmental stewardship as yet another reason for the Yadkin’s water rights to be reverted to the people of North Carolina.

“Look at the facts, look at what they’ve done,” Dick said. “We gave them a clean river and now it’s going to cost the public hundreds of millions of dollars to deal with the sediment issue, and getting the water back to the point we can drink it.”

With so much riding on the outcome of the upcoming court case, the stakes could not be any higher, Najouks said.

“If we don’t address this now, we are going to miss this opportunity for 50 years,” he said.

The NC Department of Health and Human Services issued a fish consumption advisory last February on Badin Lake after high levels of PCBs were found in fish tissue samples. Alcoa filed a legal challenge to the advisory last April. The advisory currently remains in effect. (courtesy photo)