As another significant year for the Yadkin River heads over the dam(s), it’s time to reflect on our efforts to protect this invaluable resource that provides drinking water for more than one million North Carolinians. While we have accomplished much in 2025, much remains to be done. It would be nice to get an assist from Santa for some of these…

On December 8, the Davidson County Commissioners passed a resolution of concern regarding Transco’s Southeast Supply Enhancement Project (SSEP). The pipeline will cross through Davidson, Forsyth, and Guilford counties, and the project will expand the compressor station in Davidson County. The resolution requests that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) deny approval of the project and issuance of any permits until the following recommendations by the Commissioners are met:

As we move past the Winter Solstice I am reminded that it’s harder (not impossible) to get out and paddle in the Winter months. But that doesn’t mean that I am not thinking about getting out. Short dark days mean curling up with books and maps that feed the curiosity that would normally be satisfied in the seat of a boat. Fortunately for me, work feeds me a steady diet of planning for the next year’s paddles, fulfilling grant requirements, meeting various people wearing Carhartt jackets in muddy fields to talk about access possibilities, and making maps.

In the beginning of 2026 Yadkin Riverkeeper and watershed partners will come together to present six educational forums in three regions of the Yadkin Pee Dee River Basin. The forum purpose is to inform about local and regional water quality challenges and how those challenges collectively led to the impairment of High Rock Lake (HRL) and the designation of the Yadkin River, upstream of the lake, as “nutrient sensitive.”

This summer, on one of the hottest days of July, I stood on the banks of the Yadkin River watching families wade into the water with children laughing, dogs splashing, parents relaxing nearby. It was a perfect day to be outside, and it was also a powerful reminder of why our work matters so much.

For the past five years, our Swim Guide program has helped keep our communities safe by testing water quality across the watershed each week from May through September. We sampled 26 sites and collected more than 340 samples for E. coli this year; sharing that information publicly so families can make informed, real-time decisions about where to swim, paddle, or fish.

This week, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) released the final National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System stormwater permit for the Alcoa Badin Business Park. Although Yadkin Riverkeeper and our partners hope to see the legacy toxic sites left behind by Alcoa in West Badin cleaned up, this permit is a hopeful example of the public comment process and DEQ’s consideration of the public’s concerns.

Let me introduce you to the newest paddle trail in the neighborhood, The South Yadkin Paddle Trail. What makes this a new paddle trail since the accesses and portage around Cooleemee Dam were already there? NC Wildlife Resource Commission has established the accesses at the beginning of the trail, Cooleemee Junction, and the end of the trail, Hannah Ferry. The Town of Cooleemee has the access at Cooleemee River Park that also provides portaging around the dam. And Cube Hydro has the 601 access. All of these have been opportunities to get on the water and enjoy the South Yadkin River for years now. So, what’s new?

Over the last several months, Yadkin Riverkeeper (YRK) staff has been collaborating with watershed partners to plan regional watershed educational forums in early 2026. The purpose of these forums is to educate and inform stakeholders and the general public on water quality issues and potential solutions within the subbasins of the High Rock Lake Watershed, including the Yadkin and South Yadkin Rivers. These forums are designed to showcase local and regional challenges that have led to High Rock Lake (HRL) status as an “impaired” body of water and the designation of the Yadkin River above HRL as “nutrient sensitive.” Regions have been separated into the Upper, Middle and Lower Yadkin, with six total forums planned, the first beginning in January 2026 and finishing in early March 2026.

Transco proposed an expansion to a natural gas pipeline in North Carolina and Virginia as part of the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project (SSEP). The SSEP includes a loop called the Salem Loop which will cross Davidson, Forsyth, and Guilford counties (visit this link to view its path). This pipeline would consist of a 42-inch diameter pipe, as large as a hula hoop, pumping fracked natural gas from Pennsylvania and West Virginia through Virginia and North Carolina to the southeast and even for export.

This week Yadkin Riverkeeper finished its 15th and final week of E. coli testing for Swim Guide! Thank you to all our amazing volunteers who collected water samples from swim and paddle accesses from the mountains in Happy Valley to High Rock Lake every Wednesday. A special thank you to our Swim Guide sponsors, Cube Hydro Carolinas and Bill Jenkins & Pam Townsend.

Approximately 75 people attended the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Public hearing on the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) draft stormwater permit for Alcoa Badin Business Park at the Gene McIntyre Room at the Commons in Albemarle, NC on August 19. YRK staff and current and former board members testified at the hearing along with more than a dozen speakers, including representatives from the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic (DELPC), Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the NC Conservation Network, all calling on DEQ to issue the strongest permit possible to reduce the amount of contaminants going into the Yadkin River/Badin Lake, Little Mountain Creek and nearby groundwater.

The Tire Puller quietly hums upstream through the thick air of an August late afternoon. I’m asking a lot from the little trolling motor to push two canoes with a sign, a U channel post, a post setter, and two people upstream 2.12 miles on the Yadkin River. We are looking for a specific spot on the Davidson County side to put Mile Marker 39. It’s Cube Hydro owned land, and this will be the third sign we are putting up with their permission today. Focused on the task at hand and evaluating the riverbank for opportunities to put up a sign, we were not paying attention to the lengthening shadows or the time.

When preparing for a trip, the best you can hope for is to not create a situation that makes a bad experience, you know, dangerous conditions, not enough food, bad coffee. You really have no control over what makes a good trip, nice weather, good water level, good group of paddlers that want to paddle together. Our recent camping trip, August 8 - 10, was a GREAT trip!

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s (NCDEQ) Division of Water Resources (DWR) has issued a Draft National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) stormwater permit for the Alcoa Badin Business Park in Badin, NC. If approved, the permit will allow Alcoa to continue to release stormwater contaminated with fluoride, cyanide, aluminum and other potentially toxic materials leaching from hazardous waste disposed of on the site of Alcoa’s former aluminum smelter into Badin Lake/Yadkin River and Little Mountain Creek.

NCDEQ will hold a public hearing on the draft permit on August 19 at 6:00 PM at the Gene McIntyre Meeting Room at Stanly County Commons located at 1000 N. First Street, Albemarle, N.C. Written comments may be submitted by email before August 20 at 5 PM to  publiccomments@deq.nc.gov.

The Town of Mocksville in Davie County operates a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) located on Dutchman Creek, a tributary to the Yadkin River. Last January, the plant received toxic chemical discharge from a Significant Industrial User (SIU) that sends their wastewater to be treated at the Dutchman Creek plant. This led to the failure of the plant’s usual biological process of using microorganisms to break down organic material. Specific toxic compounds that may impact the survival of these microorganisms include strong chlorinated-compounds used as disinfectants such as Chlorine, pesticides, and heavy metals which cause enzyme inhibition or DNA damage in bacteria. Any of these compounds discharged to the plant in high concentration or for a prolonged period of time could have caused a major disruption in the biological treatment process.

Over the last 100 years, excessive nutrient and sediment loads have been brought downstream from stormwater, wastewater and agricultural runoff into the Yadkin and South Yadkin Rivers into High Rock Lake (HRL), leading the NC Department of Environmental Quality and the US Environmental Protection Agency to designate HRL as impaired. These conditions also have led to harmful algal blooms (HABs), which may be dangerous to people, pets and wildlife. Elevated chlorophyll-A levels have exceeded the state standard of 40ug/L, indicating high levels of nutrient pollution, resulting in the state setting a site-specific chlorophyll-A standard for HRL at 35ug/L.

Yadkin Riverkeeper Edgar Miller took to the air on June 26 with SouthWings pilot Holliday Obrecht, III to fly over the Yadkin Lakes looking for harmful algal blooms (HABs), checking out the status of the demolition of the Alcoa aluminum smelter buildings on Badin Lake and documenting the growth of the poultry industry in the Uwharrie River watershed in Montgomery and Randolph counties. The flight covered almost 120 linear miles and an area of more than 300 square miles.

A great way to kick off the summer is to celebrate the trails of North Carolina wit a couple hundred of our closest friends on the first weekend in June.  We’ve had a bit of a tradition of leading one of the first events of the weekend, a river cleanup on the Yadkin River State Trail. River cleanups are typically well attended, but it still surprises me how many people burn a personal leave day to hit the river and collect trash out of freshly deposited mud.

Yadkin Riverkeeper Edgar Miller joined students and faculty advisors from the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic (DELPC), for a second round of monitoring stormwater outfalls draining the site of the former Alcoa aluminum smelting plant in Badin, NC on June 12. The sampling project is being funded by a $150,000 grant from the Duke Endowment to the DELPC to address long-standing environmental justice issues faced by Concerned Citizens of West Badin (CCWB), an historically segregated African American community disproportionately impacted by Alcoa’s operation and hazardous waste disposal sites.

As spring brings new life across the Yadkin River Basin and we celebrated Earth Day last month, we are reminded of how much the health of our local waterways impacts everything around us — from the drinking water we rely on, to the land we farm, to the places we gather with family and friends.