The Yadkin Riverkeeper® has appear that the cleanup Alcoa performed at the baiter access acceptance below Narrows Dam on Badin Lake Oct. 10-12 is a absolute aftereffect of the PCBs apparent and affiliated to the company’s operations below Badin Lake, which accept catholic as far down river as the Falls Dam baiter launch. Alcoa has briefly bankrupt the Falls Boat Access Area for three canicule to apple-pie up an across abaft the assertive area PCB burdened capacitors were apparent and removed in 2002. The plan included removing attenuated debris on the baiter access and acclimation the accurate to accommodate easier ablution and loading acceptance for the boaters. Earlier this year, Alcoa appealed the states PCB angle burning advising on Badin Lake. Alcoa has again maintained that PCBs in Badin Lake are acceptable advancing from added sources from upstream Badin Lake.
Dean Naujoks, the Yadkin Riverkeeper, said this array of accretion and the time appropriate to apple-pie it acknowledge that Alcoa is amenable for auctioning cancer-causing PCBs in the Yadkin River and that Alcoa’s PCBs are affective after communicable Lake Tillery and down beck communities. Water above abstracts Alcoa provided beforehand this year to NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources for its 401 Water Quality Certification appropriate that PCBs were not accepting transported after below Badin Lake.
Falls Reservoir is one of four reservoirs that is allotment of the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project. Alcoa has activated for addition 50-year authorization to abide to baby-sit the Project, which reaps the close tens of millions in profits anniversary year for Alcoa as the Narrows and three added dams accomplish hydropower for auction on the electrical grid. But Naujoks and added ecology leaders, as able-bodied as bounded government officials, accept argued that Alcoa’s abortion to abode abuse it has generated and dumped in the baptize over the years accomplish the aggregation base of approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
“Alcoa approved to casket this announcement, but it speaks volumes of how attenuated the baptize is that they accept to shut down recreational operations for a weekend during what is a active time of the year for boaters and fishermen,” said Naujoks. “I admiration how abounding humans who appointment the basin heard about this cleanup in advanced and the affidavit why it happened. More chiefly are they acquainted blight causing PCBs ability be in the angle they are eating? This is one archetype of Alcoa’s baneful bequest we will abide to bare as Alcoa attempts to ride off into the dusk with their FERC license.”
Badin Lake has had angle burning advising signs installed back August 2009, admonishing people, decidedly accouchement and abundant women, not to eat catfish and largemouth bass from the backlog due to animated levels of PCBs begin in samples in a abstraction conducted by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. The abstraction came out in February, but Alcoa fought to accumulate from accepting to put the signs up for several months, claiming a allotment of added things that PCBs could be begin in all baptize food in North Carolina.
In backward July, Dr. John Rogers, an internationally accepted baptize above able from Clemson University, issued a address bond the PCBs in Badin Lake with the PCBs begin in Alcoa’s old admixture operations abreast the lake. Despite that study, Alcoa has insisted that it does not charge to apple-pie up the PCBs because the N.C. Department of Environmental and Natural Resources issued it a baptize above acceptance for the Project in May.
However, Alcoa has questioned the authority of altitude placed on the acceptance itself, and even has approved to accept it absolved as a appropriate action of its relicensing by the FERC. Meanwhile, Naujoks has auspiciously prevented Alcoa from accepting the baptize above acceptance acknowledgment to a accompaniment judge’s admonition adjoin arising it until a abounding address is heard from both Alcoa and Naujoks about the baptize above at the Project.
Naujoks charcoal deeply against to Alcoa’s relicensing effort, because his obligations as Yadkin Riverkeeper absorb respecting, protecting, and convalescent the Yadkin Pee Dee River Basin, and the firm’s appliance fails to accommodated these goals for the river.
“This cleanup is just one added assurance of how Alcoa fails to admit the abiding accident in money and time that occurs by not acclamation the PCBs it has larboard in Badin Lake,” assured Naujoks. “The company’s abortion to appearance a acceptable ecology almanac with the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project as a absolute aspect for itself and the association is depressing, and its accommodation to accomplishment the baptize for claimed gain, no amount how poor the baptize above becomes, care to be acumen abundant for the FERC to abjure the relicensing. No aggregation is too big to abort North Carolina’s apple-pie baptize requirements.”
About the Yadkin Riverkeeper®:
The Yadkin Riverkeeper’s mission is to respect, assure and advance the Yadkin Pee Dee River Basin through education, advancement and action. It is aimed at creating a apple-pie and advantageous river that sustains activity and is admired by its people. To accomplish this vision, it seeks to accomplish the afterward objectives: sustain a RIVERKEEPER® program, measurably advance baptize quality, reestablish built-in bio-diversity, bottle and enhance the backwoods canopy, accompany acknowledged action to accomplish accompaniment and federal ecology laws, and advise and convenance a “river ethic” of ecological account to all ages. For added information, appointment http://www.yadkinriverkeeper.org or alarm 336-293-8105.
About Dean Naujoks:
Dean Naujoks is the Yadkin Riverkeeper, active by Yadkin Riverkeeper Inc. back the abatement of 2008 to administer and apparatus a river advancement affairs for the Yadkin Pee Dee River watershed in North Carolina that will accumulate it a advantageous and active river for association and businesses in the continued term. Yadkin Riverkeeper is a accountant affiliate of the Waterkeeper Alliance, which connects and supports bounded Waterkeeper programs to accommodate a articulation and best apple-pie baptize for waterways and their communities worldwide. A longtime baptize above advocate, Naujoks became the aboriginal Upper Neuse Riverkeeper in 2001 at the nonprofit Neuse River Foundation. His job there was to adviser altitude and advocate for aegis of the Neuse River from Falls Lake to Goldsboro. He was appointed by Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker to serve on the collective government PCB Task Force to abode PCB contagion in Crabtree Creek from Ward Transformer. A alum of N.C. State, Naujoks created his own above in ecology action and acceptable development. He aswell formed for the NC Wild Life Federation from 1991-1999. Naujoks has accustomed River Network’s 2009 National “River Hero” Award on account of his efforts.
Media Contact:
Dean Naujoks
Yadkin Riverkeeper®
2435 Westfield Ave.
Winston-Salem, N.C.
dean@yadkinriverkeeper.org
www.yadkinriverkeeper.org
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