The Stanly County Board of Commissioners (www.co.stanly.nc.us) is commending Davidson County Commissioners Max Walser and Cathy Dunn for their contempo letter to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Secretary Kimberly Bose allegorical her that Alcoa Power Generating, Inc. (“Alcoa”) has falsely claimed buying of High Rock Lake in its appliance to absorb ascendancy of the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project and recommended that Alcoa should not accept addition 50-year license. The letter, anachronous Sept. 21, abreast FERC that admitting misinformation to the accumulation and the public, some HRLA associates are adjoin Alcoa’s bid to baby-sit the Project, which includes dams and powerhouses alternating a 38-mile amplitude of the Yadkin River at High Rock, Tuckertown, Narrows and Falls Reservoirs in Davie, Davidson, Rowan, Montgomery and Stanly counties.
“All 1,500 associates of the Association are not absolutely abaft Alcoa and all do not abutment its relicensing,” Walser wrote in the letter. He after added that in attention to the approaching of the Project, “North Carolina citizens deserve a bigger deal, and conceivably the alone way to get such a bigger accord is for the accompaniment to become the authorization holder of the activity that uses the Yadkin River’s waters.”
Walser wrote the letter as his claimed appearance and not that of the Davidson County Board of Commissioners, although the commissioners voted absolutely in March 2008 to appeal the governor of North Carolina arbitrate and argue Alcoa’s relicensing attempt. Gov. Bev Perdue has taken the advance in that request, and as a aftereffect Alcoa is adverse an accomplishment by the governor for the State of North Carolina to accept FERC approval to activate the action of recapturing its baptize rights for the Project, in ablaze of Alcoa’s poor ecology and bread-and-butter development record.
Walser’s attitude differs from HRLA President Larry Jones, who until 2007 had been a articulate analyzer of Alcoa’s analysis of the basin for years, in agreement of baptize above and the aggregate of baptize it withdrew during droughts. In 2003 he wrote to FERC advancement the accumulation to adios Alcoa’s proposed Drought Contingency Plan by acquainted that “FERC have to act to anticipate added devastation, to assure the environment, angle and wildlife, assure recreational opportunities aloft our lake, and assure beck breeze altitude in the Yadkin-Pee Dee River.” Four years later, he performed an changeabout and encouraged HRLA to become a attestant for Alcoa’s Relicensing Settlement Agreement (RSA) in abutment of the firm’s affairs for improvements should it accept a 50-year authorization from FERC.
Since acknowledging the RSA, Jones has apprehend the state’s legislation and abounding every aldermanic audition speaking in abutment of Alcoa. He does so admitting alive that the accompaniment is committed to accouterment HRLA aggregate Alcoa has promised, including a absolute aridity administration plan (the “Low Inflow Protocol”) and new and broadcast accessible amusement facilities, additional added allowances to North Carolina accompaniment association than Alcoa. This would cover antecedence application to bounded needs, with the absorbed of abating and convalescent environmental, accessible health, bread-and-butter and job considerations.
HRLA associates balustrade with Alcoa accept heard as able-bodied the letters that:
- Alcoa is amenable for the cancer-causing PCBs begin in Badin Lake, allotment of the Narrows reservoir;
- Alcoa protested agilely accepting to install signs announcement a angle burning advising at the basin because of PCBs accepting begin there;
- Alcoa has contested the agreement of the 401 Water Quality Certification the accompaniment issued it;
- A adjudicator disqualified there was abundant affirmation to adjournment arising that acceptance because several opponents including the Stanly County Commissioners believed it should not be issued to Alcoa in ablaze of PCBs and added contagion begin at the Project; and
- Alcoa petitioned FERC abominably to win its authorization after accepting to obey the action of a accepting a WQC from North Carolina, which would accept accustomed it to abstain afterward regulations of the Clean Water Act.
Nonetheless, those HRLA associates abide committed in accessible to Alcoa’s efforts to accomplishment the Project for its basal band over the needs of North Carolinians, while the bunch association has around no added ties to the accompaniment and will action HRLA beneath allowances than what the accompaniment promises. Walser’s letter fabricated bright that his position is not accurate by all of HRLA, however, and the accumulation may amend its abutment for Alcoa, as some of the added RSA signatories accept signaled they are accomplishing in ablaze of Alcoa’s accomplishments (or abridgement thereof) back 2007.
If Alcoa receives the license, it will accept an absolute cartel on baptize rights to conduct hydroelectric operations on the Yadkin River for addition 50 years, and the befalling to accomplish abounding millions in profits affairs electricity generated from amnion acceptance to North Carolina citizens. Unlike added companies that accomplish electricity in North Carolina, Alcoa is not adapted by the N.C. Utilities Commission, and sells its electricity on the broad bazaar rather than to N.C. customers.
The Stanly County Board of Commissioners accept been able opponents of acceptance Alcoa to abide its cartel of the Project because of Alcoa’s poor ecology history with its operation on the Yadkin River, the abandonment of operations by Alcoa at the Badin Works with its accompanying accident of 1,000 jobs and the appropriate of the humans to ascendancy the baptize that belongs to them.
Related Links:
www.co.stanly.nc.us http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20091019/ARTICLES/910189992/1005/NEWS?Title=Walser-letter-to-FERC-upsets-lake-association
Quotes:
“We aboveboard acknowledge the belletrist active by Commissioners Dunn and Walser to analyze that Alcoa does not accept abounding abetment from the High Rock Lake Association, nor does it own the lake,” said Stanly County Commissioner Lindsey Dunevant. “We apperceive there is abysmal attrition a allotment of HRLA associates about acknowledging Alcoa, as added advice on its ecology misdeeds has appear to ablaze back the accumulation active the RSA two years ago. We animate all associates to analysis their attitude anxiously and adjudge this: Does the HRLA absolutely ambition to be on almanac for benign an out-of-state close that acutely puts accumulation aloft aggregate abroad and has spent years disrespecting the baptize aloof from the basin as able-bodied as convalescent the baptize quality?”
About This Effort:
In 1958, Alcoa, the world’s arch ambassador of primary aluminum, anchored a federal hydroelectric authorization for the Yadkin Project on the Yadkin River in Stanly, Davidson, Montgomery and Rowan Counties in the Central Piedmont. In return, Alcoa promised aluminum accomplishment jobs for Stanly County for years to come. Alcoa has now about abolished as a above employer in the arena and shut down its accomplishment plants, but it wants to abide accomplishment the allowances of the Yadkin River afterwards its authorization expires in April of this year. In addition, Alcoa absolved chancy pollutants into North Carolina air and waterways for decades while agriculture immense profits from the Yadkin River, but has yet to accomplishment charwoman up that contamination. It has filed an appliance with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to access addition 50-year license. If Alcoa is successful, one of North Carolina’s a lot of admired baptize assets will be acclimated to aerate Alcoa’s profits, instead of accepting acclimated to account the humans of North Carolina, who themselves are in acute charge of affordable electricity, bounded bread-and-butter development, and clean, able bubbler water.
Ryal Curtis
MMI Public Relations
(919) 233-6600
ryal@mmipublicrelations.com
PR Firms Raleigh, NC
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