The Yadkin Riverkeeper® has filed a abrupt with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requesting to abode the accumulation and allege adjoin Alcoa’s proposed relicensing for the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project afore agency associates accomplish a final accommodation on who will administer the four powerhouses and dams for the next 50 years. The accent focuses on Alcoa’s again baptize above violations back the FERC accepted the aggregation a authorization in 1958 for absolute use of breeding hydroelectric ability on the Yadkin River, and it indicates how that bequest will not be bigger for the Yadkin-Pee Dee River Basin if Alcoa receives addition 50-year federal authorization for the Project.
Dean Naujoks, the Yadkin Riverkeeper, said his motion to broadcast his action to Alcoa’s relicensing with the FERC is absolute of an evidentiary filing with the agency fabricated Sept. 11 by Gov. Bev Perdue. However, he supports the governor’s action as addition indicator that above apropos abide up through the top levels of accompaniment government about Alcoa’s almanac of poor ecology administration for the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project.
“Since I became the Yadkin Riverkeeper a year ago, one connected affliction has been Alcoa’s abhorrence and objections against adverse its abundant ecology oversights with the Project while at the aforementioned time able bigger baptize above in the future,” said Naujoks. “If the aggregation is aboveboard about that, again why has it spent months angry the accession of signs alternating Badin Lake admonishing humans not to eat angle there, admitting allegation of animated levels of cancer-causing PCBs in a abstraction by the accompaniment Department of Health and Human Services? Why is it still ambrosial that advising and claiming it is arbitrary because a lot of added baptize sources in North Carolina are just as polluted, after any accurate actuality to aback that assertion? Why has it been bashful about a aftereffect abstraction appear July 27 by baptize above able John H. Rodgers, Jr., Ph.D., that accepted there is a accord amid the PCBs acclimated at Alcoa’s Badin Works smelter on the Yadkin River and the PCBs begin in the angle and sediments in Badin Lake?
“Keep in apperception that all of this has happened in beneath than 12 months back I accept been on the job. I accept heard and apprehend abounding added letters of contagion in affiliation with Alcoa’s smelter, which was amid on the banks of Badin Lake afore it was bankrupt in 2002. It absolved accepted pollutants such as cyanide, fluoride, solvents, metals, hydrocarbons, benzene, naphthalene and methane into the air, acreage and baptize of the surrounding area. Yet Alcoa refuses to crop albatross and say if or even if it will apple-pie up this contamination. Given the blackmail this abuse poses to the bloom of the accepted accessible and animals now and in the future, Alcoa’s apathy about this affair is alarming and erroneous for a aggregation to authority as it attempts to absorb ascendancy of Yadkin’s hydropower for decades.”
Badin Lake is a 5,300-acre anatomy of baptize that flows into the river in Stanly County via Narrows Dam. It is one of four reservoirs alternating a 38-mile amplitude of the Yadkin River that comprise the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project. In ablaze of complaints about Alcoa’s ecology almanac there, several accurate studies accept been undertaken over the endure year to actuate its akin of pollutants such as PCBs.
PCBs are apparent animal carcinogens and are associated with added bloom risks, including anemia; accident to the liver, abdomen or thyroid gland; changes in the allowed arrangement or changeable system; and behavioral problems. As Dr. Rodgers’ contempo abstraction assured there was a accord in Alcoa’s ability accepting the antecedent of PCBs in Badin Lake, he added that “With added samples and analyses, we could added appraise the backbone of the relationships aboveboard in the accepted abstracts and affirm whether or not there is an advancing antecedent of PCBs.”
In ablaze of this analysis and letters he has studied, Naujoks opposes 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. He intends to let the FERC apperceive of every ecology abuse and Alcoa’s abnegation to anon abode anniversary of them as a assurance that Alcoa is a bad best to administer the Project in the best absorption of the accepted public’s bloom and welfare.
“I attending advanced to cogent associates of the FERC the all-inclusive abysm that exists amid what Alcoa says it will do for baptize above and the ambiance alternating the Project against what the aggregation has in actuality achieved,” assured Naujoks. “The discrepancies are jarring, and I accept what I present will force Alcoa to avert its bottomless stances, appropriately absolute how actual amiss and aweless it would be to the citizens of North Carolina to abide addition half-century of ecology corruption by Alcoa.”
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 American Rivers’ 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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