Bailey Hill, Environmental Justice Advocate

Edgar Miller of Yadkin Riverkeeper welcomes meeting attendees

Yadkin Riverkeeper (YRK) hosted a community hearing on Wednesday, November 16th at the Atrium Health Education and Events Center in Albemarle. YRK held the hearing to inform the public about the upcoming renewal of Alco-Badin Business Park’s NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Systems) permit and to share our recommendations for reducing the amount of industrial pollution flowing into Badin Lake and Little Mountain Creek. For more information about the stormwater discharge permit, see our recommendations here.

Ryke Longest, Lee Garza, and Marianne Salas-Fuentes of Duke University’s Environmental Law and Policy Clinic provided an overview of hazardous waste disposal at the former aluminum smelting site. They outlined long-standing concerns regarding hazardous waste buried around West Badin, which has been identified by environmental advocates as an Environmental Justice Community of Concern. (History & Environmental Justice slides) Jasmine Washington and Irena Como of the Southern Environmental Law Center addressed the current renewal process of the NPDES permit and specific recommendations for the new permit to reduce toxins going into the water. Click here to see the SELC Badin Citizens Hearing presentation.

Ryke Longest, Clinical Professor of Law & Director of Clinical Programs at Duke University

Lee Garza & Marianne Salas-Fuentes, Duke Law Students and legal aides with DELPC

The hearing also provided community members with a platform to share their concerns. Macy Hinson, a co-founder of the grassroots advocacy group Concerned Citizens of West Badin, spoke at the community hearing about the environmental justice concerns he and other residents have raised. For over 20 years, residents of West Badin have been routinely excluded from the decision-making process regarding environmental regulations, remediation plans, and economic development at the site. Hinson shared in the meeting, “Whenever anything is proposed for Badin Business Park, we are never asked. No one contacts us to say, ‘How do you feel?'” As reported by Lisa Sorg of NC Policy Watch, members of Concerned Citizens of West Badin are advocating for Alcoa to excavate hazardous material, such as spent potliner, that was buried throughout the site. Hinson shared that elimination of the hazardous waste is the “only reliable way to prevent contamination from entering Little Mountain Creek and Badin Lake...Some material is buried 80 feet deep. You have to clean it up, not just scrape it.” Read the NC Policy Watch article by Lisa Sorg here.

We support the community of West Badin in this ongoing effort to hold Alcoa accountable for cleaning up hazardous waste near the former aluminum smelting site.

Stanly News and Press articles about Alcoa-Badin Business Park:

https://www.thesnaponline.com/2022/11/11/meeting-to-be-held-wednesday-night

https://www.thesnaponline.com/2022/11/17/you-need-to-clean-it-up