Riverkeeper Edgar Miller took to the air on June 2 with Southwings Pilot Holliday Obrecht, III, to do an aerial survey of the Yadkin Pee Dee Lakes region, including a flyover of poultry and dairy concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), hydropower dams, drinking water facilities and wastewater treatment plants in the lower Yadkin watershed. The Lake region faces different challenges than the upper Yadkin Watershed, including excessive sedimentation and nutrient loading, harmful algal blooms, and inactive hazardous waste sites at Alcoa’s former aluminum smelter on Badin Lake. A major YRK priority is the state adopting an effective Nutrient Management Strategy requiring reductions in nutrients and sediments from all sources.
Ongoing coal ash removal at Duke Energy’s Buck Power Station on the River in Rowan County. Duke is in the process of excavating and recycling more than 6.5 million tons of coal ash at the site.
STAR coal ash recycling facility at Duke’s Buck Power Station.
High Rock Dam sending a lot of sediment downstream to Tuckertown and Badin.
Town of Denton Wastewater Treatment Plant on Tuckertown Reservoir.
Tuckertown Reservoir nestled between the Uwharrie Mountains and Rowan County farmland.
Black mat algae Lyngbya Wollei in a cove on Tuckertown.
Black mat algae in Badin Lake. This is technically not an algae, but a cyanobacteria that has the potential to produce toxins harmful to humans and animals. Efforts are underway to research options for its removal and YRK is advocating for upstream reductions in sediments and nutrients that increase the potential for HABs.
Tuckertown Dam, completed in 1967, passing more sediment and nutrients down to Badin.
Albemarle drinking water plant. The Yadkin River and its tributaries and lakes provide drinking water for more than 1 million North Carolinians.
Chicken litter piles stored too close to a waterway. According to USDA, more than 290 million chickens are produced in the Yadkin Pee Dee basin.
The infamous Outfall 005 (at the intersection of Highway 740 and Wood Street-left center in photo) at Alcoa’s Badin Business Park, which continues to exceed discharge limits for fluoride and cyanide.
The Alcoa Badin landfill next to West Badin, an environmental justice community, is currently the subject of an ecological risk assessment as part of Alcoa Badin Business Park’s Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) corrective action plan under development.
Alcoa Badin Business Park next to Badin Lake. YRK continues to be concerned about hazardous waste from former disposal sites on and around the plant leaching into Badin Lake and Little Mountain Creek.
Falls Reservoir Dam. Most of the sediment from upstream has settled out in Badin bringing nutrients causing potentially harmful algal blooms (HABs) on Tuckertown and Badin.
Odd sight of a burning chicken house in Stanly County. Unclear if it was accidental or intentional. No known cases of Avian Bird Flu have been reported in our basin.
Lake Tillery Dam.
Construction of intake for Union County drinking water in Lake Tillery. YRK opposed this “intra” basin transfer.
Scar from Union County pipeline that will carry water from Lake Tillery to Union County.
New housing development on prime farmland in Davidson County. Another major source of sediment runoff in the watershed.
Lexington Wastewater Treatment Plant on Abbotts Creek.
Permitted dairy on Swearing Creek in Davidson County with liquid waste lagoons.
The beginning of the Pee Dee River between Falls Reservoir and Lake Tillery.