Edgar Miller- Riverkeeper and Executive Director
Almost 60 community members and activists, including the Yadkin Riverkeeper, rallied in Badin, NC to call on the NC Department of Environmental Quality to require Alcoa Badin Business Park to clean up hazardous waste disposal sites that continue to leach toxic cyanide and fluoride into Badin Lake and Little Mountain Creek, which flow into Lake Tillery.
Speakers raised concerns with ongoing contamination from the unlined dumps, worker exposure to hazardous materials during the Alcoa aluminum smelter’s operation, and historical environmental injustices inflicted on the residents of West Badin. To learn more about the community’s specific concerns please read NC Health News reporter Will Atwater’s article on the rally and protest and see the photos below:
Community members and activists make signs for the protest march.
One of the recurring themes.
Rally participants gather before the march.
Community members have lived with this for too long.
Rally participants march by the shuttered aluminum smelter.
Alcoa recently donated the “Old Ballfield” site to the Town of Badin for a park, but YRK and others believe the site needs more assessment before declaring it “safe” for a community park where children will play.
Rally participants gather near Badin Lake to listen to speakers calling on Alcoa to “Clean Up Their Mess.”
Young people from the community are ready to take on the fight of their elders.
Former Alcoa employee, Richard Leake, gives the crowd first hand information about contamination at the site.
Long time Concerned Citizens of West Badin President and former YRK board member, Macy Hinson and his wife, and Professor Pavithra Vasudevan from the University of Texas Austin, who has researched and written about the impact of the Alcoa facility on the citizens of West Badin.
YRK and its partners at the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic and the Southern Environmental Law Center will continue our long standing efforts to reduce the amount of toxins going into the River, Badin Lake, Little Mountain Creek and Lake Tillery.