-Edgar Miller, Riverkeeper/Executive Director
Photo by: Katarina Caskey, North Carolina Environmental Justice Network
At its recent meeting at the Stanly County Community College in Albemarle on September 24, Governor Roy Cooper’s Environmental Justice Advisory Council heard testimony from West Badin community members, former Alcoa employees, students from the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic (DELPC) and other advocates, including the Yadkin Riverkeeper and the NC Environmental Justice Network (NCEJN). The comments focused on the environmental impacts of the state’s delay in forcing Alcoa to clean up its former aluminum smelting site and the health impacts and environmental injustices inflicted on the West Badin community as a result of the pollution.
The NCEJN organized a tour for Advisory Council members of the area around Alcoa’s former aluminum smelter site in Badin, NC, where Alcoa disposed of hazardous waste from the smelting process in unlined landfills that YRK and others contend are continuing to leak cyanide, fluoride, aluminum and chlorine into Badin Lake, the Yadkin River and Little Mountain Creek.
Members of Gov. Roy Cooper's Environmental Justice Advisory Board listen intently to community members talking about Alcoa's toxic legacy and its disproportionate impacts on West Badin, a community of color.
Members of Concerned Citizens of West Badin (CCWB) and former Alcoa employees testified to their years of exposure to hazardous waste and the impact it has had on West Badin, an historically African-American community. Yadkin Riverkeeper (YRK) Edgar Miller focused his comments on the need for the state to move forward on issuing a new and more stringent stormwater discharge permit to eliminate the discharge of toxic stormwater into Badin Lake near the public boat access ramp and swimming areas. The current permit expired nearly two years ago, and the delay has resulted in Alcoa continuing to “game” the system and manipulate the self-monitoring process under the current permit, allowing it to release stormwater from the site with elevated levels of toxic contaminants. YRK board VP and Protect Badin Lake chair Colleen McDaniel also spoke and YRK Water Quality Specialist Stephanie Stephens attended the meeting and participated in the tour.
YRK also identified this case as one of the most significant environmental justice issues in the state and its top concern impacting the Yadkin Pee Dee watershed if action is not taken soon to remove the source of the contamination from the old inactive hazardous waste sites. It has been six years since the state proposed to issue a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Corrective Action permit for Alcoa to deal with the contaminated sites, but the permit had few if any requirements for clean up and remediation. Primarily due to the concerns raised by YRK and its partner organizations, DELPC, Southern Environmental Law Center and CCWB, the state withdrew the permit, but there has been little or no progress made towards requiring Alcoa to clean up the hazardous waste sites since that time.
YRK wants to thank the Governor’s Environmental Justice Advisory Council for holding its meeting in Stanly County and for listening to the concerns of the community and the NCEJN for organizing the tour. The Council is in an excellent position to highlight these concerns and to encourage the various state agencies that serve on the Council to get out of their silos and work together to bring environmental justice to the community of West Badin and to protect the Yadkin Pee Dee river basin from the long term treat of contamination from the Alcoa Badin Business Park.