Badin Lake Fish Advisory Consumption Signs Are Finally Up - But Does Alcoa Get It?
Good news: Six months after finding PCBs in fish in Badin Lake, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services has finally posted a fish consumption advisory for pregnant women, nursing women and children under age 15 to avoid eating catfish and largemouth bass caught there, as PCBs are probable cancer-causing agents.
Bad news: Alcoa, the operator of the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project for more than 50 years that encompasses Badin Lake, filed a legal challenge to the posting of these signs despite claiming it is concerned about the health and welfare of the community.
Worst news: A more recent study since the original DHHS notice directly links PCBs generated by Alcoa's operations with the PCBs in the lake. Yet Alcoa still insists that it will be a good environmental steward for the Project in the future.
Alcoa's position fails totally in light of the history behind installing the fish consumption advisory signs. On Feb. 11, 2009, the DHHS announced it had discovered elevated levels of PCBs in fish at Badin Lake, a 5,300-acre reservoir that empties into the Yadkin River through the Narrows Dam, following water quality questions raised by opponents of Alcoa's effort to win a new 50-year license to continue operating the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project. That study involved 30 fish samples, but it was inconclusive about the source of the PCBs in the lake. Still, it was enough information to prompt an announcement in the media about a fish advisory consumption for Badin Lake.
While Alcoa fought posting that advisory on signs at the lake, water quality expert John H. Rodgers, Jr., Ph.D. followed up the research by studying seven sediment samples from the lake collected April 2 and information on the PCBs used at the Alcoa Badin Works Facility provided by the N.C. Division of Waste Management. As PCBs are a family of industrial chlorinated chemical compounds that include 209 possible forms, or "congeners," Dr. Rodgers and Dr. Matt Huddleston analyzed the PCB congeners and concentrations in the fish tissue with those in sediment samples from the southwest arm of Badin Lake (near the Alcoa facility), the northwest arm and the northeast arm.
Using that information, Dr. Rodgers released a study that indicates there is a relationship between PCBs used at Alcoa's Badin Works facility on the Yadkin River and the PCBs found in the fish and sediments in Badin Lake. Congeners detected in the fish tissue provided further evidence of sediments as a source of PCBs, while PCB congeners detected in sediments from the southwest arm (near the Alcoa facility) have concentrations 10 to 100 times greater than sediments from other parts of the lake.
This revelation brought silence from Alcoa. That is understandable. But why did they keep fighting installing the fish consumption advisory signs on their property until mid-August? It is bad enough not to acknowledge guilt in a harmful incident, but quite worse to actively cover it up and deceive the public.
The signs are in English and Spanish and warn about the risk of cancer, infection or skin problems resulting from eating contaminated fish from the lake. They are a good start to addressing the situation. But they are not the solution. That involves a change in ownership for the Project, given Alcoa's stance.
Having a multinational firm with virtually no ties to an area receive a 50-year license to exploit natural resources as a monopoly to the point where it endangers the well-being of a community is wrong. It is even more deplorable when that same firm is the specific reason for the suffering. That is what is happening with the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project. Since Alcoa is intent on denying facts about its toxic legacy, we as North Carolinians must be just as vigilant in holding the organization accountable for the damage it has caused and reject its relicensing application for another half-century of abusive domination over the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project. And there is no sign we can install to stop that from occurring.
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