Yadkin Hydroelectric Project

Alcoa Jobs and Relicensing

by Patty

Some wonder why opposition is so strong among North Carolinians against Alcoa receiving a new 50-year relicensing to continue its hydroelectric operations on the Yadkin River. One reason for this opposition is Alcoa’s abandonment of its 1958 pledge to provide more than 900 North Carolina industrial jobs in the Central Park region when it received its previous 50-year license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), then known as the Federal Power Commission.

When the FERC granted the license to Alcoa in 1958, it made it clear that the North Carolina industrial jobs created by the Alcoa’s smelting operation at Badin – jobs that no longer exist – were a critical consideration in granting approval for the 50-year license that is now, in 2008, about to expire:

“The operations of the Badin plant of Aluminumare a useful contribution to the industrial life of the Yadkin Valley and their continuation is greatly in the public interest. It is apparent that assurance of this continuation depends upon the ability of [the applicant] to obtain a fifty-year license for the entire Yadkin Project (Project No. 2197),” the FERC wrote in 1958.

In its 1958 findings and conclusions supporting the grant of the 50-year license, FERC also noted that:

Alcoa “proposes to reconstruct its smelting plant at Badin to increase both its maximum capacity and its firm or continuous smelting capacity in order to increase the usefulness and efficiency of the said smelting plant, and such proposed reconstruction is expected to afford continued employment to more than 900 persons in the Badin area.”

That phrase – “continued employment to more than 900 persons in the Badin area” – no longer has any currency. Alcoa ended regular aluminum smelting at Badin in 2002, laying off 377 employees, then shut down the smelter entirely in June 2007. So much for “continued employment” under duration of the license.

Basically, Alcoa promised in 1958 that if it received a license from the FERC, it would maintain production at the Badin works and give more than 900 North Carolinians good, high-paying industrial jobs. Now the Badin works are closed, but Alcoa wants another 50-year relicensing of the Yadkin River dams (as well as the $40 million plus in profits from the hydroelectricity generated by those dams) without any specific mention of how its hydroelectric operations will benefit North Carolina’s economy which is hard hit by the loss of these 900 aluminum smelter jobs. The only economic consideration being offered by Alcoa are vague promises that it is working to find other sources of revenue to assist Stanly County and North Carolina. That is not enough! This multinational corporation is trying to walk away with control of OUR WATER, and the tens of millions of dollars annually that go with that control, without a commitment to contribute one red cent to our region’s struggling economy that has been so hard hit by globalization.

With this sort of activity, why should anyone believe that Alcoa will be different in its approach toward the Yadkin Project over the next five decades, if it receives a license? Does a multinational firm such as Alcoa deserve to be considered a good corporate citizen for saying it will do one thing for local jobs and doing another?

Based on what has happened so far, we do not believe so. We also think it is a question the FERC should consider seriously as it reviews Alcoa’s application for a new 50-year license.

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