Geary does it again: The Yadkin River Saga
Submitted by James on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 9:36am
For those following the wild dispute over the Yadkin River Dam between We the People and polluting profiteers at Alcoa, you'll find Bob Geary's story in this week's Independent to be a sight for sore eyes. I'll share a few snippets, but you'll really want to read the whole thing, plus the two sidebar stories. It's good stuff.
Steering his boat on Badin Lake in front of the hulking smelter, Jimmy Dick recounts how in 1958, when Alcoa last came up for license renewal, the company argued that it needed the maximum allowable term of 50 years to ensure it could recoup its planned investments in a fourth dam and in doubling the smelter's capacity. In a legal brief, the company noted that the license was subject to "recapture" when it expired, at which point "the management of Carolina Aluminum could not rely on any assured source of power" for the plant.
The point, Jimmy Dick says angrily, is that Alcoa knew half a century ago that its license—which he terms a contract, not "property"—was for a limited time. Alcoa also knew that it could make big bucks in Badin before the contract was up. But now, as local leaders try to reclaim the license, he says, Alcoa acts like it owns the river and should be allowed to stay there forever.
::
"It was a contract," Dick shouts over the wind and his pontoon's engine. "They got their 50 years with our public resource, and the benefit to the public was the jobs. But now the jobs are gone, and the contract's finished, and we want our resource back. So, Alcoa, get the hell out."
As one of my old business partners used to say, "A deal's a deal." There's no way Alcoa is going to win this. Because even if it does go all the way through the courts and end up back in Congress, Senator Kay Hagan is going to stand squarely with the people of North Carolina, not with a polluting absentee dam operator who's wants to continue to exploit one of our state's most vital natural resources.
That's what one principled person in the US Senate can do, all by herself. Right, Kay?
The Independent
The Independent (Indy Week) does some the best investigative reporting you'll ever see. Be sure you click through to the story, and if you have other blogs, give them some link love there, too.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
Okay, I know I'm
going to be in the minority on this here, and maybe even all by my lonesome. But there are some aspects of this issue that people are just outright missing.
First, Bob is wrong when he surmises that all that power produced by the dams could have been used by either the folks living around there (powering homes, I guess), or it could have been used by a bunch of smaller companies, but instead the smelter came along. Well, the dams were actually built for the smelter, not the other way around. Without the smelter, it's entirely likely the dams wouldn't have been built, and all those folks enjoying Badin Lake would have to spray each other with hoses to get their watersports in.
Second, and I've mentioned this before and I'll say it again: The single biggest driver of new renewable energy projects is the premium price that renewable energy credits draw from the market. And the reason they are so high is due to several individual states' (like ours) Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (REPS). That's the effect we were looking for, and it's working. Let me say that again: It's working.
Privately-financed renewable energy projects are popping up all over the place. So when I see these folks whining about ALCOA profiting from selling these credits, and claiming the power should be given (or sold) to them cheaply, I want to scream.
All that being said, there is no good reason why we don't have a handle on the amount of pollution from ALCOA's operations that needs cleaning up. A healthy chunk of the profits being made from the power sold should be redirected towards cleanup. But here's the thing: If DENR, DWQ or the EPA haven't moved on ALCOA to get this stuff straightened out, or even figured out what needs straightening out, who reading this actually believes the people sitting on the Yadkin River Trust (if it's ever anointed) will be forced or even encouraged to devote power profits for cleanup?
Oookay. That's probably more than enough for now. Steve is a little cranky.
There is no clean up
That's never going to happen, no how, no way. Alcoa won't do it, a river trust wouldn't either. The most that will happen is a gigantic payment in lieu of remediation, and that will simply be a windfall clump of money that dissipates into thin air like all other windfalls.
Alcoa has no intrinsic right to own and operate this dam. They had a contract, in force for five decades, that has expired. There doesn't appear to be any provision that can be interpreted to favor them extending the contract. It's white space where anything can happen.
The new generation of investors in renewables will, presumably, make different contracts up and down their supply chains with provisions for continuity and rights. This contract doesn't seem to have either.
Starting from the blank slate in front of us, I find it hard to make the case that a company with no interest or service in North Carolina should be the entity permitted to operate the dam. The least we could do it open it up for bids. What would Duke Energy pay to have control of the dam? Maybe nothing ... maybe a lot. I don't know.
Like I said above, a deal's a deal. Just because Alcoa regrets the deal they made 50 years ago, so what?
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
I think Duke would jump
at the chance to take over the operation. If they could sell the credits on the open market, that is. If the state (or the trust) decided to go along with what many of the folks are asking for, which is selling the power to locals at a discount rate, Duke wouldn't touch it. It would probably end up a fiasco, ala Electricities.
Frankly, I'm not really concerned about ALCOA being mistreated. They've got their money's worth out of their investment, several times over. As long as the dams keep making juice, and the sale of that juice inspires others to make juice, I'll be happy.
I never could get a good answer about the Hoover Dam
when I visited it about how the profits from energy generated there were dispersed. This was after all one of the big New Deal projects, surely the people who built it must get great benefit from it. This link is as close as I could get http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/faqs/powerfaq.html
It's comparing apples to oranges I'm sure, but maybe we can learn something from an advantageous arrangement elsewhere.
Progressives are the true conservatives.
I never could get a good answer about the Hoover or Boulder Dam
This was after all one of the big New Deal projects, surely the people who built it must get great benefit from it* LoftT
Sorry! But the Hoover Dam or the Boulder Dam was never a project of the New Deal by Roosevelt
"The first attempt to gain Congressional approval for construction of Boulder Dam came in 1922 with the introduction of two bills in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The bills were introduced by Congressman Phil D. Swing and Senator Hiram W. Johnson and were known as the Swing-Johnson bills. The bills failed to come up for a vote and were subsequently reintroduced several times. In December 1928, both the House and the Senate finally approved the bill and sent it to the President for approval. On December 21, 1928, President Calvin Coolidge signed the bill approving the Boulder Canyon Project. The initial appropriation for construction was made in July 1930, by which time Herbert Hoover had become President."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_dam