Skip to main content

Home/ Yadkin Docs/ Group items tagged John

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Yadkin River

Alcoa Needs a New Game Plan: - 0 views

video.cnbc.com/gallery

ALCOA chinese YADKIN financial New strategy missing EPS

shared by Yadkin River on 20 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Alcoa Needs a New Game Plan: Strategist Tue 11 Oct 11 | 06:40 PM ET John Licata, Chief Commodity Strategist at Blue Phoenix says Alcoa can't keep counting on past ways to succeed, and needs to start entering new product markets.
  • Yadkin River on 20 Dec 11
     
    Alcoa Needs a New Game Plant Strategist John Licata, Chief Commodity Strategist at Blue Phoenix says Alcoa can't keep counting on past ways to succeed, and needs to start entering new product markets.
Yadkin River

Whose water is it anyway!? - 0 views

www.yesweekly.com/...whose-water-is-it-anyway_.html

water Alcoa Yadkin Commissioners Governor Legislators

shared by Yadkin River on 06 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • COALITION OF CITIZENS, POLITICIANS AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS BATTLE ALCOA TO RETURN THE YADKIN RIVER TO THE PEOPLE
  • “The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life,” Roosevelt told Congress in 1907.
  • Naujoks referred to Teddy Roosevelt’s well known opposition to corporate monopolies and his firm belief the nation’s natural resources belong to the people. Naujoks cited Roosevelt’s philosophy to highlight the disparity between the legendary president’s philosophy and FERC’s policies
  • ...33 more annotations...
  • Gov. Beverly Perdue officially came on board with the Yadkin River Coalition — a group of local businessmen, citizens and politicians who oppose Alcoa’s re-licensing efforts — last September and her influence has proved invaluable to the cause.
  • The governor’s office filed papers with the FERC “seeking return of the right to plan the use of the Yadkin River flows and the Yadkin hydroelectric project for the benefit of the people of North Carolina,” according to a press release
  • Recapturing the water rights to the Yadkin is essential to the health and well being of the citizens of the nearly 25 counties that comprise the Yadkin River Basin, Perdue stated.
  • “Given the Yadkin River’s broad impact on the state, we believe strongly that the state is the most appropriate body to plan use of this invaluable natural resource, to help assure the region’s municipal water supply and quality and to facilitate future growth and development,” Perdue stated.
  • “Given the Yadkin River’s broad impact on the state, we believe strongly that the state is the most appropriate body to plan use of this invaluable natural resource, to help assure the region’s municipal water supply and quality and to facilitate future growth and development,” Perdue stated.
  • The Badin Works aluminum smelting plant did bring 1,000 jobs to the area after Alcoa applied for its water rights license in 1958. But Alcoa, a multi-billion dollar corporation and the world’s largest producer of aluminum, ceased operations at the plant in 2007. The plant employed only 377 people when it shut down, said Alcoa spokesman Gene Ellis.
  • One of the first legislators to take their side was NC Sen. Fletcher L. Hartsell Jr., who represents Cabarrus and Iredell counties. Hartsell came on board with the Yadkin River Coalition two years ago after meeting with Dick, Jim Nance, a former board member of the NC Department of Transportation, and Stanly County Commissioner Lindsey Dunevant at his legislative offices in Raleigh.
  • But after he studied the Federal Power Act, he became fascinated with the issue of Alcoa attempting to maintain its monopoly over the 38-mile stretch of the Yadkin. Convinced of the appropriateness of the coalition’s cause, Hartsell signed on and recruited fellow Republican state senator, Stan Bingham.
  • “As far as I’m concerned, Alcoa got the gold mine and we got the shaft,” Bingham said
  • “The little town of Denton is having to pay [Alcoa] for the use of the water coming down the Yadkin for drinking,” Bingham said. “The way that’s calculated is they charge because it’s a loss of power generation…. This whole thing was done many, many years ago, and a lot of people didn’t think about the people they were dealing with at the time.”
  • “Alcoa and others keep talking about it being a ‘taking’ [of property],” Hartsell said. “It’s not a taking; it’s not even close to it. All we’re asking Alcoa to do is to fulfill the obligations that were identified in 1958 that they agreed to.”
  • “They acknowledged when the license was up, they no longer had the right to use the property,” Hartsell explained. “We’re saying there needs to be an equivalency for the run of our river, and when I say ‘our,’ I mean everybody’s. It’s not a private entity. The feds and the state have had control of the run of the rivers since the beginning of the republic.” The language of the Federal Power Act includes a stipulation that the controlling entity, in this case Alcoa, must estimate the recapture value of the resource in the event it must surrender the rights to that resource, Hartsell said. “There is a statutory formula for how you calculate recapture and Alcoa computed it to be $24.2 million in 2006,” Hartsell said.
  • Yadkin River Trust Bil
  • The bill clearly outlines the three primary issues at stake — A) who controls the waters of the Yadkin for the next 50 years; B) the environmental issue related to the condition or quality of the water itself and the immediate environs; and C) the use of the electricity generated by the run of the river.
  • “[Alcoa] signed an agreement. We’re just asking them to live up to their own word,” he said. “The state of North Carolina intervened 50 years ago on Alcoa’s behalf to assist them to get a 50-year license and operate the plant at Badin, but conditions have changed dramatically. If they’re going to use it, what is the return to the people of the state on the state’s investment in the raw material, which is the water? That water is owned by the people.”
  • Alcoa’s re-licensing application represents “the mother of all incentives,” Hartsell said. “They want the state to concede they should have $1 billion in benefit over the next 50 years and provide nothing to the state,” he said.
  • “Why should we give it away?” Hartsell continued. “From an economic development perspective, energy is the major issue associated with job growth and development regardless of the industry.”
  • He pointed out that Alcoa is capitalizing on the hydroelectric energy generated by the Yadkin by selling electricity “on the grid” rather than investing in the local communities.
  • “We’re dealing with John Dillinger and Al Capone,” Bingham said. “Alcoa reaps [millions] in profits each year and North Carolina gets zilch.”
  • An environmental study commissioned by Stanly County and conducted by professor John Rodgers of Clemson University last year established a connection between contami nation of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in fish and soil samples taken from Badin Lake near Alcoa’s Badin Works operation. Rodgers’ findings led the Yadkin River Coalition to appeal the waterquality certification issued by the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources, or DENR. Administrative Law Judge Joe Webster granted an injunction on May 26 prohibiting DENR from issuing a 401 Water Quality Certification to Alcoa until the full appeal is heard.
  • The state issued a fish-consumption advisory for Badin Lake between Stanly and Montgomery counties last February due to elevated levels of PCBs found in largemouth bass and catfish
  • Alcoa attempted to block the advisory by filing a legal appeal. The company claimed that the state “changed its stated evaluation criteria after the study was complete and held Badin Lake to a different standard than the other lakes and rivers in North Carolina,” according to a posting on a company website.
  • Bingham said Alcoa’s objection to the posting of the fish-consumption advisory speaks volumes about their concern for the people who swim and fish at Badin Lake.
  • “It just tells me how they do business,” Bingham said. “They fought the fish-advisory signs; they say we’re taking their property and we have no rights to the water. We’re stuck with the bastards, at least for the moment, but I feel good about the direction of the fight we’re taking on in the future.”
  • Naujoks said he’s concerned about the high concentration of PCBs in the landfills and dumping sites near Alcoa’s four hydroelectric dams. Naujoks said Alcoa has not been entirely forthcoming about the number of waste dumping sites in and around their facilities.
  • They’re not showing us where all the buried bodies are found. As we start digging down through the layers, we’re going to find much more.”
  • “Alcoa knows they can’t hide these dumping sites,” Naujoks said
  • A PROMISING FUTURE Bingham said once Perdue joined the Yadkin River Coalition, it changed everything. “It’s been wonderful; it’s been extremely important,” he said. “We were facing a multi-billion-dollar corporation, but when the governor lis tened to our pleas, they began to take this extremely seriously. They realized they’re in for a fight.”
  • Bingham said the coalition will never quit until the Yadkin River is returned to the people of North Carolina.
  • “Our legal case could take years to resolve, but the campaign to support the legislation through the coalition and FERC re-licensing could be decided within the next year,” he said. “We will work on a targeted campaign to unify and strengthen grassroots efforts of local governments, public interest organizations, businesses and individuals to reclaim the waters of the Yadkin River to benefit the public interest.”
  • Bingham said he can see a day in the near future when the Yadkin is returned to the people and the economy of the 25 counties in the Yadkin River Basin begin to flourish.
  • The NC Department of Health and Human Services issued a fish-consumption advisory last February on Badin Lake after high levels of PCBs were found in fish tissue samples. Alcoa unsuccessfully filed a legal challenge to the advisory last April. The advisory remains in effect.
  • We can offer industry power at a reduced rate and that plays a big part in manufacturing,” he said. “That would be a tremendous incentive. For years, we’ve stood by the sidelines and watched industries go elsewhere. We don’t have anything to offer industry
Yadkin River

Steel chief hits out at US-China plant critics - FT.com - 0 views

www.ft.com/...59-11df-a860-00144feab49a.html

Correnti steel CleanTech hydro china chinese Investors

shared by Yadkin River on 04 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • plan to build a steel plant in the US partly funded by one of China’s biggest steel companies has hit out at his critics, saying that objections to the scheme are a “ploy” by established US companies to block fair competition.
  • John Correnti, chief executive and part owner of Steel Development, which intends to construct a $168m plant in Amory, Mississippi, with the aid of investment by state-owned Anshan Iron & Steel, dismissed as “ludicrous” a claim by a group of US congressmen that the involvement of a Chinese company could potentially damage US national security.
  • Mr Correnti’s project in Mississippi – which he says is part of a bigger $2bn scheme to build a total of four steel plants in undisclosed locations US-wide – comes at a difficult time for the country’s steel industry which was severely affected by the 2008-09 economic crisis and is recovering only slowly.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • It also exacerbates tensions between the US and China.
  • Parts of the US business community are concerned at what they regard as a “mercantilist” approach to industry by Beijing, under which the country is said to use levers such as the undervalued renminbi to help Chinese companies.
  • Tom Danjczek, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association, a trade group, which represents most of the large mini-mill companies, said his members “particularly objected” to the presence in Mr Correnti’s investment group of Anshan. That was on the grounds that the company benefited from Beijing’s assistance, in the form “of easy access to government loans and an artificially low currency”. State-owned Anshan benefited from such government help in a way that was denied to its competitors in the US, he said. In a letter sent in July to Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, a group of Congressmen representing steel producing districts claimed the planned involvement of Anshan in the Amory project could threaten US national security.
Yadkin River

State lawmakers approve Calisolar incentives package - The Dispatch - 0 views

www.cdispatch.com/...article.asp

CleanTech columbus Correnti Mississippi

shared by Yadkin River on 23 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • John T. Correnti, former CEO of SeverCorr (now Severstal) of Columbus, has served as chairman of the company''s board of directors since 2010 and reportedly has maintained close ties with Mississippi. The company has been in negotiations with Ohio officials since April, but the deal fell through in July when company representatives told the Mansfield News Journal in Mansfield, Ohio, that they were unable to meet a September construction deadline to qualify for a $275 million federal loan guarantee. Higgins said Lowndes County''s ability to meet Calisolar''s high power needs (nearly 170 MW of power, or roughly 40 MW more than the entire city of Columbus), along with Mississippi''s status as a right-to-work (non-union) state and the willingness of legislators to pass an attractive incentive package, may have tipped the balance in the Magnolia State''s favor.
  • "The reason we''re coming here, and I''m going to be frank, is the Mississippi farm boys and the farm girls," Correnti said, according to The AP. "I wouldn''t trade a Mississippi farm boy or farm girl for any Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, South American.
  • AP reports that details of Mississippi''s incentive package include a $59.5 million loan for the building and equipment, with Lowndes County retaining ownership of the building and leasing it to them. The state is also providing $15.75 million for infrastructure and workforce training.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the state''s unemployment rate was 11.1 percent for July, and Lowndes County''s unemployment rate was 12.4 percent. The national unemployment rate is 9.1 percent, or approximately 14 million people.
1 - 8 of 8
Showing 20▼ items per page