Duke Law Clinic: From Advocacy to Action in a N.C. Town

The Environmental Law and Policy Clinic strengthens river protections

Woman in kayak testing water samples
Chloe Wetzler JD/MEM '27 labels bottles used to collect samples of stormwater outfalls on Badin Lake.

The following is a summary of a story that originally appeared on School of Law.

Duke’s Environmental Law and Policy Clinic helped residents of Badin, N.C., secure a win when the state issued a new multiyear permit to the owners of a defunct aluminum smelting plant. The permit requires stricter measurement and monitoring of polluting chemicals escaping from the site. 

Residents say that even 15 years after the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) plant closed, toxic levels of chemicals such as cyanide and fluoride continue to seep into waterways, polluting drinking water and recreation spots where people fish and swim.

Stormwater exits the site through 12 outfalls that drain into Badin Lake and Little Mountain Creek.

“Alcoa will be testing more frequently for more pollutants and also be subject to more stringent standards to protect human health and the environment,” clinic co-director Ryan Longest said. He added, “There’s continuing work to be done, but this is a tangible victory we can point to after multiple years of advocacy.”

For six semesters, clinic students helped draft a public comment letter on behalf of a coalition of environmental and justice groups. Their work strengthened the permit issued by the state under the Clean Water Act.

Longest called the result “the best permit we’ve gotten so far, and it was hard fought.”

Edgar Miller, executive director of Yadkin Riverkeeper, said, “The clinic helped us to be more effective advocates for getting Alcoa to reduce the amount of contaminated stormwater they were putting into the river.” He added that the documents submitted “brought a lot of credibility to our efforts to not only tighten up the permit, but to get the state to require additional monitoring.”

Michelle Misselwitz, a Ph.D. candidate at the Nicholas School of the Environment, who formerly worked as an analytical chemist focused on environmental and food safety testing, said the clinic was “the first time I felt like I could use my chemical expertise to directly help an impacted community.”

Read the full story on the School of Law.