Legislation paving the way for a government takeover of the Alcoa’s Yadkin River dams may have failed in the recent General Assembly session, but Gov. Bev Perdue isn’t giving up, reports Carolina Journal’s Don Carrington.
Imagine this — neither Perdue nor Sen. Fletcher Hartsell, who sponsored the bill creating the Yadkin River Trust —which would control the project after the state takes over —- has no idea how much it will cost:
Alcoa does not want to surrender the project, but even if forced to, the company says the state would have to pay fair-market value, estimated by the company at more than $500 million.
Faison Hicks, an lawyer with the attorney general’s office involved with Perdue’s effort, acknowledged that even if the state can take over the project, there is no way to know how much it will cost.
The Fiscal Note attached to Hartsell’s bill “anticipates that the cost of acquiring the Yadkin Project would fall somewhere within the range of $24.2 million to over $500 million, with the most likely estimate being something closer to the estimated market value of $176 million,” based on the tax valuation of the property.
Nice.
