Those who smelt it now get dealt with.

• Position: Charlotte

Alcoa Inc. is learning the hard way that e-mails never go away. They just resurface during legal proceedings. Late last year, state environmental officials yanked the aluminum maker's clean-water certificate to operate four hydroelectric dams on the Yadkin River, saying that internal e-mails released at an administrative trial showed Alcoa had misled regulators about the effectiveness of its actions to improve water quality.

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Without that certificate, New York-based Alcoa can't finalize its application to renew its license to operate the dams another 50 years. The dams used to power Alcoa's smelter complex in Badin, which opened in 1917 and closed in 2007, and the power is now sold into the wholesale electricity market. Gov. Beverly Perdue wants the state to take over the dams. She says Alcoa no longer deserves the license, because the manufacturing operations that were the company's reason for building them have closed.

Alcoa argues that the e-mails just show what one official calls "a healthy debate" about technical issues and that the company is committed to water quality. It plans to appeal the revocation, but it also is adopting a more conciliatory tone toward locals in Stanly County and politicians in Raleigh.

Alcoa had long sought to separate the smelter from the dams, arguing that closing the first shouldn't have any bearing on relicensing the second. Now, it's putting the search for a new tenant for the smelter property front and center. "We know it's really a separate issue," says Kevin...