Since then, Alcoa has made more than $210 million selling electricity to commercial customers. Alcoa last year sold the dams for an undisclosed price to a private-equity-backed entity called Cube Yadkin Generation LLC. Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory launched North Carolina's lawsuit in 2013 after he and Democratic predecessor Beverly Perdue for years fought Alcoa's efforts to renew its federal operating license for the dams. They argued that with the jobs gone and the smelter closed, North Carolina no longer derived benefit from the dams using the river. McCrory's lawsuit said the state was exerting the public's ownership of the riverbed. But the Richmond, Virginia-based appeals court's majority upheld a lower court ruling that Alcoa had proved it acquired clear title to 99 percent of the disputed riverbed, and that North Carolina was too late to contest the rest.