WILMINGTON – Officials and environmental groups in North Carolina are blasting Chemours’ proposed $450 million federal settlement over PFAS pollution, saying the deal will do little for the state.
The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday announced the multistate agreement, touting it as the federal government’s first comprehensive settlement over per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances pollution.
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Under the terms of the settlement, Chemours is expected to pay the Environmental Protection Agency and West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection a $22.5 million civil penalty over three years, and pump in $90 million over 15 years “to further reduce PFAS emissions and enhance certain existing off-site drinking water programs,” according to a company release.
The company will spend an estimated $60 million installing pollution controls for surface water discharges and air emissions at its West Virginia plant, cover an estimated $280 million in costs to provide clean drinking water for more than a decade to residents of communities around its facilities in West Virginia and New Jersey, and “evaluate options and implement corresponding controls to reduce releases of PFAS and other toxic chemicals from its facility in North Carolina,” according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Gov. Josh Stein expressed doubts about whether North Carolina, one of three states named in the agreement, will actually receive any portion of those funds.
“It’s entirely possible that North Carolina doesn’t get a dime from this federal settlement,” Stein said Wednesday afternoon during home visit with a Wilmington-area family that uses a state-funded water filtration system to remove PFAS from their drinking water.
“The settlement that they just announced today will not have any meaningful impact for the state of North Carolina or the people of North Carolina,” he said. “It may help West Virginia, it may help New Jersey, but it really doesn’t do much for North Carolina.”
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Clean Cape Fear Co-founder Emily Donovan agreed.
“If Chemours is unable to control its own pollution for follow the law without a constant stream of lawsuits, then maybe it has no business making toxic forever chemicals,” she stated in a release. “We’re not sure who this favors. It isn’t those of us in North Carolina who have been dealing with nearly half a century of PFAS pollution from the Fayetteville Works facility.”
Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Jean Zhuang said the settlement is devoid of meaningful enforcement and “appears designed to shield Chemours from real accountability.”
“The Department of Justice has wrapped a sweeping set of allegations involving drinking water contamination affecting millions of Americans into a resolution that largely asks the company to monitor itself and develop plans, while surrendering its claims tied to contamination from multiple facilities across multiple states,” Zhuang stated in a release. “At the same time DOJ is resolving its litigation on such lenient terms, Chemours is actively challenging federal PFAS drinking water standards in court, seeking a massive expansion of its North Carolina facility, and continuing to release extremely high concentrations of ultra-short-chain PFAS – chemicals it knows are likely ending up in drinking water for roughly half a million North Carolinians.”
Public hearing set on standards
Wednesday’s announcement comes as the Environmental Protection Agency rolls ahead with a proposal to strike down the nation’s first-ever health standards for PFAS, chemical contaminants found in the drinking water sources of millions of North Carolinians.
The agency is scheduled to host a virtual public hearing on July 7 regarding its plans to rescind and reconsider current federal standards for HFPO-DA, commonly referred to as GenX, PFNA, PFHxS and PFBS. The agency also wants to push the deadline in which water utilities must comply with enforceable standards for PFOA and PFOS, chemicals that are no longer manufactured, by two years from 2029 to 2031.
Meanwhile, the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission is considering monitoring and minimization rules for discharges of PFOS, PFOA, GenX, and 1,4-dioxane, which the EPA classifies as a likely human-carcinogen, into the state’s surface waters. The proposed rules have been widely criticized for lacking specific discharge limits and penalties for PFAS dischargers found to be in violation of the rules.
Stein said he is “not happy” with the EPA’s and commission’s proposals.
“These are both unfortunate steps that do not give the people the assurance that they deserve that their drinking water is clean,” he said.
Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant in Bladen County for decades directly discharged GenX and other chemical compounds into the Cape Fear River, the drinking water sources for tens of thousands of residents in the Cape Fear Region.
Stein pointed out that Chemours, under a 2019 consent order with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and Cape Fear River Watch, has already been required to mitigate discharges and emissions of PFAS from its Fayetteville Works facility.
“What we need help from Chemours today, and the settlement doesn’t address this point, is we need Chemours and DuPont to pay to help us clean up the pollution that exists in our communities,” he said.
As part of ongoing environmental remediation efforts in the state, Chemours has been required to test tens of thousands of private drinking water wells for PFAS contamination throughout the Cape Fear Region. The company must provide temporary drinking water supplies to households with wells that contain levels of PFAS above concentrations established by environmental and health officials until a new, permanent supply, whether through a home filtration system or hook up to a public water system, is provided at the company’s expense.
Although the well water at the home of Brenda and Vance Moore tested positive for PFAS, levels of types of those contaminants in their drinking source did not rate the thresholds that make Chemours responsible for providing alternative water supplies to them.
Thousands of North Carolinians are in the same situation, state officials, including Stein and N.C. Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Reid Wilson, explained Wednesday during their visit to the Moores’ home in Porters Neck, an unincorporated community in northern New Hanover County.
“My question is we’re 10 miles from the river,” Brenda Moore said about the Cape Fear. “How did these chemicals get here?”
Moore, a breast cancer survivor, said she can’t definitely prove that her illness, or her daughter Lauren’s skin and thyroid problems, stem from drinking PFAS-contaminated water for years. Still, “you wonder,” she said.
PFAS are a group of chemicals used to make water-, stain- and grease-resistant consumer goods. The EPA now categorizes nearly 15,000 PFAS, most of which have yet to be studied for their potential effects on human health. But some of the known human health effects of PFAS included weakened immunity, low birth weight in newborns, thyroid disease, and certain types of cancers.
The Moores qualified for funding through the Bernard Allen Emergency Drinking Water Fund, which reimburses residents for water treatment systems or, where feasible, public waterline connections when their wells are contaminated.
The North Carolina General Assembly in 2006 created the fund to improve the state’s response to drinking well water contamination and help low-income households receive safe drinking water.
In 2022, DEQ opened the program statewide, allowing residents with PFAS-contaminated private drinking water wells to receive assistance in cases where an individual or company is not held responsible for the pollution.
The program funded the approximately $3,500 reverse osmosis filtration system installed under the Moore family’s kitchen sink in October 2023.
Stein said North Carolina will continue its legal actions to get compensation from Chemours and its affiliated companies for responding to PFAS pollution.
“There is a lot of pollution that already exists throughout southeastern North Carolina and the polluters should be the one to pay and clean it up, not us, the people, and that’s why I took them to court and that action is continuing,” he said.
