A chemical manufacturing company responsible for contaminating the drinking water sources of tens of thousands of North Carolinians is not adequately curbing its releases of PFAS into the environment, a Wilmington-based environmental group says.
In a recent notice to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Cape Fear River Watch asserts that Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant continues to exceed emission and discharge limits established under a 2019 consent order.
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Chemours “is breaking their word – they are violating the consent order and continuing to pollute our air and water with forever chemicals,” Cape Fear River Keeper Kemp Burdette said in a release.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are commonly referred to as “forever chemicals” because they are persistent and virtually indestructible in the environment. These human-made chemical compounds are used to manufacture a host of consumer goods, including stain-resistant apparel and nonstick cookware.
“We demand that NCDEQ use its authority to hold Chemours accountable and force the company to protect people’s health and the environment,” Burdette said. “If the state fails to protect its citizens, and chooses to protect Chemours instead, we’ll go back to court.”
A Chemours spokesperson refutes claims that the company is violating multiple provisions of the consent order with the River Watch group and DEQ.
“Chemours has taken significant actions in implementing the Consent Order, including installing advanced emissions controls and abatement technologies, water treatment and remediation systems, monitoring programs, and replacement drinking water supplies,” Cassie Olszewski, Chemours’ media relations and reputation leader, said in an email to Coastal Review.
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Olszewski declined to answer specific questions because of potential legal action.
Jean Zhuang, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing Cape Fear River Watch, said in an email Monday that NCDEQ had not responded to its request to meet to discuss its compliance concerns with the agency and Chemours, but “we expect it to happen soon.”
“If Chemours and/or DEQ do not meet with us or address the Consent Order violations, then we will have to go to court,” Zhuang said.
Chemours, for decades, knowingly discharged PFAS directly into the Cape Fear River from its plant some 75 miles upstream of Wilmington.
Some of the known human health effects of exposure to PFAS include weakened immunity, low birth weight in newborns, thyroid disease, and increased risk for certain types of cancer. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency categorizes nearly 15,000 different PFAS.
In a nine-page letter sent Sept. 23 to Chemours and DEQ officials, SELC attorneys said the company has failed to develop and implement corrective action plans to remediate ground water contamination and has not cut down on its PFAS discharges into local waterways, including the Cape Fear River, and its air emissions under terms set forth in the consent order.
In March of this year, GEL Engineering found high levels of ultra-short chain PFAS in sampling it collected from Willis Creek, a tributary of the Cape Fear River. Those compounds are not among the list of 17 PFAS Chemours tests for to determine its load reductions in the creek.
“Today, contaminated groundwater discharging to Willis Creek is the leading source of PFAS entering the Cape Fear River from the Fayetteville Works facility,” SELC wrote in the letter. “Indeed, Chemours acknowledges that it has only decreased PFAS flowing into Willis Creek by about half – far short of the 75 percent reduction the Consent Order requires.”
Levels of pollution in Georgia Branch, another Cape Fear River tributary, are similarly high, the letter states, and Chemours has not shown that it has reduced total PFAS flowing into the Cape Fear River by at least 75%.
SELC attorneys also point out that Chemours reports PFAS-contaminated groundwater still migrates around the 1-mile-long underground barrier wall the company installed between the Fayetteville plant and Cape Fear River.
The company has reported total PFAS concentrations in excess of 130,000 parts per trillion at one groundwater seep. Concentrations of GenX “alone have reached 7,500 ppt,” according to SELC. Pollution at another seep is “similarly dire.”
DEQ Deputy Communications Director Josh Kastrinsky said in an email that the agency “remains committed to holding Chemours accountable for all remaining obligations under the Consent Order and ensuring that Chemours operates in full compliance with all environmental laws and regulations.”
The $590 million settlement reached between the state, 11 local governments, DuPont and Chemours in mid-September preserves DEQ’s full regulatory authority over the plant’s ongoing operations, including air emissions and water discharges, he said.
The agreement guarantees $455 million to be paid over the next 10 to 15 years to the state and local governments, including Brunswick and New Hanover counties, Wrightsville Beach, Village of Bald Head Island and the Lower Cape fear Water and Sewer Authority.
Roughly $55 million is expected to be funneled to a recently legislatively created Emerging Contaminant Mitigation Fund.
“While the State’s settlement recognizes that a number of the provisions of the 2019 Consent Order have been satisfied, the Settlement Agreement makes clear that several significant Consent Order obligations (including the requirement to provide clean drinking water to affected residents, address groundwater contamination and its impact on surface waters) remain incomplete and require further action by Chemours,” Kastrinsky said in the email. “In fact, the settlement bolsters the remaining Consent Order obligations in two important ways: 1) by establishing a reserve fund to continue the work under the Consent Order should Chemours be financially unable to do so; and 2) by reinforcing that NCDEQ will continue to enforce the remaining obligations under the consent order and establishing a process to expedite Chemours addressing some of the more significant remaining long-term obligations.”
