WILMINGTON – For more than two hours, residents in an area considered ground zero for PFAS contamination in North Carolina passionately, often angrily, chastised the Environmental Management Commission’s proposed PFAS monitoring and minimization rules.

Dozens of people who signed up to speak – 60 in all – at the public hearing Thursday in downtown Wilmington took turns at a podium unleashing what turned into a collective no-holds-barred rebuke of the proposed rules and, at times, the commissioners who pushed them forward for public comment.

Several of those who spoke in front of a crowd of about 230 people who filled a room in Wilmington’s Skyline Center shared stories about their own health issues, illnesses their loved ones have suffered, and family and friends they’ve lost to various forms of cancer.

Throughout the hearing, people snapped their fingers, signaling their agreement with those speaking at the podium. At the close of every short speech, the audience erupted in rousing applause and cheers.

The sheer number of people who signed up to speak prompted Environmental Management Commissioner Yvonne Bailey, the hearing officer that evening, to ask that residents limit their comments to two minutes.

“Those of us living here have advocated relentlessly at the local, state and federal level, and even at the U.N. for protection of our air and water,” said New Hanover County resident Priss Endo. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality “has proposed new surface water standards, but in response, the Environmental Management Commission is proposing regulations that will still allow 500 industries across the state to release PFAS chemicals.”

The hearing last week was the third and final the commission scheduled this year on its proposed monitoring and minimization rules for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA; perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, or PFOS; and a branded compound called GenX developed by DuPont spinoff Chemours. The commission has also been hosting public hearings on similar proposed rules for the monitoring and minimization of 1,4-dioxane, an industrial solvent and likely human carcinogen that has also been found in downstream drinking water sources.

PFAS are a mixture of chemicals used in a host of consumer products from nonstick cookware and food packaging to stain-resistant carpets, water-repellant attire, and makeup.

These chemicals have been found in numerous drinking water sources in North Carolina and traced back to discharges from industrial manufacturers, landfills, firefighting facilities and publicly owned treatment works that accept industry effluent.

Ongoing research into human health effects of PFAS, of which there are more than 15,000 related compounds, have found that some of the substances, including PFOA and PFOS, have been linked to health issues such as weakened immune response, liver damage, low infant birth weights, and higher risk of certain cancers.

Nearly a decade has passed since residents in the Lower Cape Fear region first learned through a local newspaper article that Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility in Bladen County had for decades knowingly discharged PFAS directly into the Cape Fear River.

Since then, public drinking water utilities that pull raw water from the river have spent millions of dollars upgrading their facilities with filtration systems and methods to keep PFAS out of their final product.

Chemours, under a 2019 consent order, has had to test thousands of privately owned drinking water wells for contamination.

“The 2019 consent order was a start,” resident Jim Nesbit said. “It’s not enough. Your mission is to protect the health of the people of this state. Use the full authority you have to take on the pollution of corporations.”

The PFAS monitoring and minimization rules the commission agreed to put out for public comment have remained under a hail of verbal fire from residents, the public utilities that provide their drinking water, and environmental organizations throughout the Cape Fear region.

As written, the rules do not set specific discharge limits or penalties for PFAS dischargers found to be in violation of those rules.

“As a 33-year water professional and former EMC member, I am testifying that the voluntary minimization plans, as proposed, are ineffective,” Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Ken Waldroup said Thursday. “They’re essentially empty facades that do not solve the problem. These minimization plans do not remove PFAS from the Cape Fear River because all reductions are voluntary. Voluntary plans are simply ineffective. Upstream dischargers have had decades to disclose and minimize their PFAS discharges. Unfortunately, history has shown that dischargers only do so in response to effective regulation with specific mandatory limits or mitigation.”

Dr. LeShonda Wallace, who serves on the advisory board for the GenX Exposure Study, one that is measuring GenX and other PFAS exposure in area residents, said the proposed rules ignore science.

Instead, the proposed rules prioritize corporate convenience over public health, she said.

“The impacts are also economic as well as generational,” Wallace said. “PFAS contamination reduces property values, and it shifts the cost away from the polluters and on to the rate payers. Environmental protection and justice requires that those who cause the pollution pay to prevent it and that they pay to clean it up, and I urge the commission to reject these ineffective minimization rules and adopt enforceable, evidence-based standards that reduce pollution at the source.”

Lifelong New Hanover County resident Chip Jackson carried a doll baby with him to the podium.

“I came here tonight to tell this panel how ignorant I have been. I’ve been ignorant because nine years ago I trusted you people. I trusted you to do something,” he said. “I’ll give y’all a pro tip. When you see a baby float by in a stream, you look upstream to see who threw it in the stream.”

Resident Rosemary Schmitt said she simply wants to trust that the water coming out of her tap is not harmful.

“Drinking water should be safe, not something that comes with a list of side effects,” she said.

Just two weeks away from graduating with an undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, Tyler Raines said he was in a conundrum.

“I don’t have much else to say that hasn’t already been said about the economic, environmental, and social impacts of PFAS on the health of all human beings,” he said. “As I think about where I’m planning to root myself post-graduation, I find myself at a loss. Do I stay here in Wilmington and get poisoned by PFAS or do I go back to my home in Fuquay-Varina and get poisoned by 1,4-dioxane?”

The Environmental Management Commission could decide as early as September to approve or reject the proposed rules. If adopted, those rules would go to the Rules Review Commission for final approval by early next year.

Written comments on the proposed PFAS monitoring and minimization rules are being accepted by email to publiccomments@deq.nc.gov with the subject title “PFAS minimization” or by mail to Karen Preston, DEQ-DWR NPDES Permitting Section, 1617 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC  27699-1617.

Energy providers wasted no time last year asking the Trump administration to rescind 2024 federal standards for coal ash disposal.

Five days before President Donald Trump returned for a second term in the White House on Jan. 20, 2025, 10 power suppliers, including Duke Energy, fired off a letter urging Lee Zeldin, Trump’s then-nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, “decline to defend these unlawful rules.”

Now the EPA is proposing to revise federal regulation for coal ash disposal, a move that would relax the Biden-era national standards for inactive, often unlined basins designed to store a sludgy mix of watered-down fly ash and bottom ash.

Here in North Carolina, where comprehensive coal ash legislation was pioneered, proposed changes at the federal level are not expected to affect, at least for the time being, the state’s robust coal ash management law.

Nor would the proposed federal revisions impact the terms of a 2019 settlement agreement between the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Duke Energy, and public interest groups that set closure schedules and monitoring requirements for the power company’s remaining coal ash basins.

“None of that is going to be changed by what EPA is trying to do now at the federal level,” Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Nick Torrey said.

But Torrey cautioned that sites where coal ash has been removed may still contain residual groundwater contamination.

“The federal regulations require monitoring and corrective action for that pollution,” he said. “If utilities can get exceptions and exemptions from those things, that’s potentially concerning. Fortunately, we do have a state process as well that’s dealing with groundwater issues, but it was never meant to be a substitute for the federal standards. There’s more vulnerability that coal ash contamination could be allowed to persist. So, we’ll have to be watching that very closely as things go forward.”

Coal ash, referred to in regulation and industry as coal combustion residuals, or CCR, is the byproduct created when coal is burned for electricity. It contains toxic heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury, cadmium, lead and radioactive elements, according to the EPA.

In early February 2014, some 39,000 tons of coal ash slurry discharged from a collapsed pipe at Duke Energy’s retired Dan River Steam Station near Eden into the river. The spill spread as far as 70 miles downstream.

In the fall of that year, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the North Carolina Coal Ash Management Act, or CAMA.

CAMA (not to be confused with the Coastal Area Management Act) initially set deadlines for Duke Energy to close a group of basins at four of its power plants by certain deadlines.

EPA in 2015 finalized the federal CCR rule under the Obama presidency. The Biden administration strengthened those regulations in 2024.

By that time, DEQ had finalized a basin closure schedule for all 14 of Duke Energy’s facilities in North Carolina. Following litigation and a settlement agreement between community and conservation groups, DEQ and Duke Energy, a 2020 consent order was approved to govern the cleanup process for the remaining sites.

Duke Energy anticipates officially fully excavating the 12th of its 32 coal ash basins in North Carolina by year’s end. Both coal ash impoundments at the Sutton Steam Plant in Wilmington were excavated by July 2019.

Duke Energy spokesperson Bill Norton confirmed in an email earlier this week that the excavation of ash at its W.H. Weatherspoon Power Plant in Lumberton is complete, well ahead of schedule. The company is in the process of working through the basin’s clean closure certification, a process expected to be completed later this year, Norton said in the email.

“Not yet counting Weatherspoon, we have completed excavation at 11 North Carolina basins and are making strong progress at the remaining 20, with well over half of our basin ash safely excavated in the states,” he stated. “All sites remain on or ahead of schedule for basin closure deadlines as shown here.”

Norton said the EPA’s proposed rule changes will not impact Duke Energy’s proposed coal retirement dates.

“We continue making progress on coal retirements while balancing our regulatory approvals and increased load growth – regulators have made clear that replacement generation must be online and serving customers prior to further coal plant retirements,” he said. “While the potential EPA CCR rule changes have no impact on our proposed coal retirement dates, we appreciate prior changes to in the federal regulations that provided flexibility for our coal facilities, enabling us to maximize the value of existing generation by extending the operational life of these assets to help meet load growth at the lowest possible cost to consumers. Retirement dates are subject to regulatory approval.”

Coal-fired operations at Belews Creek Steam Station in Stokes County are expected to be shut down no later than Jan. 1, 2040. The retirement of that plant’s coal combustion operations will mark the end of Duke Energy’s coal-fired power generation in the state.

“We are making tremendous progress on meeting all obligations agreed to years ago in our North Carolina settlement with state regulators and environmental groups – that commitment is unchanged, and state regulators have confirmed our plans are protective of public health and the environment,” Norton said.

Beneficial reuse units at the company’s Buck Combined Cycle Plant in Salisbury, Cape Fear plant in Moncure, and H.F. Lee Energy Complex on the banks of the Neuse River in Goldsboro have been reprocessing coal ash at those sites to make it suitable for use in concrete since 2020, he said.

Katherine Lucas, DEQ’s Division of Waste Management public information officer, stated in an email that the agency “is evaluating the proposed changes to determine any potential impacts on ongoing excavation and remediation activities at Duke Energy facilities.”

“In the absence of an U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-approved state permit program, utilities must comply with both federal and state requirements. North Carolina remains a national leader in coal ash management, both in establishing comprehensive regulations and in the scale and pace of closure and remediation efforts. DEQ believes the state’s regulatory framework is at least as protective as federal requirements and does not anticipate that federal changes would reduce existing environmental and public health protections.”

The EPA is accepting public comments on the proposed rule changes through June 12.

The agency is hosting an online public hearing at 9 a.m. on May 28. 

FAYETTEVILLE — Proposed monitoring and minimization rules for industrial dischargers of 1,4-dioxane and the public sewage plants that accept those facilities’ waste fail to protect North Carolinians’ drinking water, speakers at a public hearing said Tuesday.

All but one of the 13 people who spoke at the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission’s hearing at Fayetteville Technical Community College criticized the proposed rules, arguing those rules fall short in reducing the amounts of 1,4-dioxane discharged into people’s drinking water sources and lack enforcement.

Those comments mirror ones articulated at the commission’s April 9 hearing on the proposed rules in Hickory. A third hearing is scheduled for May 12 in Jamestown.

“The so-called monitoring and minimization rule establishes certain monitoring requirements, but the term minimization is misleading,” Fayetteville resident Madison Williams said. “The way the rule is promulgated is in a way that does not require polluters to reduce PFAS or 1,4-dioxane emissions into North Carolina drinking water supplies, and it imposes no consequences, even if those discharges increase. This in effect is a polluter written rule.”

Related: Public hearings set on proposed wastewater discharge rules

The commission is hosting separate public hearings, the first of which was held in Asheville last week, on a similar rule for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS; perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA; perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, or PFOS; and GenX, a chemical specific to a manufacturing plant that sits near Cape Fear River in Bladen County.

Under the proposed rules, publicly owned treatment works that receive industrial wastewater, and their manufacturer customers, would be required to monitor for discharges of 1,4-dioxane, an industrial solvent, into rivers, creeks and streams.

Facilities would be required to conduct baseline monitoring every three months for one year. Based on those sampling results, dischargers may be required to conduct additional monitoring.

“If determined to need ongoing sampling the industrial direct discharger will be required to develop a minimization plan,” explained Bridget Shelton with the Division of Water Resources’ planning section. “A minimization plan is a strategy to reduce or eliminate pollutants at the source before they are discharged into the environment.”

Facilities that “meet certain criteria” may request exceptions from ongoing monitoring and minimization plan requirements, she said.

The proposed rules do not set specific discharge limits or penalties for violations.

That fact has drawn sharp criticism from residents, environmental groups and public drinking water providers who have been calling on the state to establish drinking water standards for PFAS and 1,4-dioxane and regulate direct dischargers of those chemicals.

“Over 1 million North Carolina residents consume water from the Cape Fear River, water that is contaminated with 1,4-dixoane, PFAS and other forever chemicals that will continue to proliferate without sufficient regulations at the federal and state levels,” said Jonelle Kimbrough, executive director of Fayetteville-based environmental nonprofit Sustainable Sandhills. “The proposed 1,4-dioxane minimization rules seem to be an attempt at regulation but, as written, they essentially do nothing to protect the natural resources or public health of our state and we need protection.”

Rob Clark, Cape Fear River Watch’s water quality programs manager, said the organization and its more than 1,000 members collectively opposed the proposed rules.

“These rules are completely inadequate when it comes to dealing with PFAS and 1,4-dioxane pollution in the Cape Fear River Basin,” he said. “The proposed minimization rules do not set enforceable limits on how much these toxic compounds can be discharged into our waterways. Instead, they rely on polluters to monitor their pollution and submit plans describing how they might reduce that over time. Do we really think that polluters are going to cut into their profits in order to do the right thing and stop discharging these chemicals into our waterways?”

Representatives of downstream public water suppliers said the proposed rules lack a clear objective to significantly decrease 1,4-dioxane levels in state surface waters.

Fayetteville Public Works Commission’s Environmental Programs Manager Rhonda Locklear pointed out that statewide monitoring has identified 1,4-dioxane primarily in the Cape Fear River Basin.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, “has sampled surface waters in 15 of North Carolina’s 17 river basins, confirming that most industrial 1,4-dioxane sources are in the Cape Fear River Basin, where 35% of these samples since 2017 were above non-detect thresholds, almost 10 times the rate in the Neuse River Basin, and nearly 200 times that of the Yadkin-Pee Dee River Basin,” she said. “The problem areas are well-defined, documented, and PWC expects DEQ to set meaningful regulations and reductions in the Cape Fear River Basin.”

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Deputy Executive Director Kevin Morris said that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which classifies 1,4-dioxane as a likely human carcinogen, warns that at even at concentrations of 0.35 parts per billion, long-term exposure to the chemical increases cancer risks to humans and may cause significant kidney and liver impacts.

“Downstream water systems continue to experience periodic spikes in 1,4-dioxane despite having no role in producing or discharging this chemical, which demonstrates the limitations of our current regulatory framework,” Morris said.

He highlighted how effluent from Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant has periodically tested for elevated levels of 1,4-dioxane, concentrations of which far exceeded levels associated with long-term health risks.

“These discharges flow into waterways like the Haw and Cape Fear rivers,” Morris said. “They’re relied upon by downstream drinking water systems, and they require additional monitoring, treatment, adjustments and customer communication. The downstream public ultimately bears the risk from and the cost of managing contamination that they had no part in creating. Voluntary reduction measures are insufficient to ensure consistent outcomes or to protect downstream communities. Utilities can manage only what arrives at their intake.”

As of Wednesday, DEQ had received more than 2,000 public comments and counting on the commission’s proposed rules for 1,4-dixoane and PFAS, according to Josh Kastrinksy, DEQ’s deputy communications director.

“The comments we’ve received in writing have by and large reflected the comments we’ve received in person,” he said.

Andrew Mlot, chair of the North Carolina Pretreatment Consortium Inc., a nonprofit that represents more than 180 pretreatment professionals in 64 state-approved pretreatment programs across North Carolina, was the only person Tuesday to speak in support of the proposed rules.

But that organization has “several specific concerns” with the rules as they are currently written, he said.

“The costs to treat 1,4-dioxane at the POTW (publicly owned treatment works) level is staggering. Capital costs alone range from $10 million to $1.3 billion, making source control the only practical path forward,” he said.

The proposed rules would require public treatment works in Greensboro, Burlington, Asheboro, High Point and Reidsville, which have been conducting monitoring and minimization activities going back to 2015, to start over, Mlot said.

“We ask for an explicit offramp for POTWs that have already completed successful programs. Replace any detection with a workable screening threshold. As currently written, any detection of 1,4-dioxane triggers ongoing monitoring requirements and a full minimization plan. NCPC members do not believe this is workable. We support an alternative screening threshold based on meaningful concentrations or loading levels,” he said.

DEQ is accepting written comments through June 15. Comments may be submitted by email to publiccomments@deq.nc.gov with the subject heading “1,4-dioxane minimization, or by mail to Bridget Shelton, DEQ-DWR Planning Section, 1611 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1611.

Microplastics and pharmaceuticals have made the Environmental Protection Agency’s newly published draft list of substances in public drinking water that warrant scientific scrutiny.

This marks a first for the EPA, which, along with U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced last week that microplastics and pharmaceuticals are two of four contaminant groups and dozens of chemicals included on the draft Sixth Contaminant Candidate List.

The April 2 announcement kick-started a 60-day public comment period.

The Trump administration hailed the additions to the list, also referred to as CCL 6, as “a landmark set of actions to safeguard the nation’s drinking water.”

“For too long, Americans have vocalized concerns about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water. That ends today,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin stated in a release. “By placing microplastics and pharmaceuticals on the Contaminant Candidate List for the first time ever, EPA is sending a clear message: we will follow the science, we will pursue answers, and we will hold ourselves to the highest standards to protect the health of every American family.”

The announcement comes as the Trump administration is actively pursuing rolling back drinking water standards for several per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, established under the previous administration.

PFAS, along with disinfection byproducts, once again made it onto a CCL, which singles out contaminants that are known or anticipated to be in public drinking water systems, but are not regulated under the Safe Water Drinking Act and may be considered for future regulatory action.

Also making it back on the list is 1,4-dioxane, an industrial solvent that, along with PFAS, is known to be in the drinking water sources for tens of thousands of North Carolinians, perhaps most notably in the Cape Fear Region.

Last year, the EPA announced that it would retain current National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for PFOA and PFOS but rescind regulations and reconsider regulatory determinations for other PFAS, including GenX.

GenX is specific to Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility that is situated near the banks of the Cape Fear River and more than 70 miles upstream of Wilmington. The Cape Fear River is the raw drinking water source for hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians.

The federal agency also said it was extending deadlines for public water treatment plants to come into compliance with the federally established limits for those PFAS.

Since the late 1990s, the EPA has been required by law to publish every five years a list of contaminants that are either unregulated or not proposed for regulation.

CCLs are considered the initial step in a process to better understand, through scientific research, potential human health risks of contaminants in drinking water.

And, while clean drinking water advocates say this is a good first step, they urge the public to call for regulations to limit the levels of or altogether halt the discharge of contaminants into public drinking water sources.

“I think it’s important to recognize what chemicals are in our drinking water and to study the risks associated with that,” Hannah Nelson, a staff attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Chapel Hill office said. “But simply adding chemicals to this list isn’t going to protect our communities. They’re on the list because we know they’re in drinking water, so now we need to take the next step to control the source of that pollution at the source and get it out of our drinking water. I North Carolina, because we know these pollutants are already there, I think we really should be focusing on how do we keep them out in the first place, because that’s how we truly protect our communities.”

Residents in the Cape Fear region, the local governments that represent them, the public water utilities that serve them, and environmental organizations are embroiled in an ongoing fight pushing for state regulations to put the onus on dischargers of PFAS and 1,4-dioxane to reduce the amounts of chemicals they release into drinking water sources.

On Tuesday, the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission will host its first in a series of public hearings on proposed PFAS and 1,4-dioxane monitoring and minimization rules.

Three hearings will focus on proposed rules for discharges of PFOS, PFOA and GenX into North Carolina’s surface waters and three on proposed rules for monitoring and minimizing 1,4-dioxane in wastewater discharges from certain facilities into surface waters.

The proposed rules packages do not set specific discharge limits or penalties for discharge violations, which has become a sticking point for those who argue that the rules would do little in actually minimizing the amount of those contaminants in drinking water sources.

“We know our environmental rulemaking body is currently trying to pass rules on PFAS and 1,4-dioxane that don’t control chemicals at the source,” Nelson said. “Having drinking water standards would be a helpful too, but our real focus should be, how can we keep these out in the first place and how can we encourage our state and our federal leaders to protect the people from the pollution before it even reaches the point of coming out of our sink and pouring into our cups.”

Beyond Plastics, a Bennington College, Vermont-based organization dedicated to ending single-use plastic pollution, called for similar regulation for microplastics.

“The U.S. Environmental Agency has taken an important first step to regulate microplastics in drinking water,” Beyond Plastics President and former EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck stated in a release. “I applaud this decision by the EPA and urge the agency to move rapidly to not only regulate microplastics in drinking water but to also prevent microplastics from entering our water supplies.”

Cape Fear River Watch’s Water Quality Programs Manager Rob Clark agreed, saying that microplastics are ubiquitous – they’re in our environment and in our bodies.

“It’s a situation where it seems like we already have a lot of information on this,” he said. “What we need is ubiquitous monitoring across the country and we need regulation. The quicker that we get to setting a maximum contaminant level for microplastics, the quicker it’s not in our drinking water.”

In its April 2 release, the EPA noted that while human health benchmarks for pharmaceuticals are not regulations and not enforceable, “they are a vital resource, empowering local decision-makers to evaluate risks and protect their communities when pharmaceutical contamination is detected at concerning levels.”

The public comment period on draft CCL 6 will close June 5.

The EPA is expected to sign a final list by Nov. 17.

“I think public comment periods on action like this are really important because it’s a good time for folks to express concerns about the chemicals that are known to be present in their drinking water,” Nelson said. “Adding chemicals to the list is truly just an acknowledgement that they’re in the water. I don’t think we should read this list as a commitment to going above and beyond and advocating for folks. What we need to see is strong action to keep those chemicals out, whether it be from the federal administration or our state agencies.”

Reprinted from N.C. Health News

North Carolina’s struggle with PFAS contamination underscores the unintended consequences that can follow widespread chemical use — even as Congress is considering overhauling the nation’s foremost chemical safety law.

That law, the Toxic Substances Control Act, governs how industrial chemicals are reviewed and regulated in the United States. Passed in 1976 and overhauled by a Republican Congress in 2016, the chemical safety law sets standards for the data companies must provide, the timeline federal regulators have to review new chemicals and whether substances can enter commerce.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has defended proposed changes to TSCA as a way to make chemical reviews more predictable and efficient while maintaining safety standards. In announcing the proposal, Zeldin said the agency aims to provide “a clear, predictable, commonsense approach that’s grounded in the law and the science.” He added that reforms are intended to protect health and the environment while allowing American manufacturing to thrive.

Critics say industry interests are driving the push for changes.

“It’s clear that the chemical industry is engaged in a full court press to try to make some amendments to TSCA,” said Stan Meiburg, former acting deputy administrator of the EPA and retired head of The Sabin Center for Environment and Sustainability at Wake Forest University, in an interview with NC Health News.

In North Carolina, contamination from PFAS and other industrial chemicals evaluated under TSCA brought enforcement of the act into sharp public focus.

Often called “forever chemicals,” PFAS persist in the environment and have been linked to such human health issues as elevated cholesterol, immune suppression, developmental effects and certain cancers. Once contamination is discovered, cleanup can take years and cost utilities — and taxpayers — millions.

Much of the current debate in Washington centers on required environmental review of the law’s fee authority, mandated under the 2016 amendments. The law allows EPA to collect fees from chemical manufacturers to help fund safety reviews, and it requires the agency to periodically reassess whether those fees are sufficient. That authority will expire at the end of fiscal year 2026 unless Congress renews it, which raises broader questions about how federal chemical oversight will be funded. 

The disagreement has played out publicly in recent congressional hearings, where lawmakers debated whether the chemical evaluation process should be simplified to accelerate the review process.

Speed vs. safety

That tension surfaced during two January hearings, a Jan. 8 session before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology and a Jan. 22 hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment, where lawmakers debated whether to move chemical reviews along more quickly or strengthen oversight under TSCA.

Supporters of overhauling the law said the process needs greater efficiency and clearer timelines, while critics argue that speeding reviews without strengthening scientific capacity could weaken protections.

“EPA is required to complete new chemical reviews within 90 days,” Charlotte Bertrand, a senior director at the American Chemistry Council, said during the Jan. 8 House hearing. “Yet more than 90 percent of active reviews exceed that statutory deadline. Over 60 percent remain pending for more than a year — and some for several years.”

Without changes, she added, delays in chemical approvals could put American manufacturers at a global disadvantage, particularly when compared with China.

Meiburg, who testified at the Jan. 8 hearing, warned against prioritizing speed over scientific rigor.

“Quick decisions do not serve the public if they are not based on the best science, are inconsistent with the law, are unduly influenced by interested parties or not transparent,” Meiburg told lawmakers.

His warning comes as the agency’s scientific capacity has faced reductions. Last year, the Trump administration announced plans to reduce the organization’s funding by 65 percent, a proposal that has resulted in substantial cuts to the Office of Research and Development — the agency’s primary science arm and the division responsible for conducting chemical risk evaluations under TSCA.

At the Jan. 22 House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee hearing, Tracey Woodruff, professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of its Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, argued that the proposed reforms would weaken safeguards built into the 2016 amendments.

“The proposed changes would remove public health guardrails and undermine EPA’s ability to protect people from harmful chemicals,” Woodruff said.

Environmental advocates echoed those concerns, arguing that shortening timelines or narrowing data requirements could increase the risk of overlooking potential health and environmental harms — especially if EPA lacks sufficient scientific staffing and resources.

A looming deadline

Beyond the mechanics of fee renewal, former EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the broader issue is whether the agency has the resources to carry out the law as written. While the statute itself remains strong, Congress has not provided funding to match the expanded responsibilities created under the 2016 overhaul, he said.

“When you reduce government the way it has been done over the last year or so, you are actually reducing the ability for TSCA to work the way Congress intended it,” Regan told NC Health News during an interview.

Under TSCA, companies submitting new chemicals pay review fees, while manufacturers of existing chemicals selected for formal risk evaluations share the cost of those more extensive, multi-year assessments. Those fees, which can range from tens of thousands to millions of dollars depending on the type of review, help fund EPA’s scientific staff and risk evaluation work.

That authority is set to expire at the end of fiscal year 2026 unless Congress renews it, giving lawmakers leverage not only to adjust fee levels but also to revisit broader elements of the law.

For North Carolina communities, the stakes are not abstract. PFAS contamination in the Cape Fear River has required costly treatment upgrades and years of regulatory and legal action. Supporters of strong oversight argue that thorough, well-resourced reviews are far less expensive than responding after widespread contamination occurs.

Meiburg said the lesson from decades of chemical regulation is straightforward.

“Preventing pollution is always cheaper than repairing damage later,” he said.

This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Proposed rules that would require hundreds of industrial manufacturers and public sewer plants across the state to test the wastewater they discharge into rivers, creeks and streams for three types of PFAS and 1,4-dioxane will go out for public comment next month.

The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission last Thursday voted to push proposed monitoring and minimization rules for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances PFOA, PFOS and GenX, and for 1,4-dixoane, an industrial solvent, to the public in February.

Commission Chair JD Solomon indicated that more than one public hearing will be scheduled during the comment period, which is to be held through April. As of publication, neither specific dates for the comment period, nor dates and locations for hearings, had been announced.

Solomon told fellow commissioners he anticipates the state will receive thousands of comments on the proposed rules packages, which do not set specific discharge limits or penalties for violations.

Those omissions from the proposed rules were the basis of lengthy, at times contentious, discussion among members of the commission.

A majority of commissioners ultimately rejected Commissioner Robin Smith’s motion to inject federally enforceable limits on a half-dozen individual chemical compounds and a mixture of those compounds into the proposed rules package for PFAS.

Amending the rules to include the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforceable levels of PFAS, including PFOA, PFOS and GenX, Solomon said, would substantially change the proposed rule, triggering the need for a new regulatory impact analysis to examine projected costs associated with the rule.

PFAS are a mixture of chemicals used in a host of consumer products from nonstick cookware and food packaging to stain-resistant carpets, water-repellant attire, and makeup.

These chemicals have been found in a number of drinking water sources in North Carolina through discharges from industrial manufacturers, landfills, firefighting facilities and publicly owned treatment works, or POTWs, that accept industry effluent.

Ongoing research into human health effects of PFAS, of which there are upwards of 15,000 related compounds, continues. Some of the more well-studied substances, including PFOA and PFOS, have been linked to health issues including weakened immune response, liver damage, increased cholesterol, high blood pressure, lower infant birth weights, and higher risks of certain cancers.

The Trump administration’s EPA announced last year that it would retain current National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for PFOA and PFOS and extend deadlines for public water treatment plants to come into compliance with the federally established limits for those PFAS.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin also announced plans to rescind regulations and reconsider regulatory determinations for the other PFAS, including GenX.

Solomon said the commission will start talking about legally enforceable limits, also known as numeric standards, for PFAS at its March meeting.

“That is the intention and that will continue to be the intention,” he said, later adding, “Everybody on this panel wants a numeric standard. The question is more, what level are those numeric standards and for what compounds. That’s what we’re going to talk about when we get to the numeric standard part.”

The Environmental Management Commission voted 10-3 to move the proposed PFAS monitoring and minimization rules package to public comment and hearing.

60-day deadline

Under the proposed rules, industrial manufacturers and publicly owned treatment works, which officials call POTWs, will be contacted by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources and given 60 days to conduct baseline sampling for the three PFAS from the time the rules become effective.

Testing would be done quarterly for one year, with results reported to the division. Division officials would then determine whether ongoing sampling is needed based on practical quantitation limits, which are considered the base line in testing laboratories.

The division would decide whether a business or POTW has to develop a minimization plan, one that would take about 2.5 years to be implemented.

When asked how minimization would be measured, Division of Water Resources Deputy Director Julie Grzyb said, “There is nothing in the rule that defines a set level or set goal in the particular case. So, there is some left up to who is reviewing it.”

Minimization, she said, is determined by a number of things, including training and education equipment and seeing whether one product could be substituted for another.

“However, usually we have a water quality standard that we are shooting to meet and that defines the minimization much more clearly. I’ll leave it at that,” Grzyb said.

The proposed rule also does not specify what best management practices a facility must follow or how that facility must reach minimization.

Smith, who voted against moving the proposed rule to public comment, warned the rule may not pass the Rules Review Commission because, among other things, it lacks such standards.

“I think that one of the concerns is this could be an ongoing perpetual monitoring machine that doesn’t result in significant reductions,” she said, adding that a rule should not be sent out for public comment that “has basic drafting problems and gaps in essential decisions.”

“I cannot vote for this motion to be sent to public notice and comment the rule as it currently stands because I think there are too many issues that need to be resolved,” Smith said.

Commissioner Michael Ellison, who seconded the motion to move the rules to public comment, argued that the rules “help us as a state, statewide, reduce our uncertainty as to where the problems are and how bad they are while science continues to advance, while EPA continues whatever research they’re going to do and whatever standards they’re going to promulgate.”

After the vote to move the proposed rules on PFAS to public comment, the commission also agreed to ask for comments on whether industrial businesses and sewage plants should report to the division all 40 PFAS they are required to test for under federal requirements.

Smith made similar arguments against the proposed 1,4-dioxane monitoring and minimization rule that the commission voted 7-6 to move to public comment.

She said that while the proposed rule pertaining to 1,4-dioxane is a “pretty good monitoring rule,” it is “not a good minimization rule.”

“What I don’t want to do is create an impression out there that we have a serious minimization program if we don’t have any teeth in it. I think we need to be honest with the public about what this rule does. I’m not for something that calls itself a minimization rule that doesn’t have any enforceable attachment to it,” she said.

Early in what turned out to be a more than two-hour discussion leading up to their vote on the proposed PFAS monitoring and minimization rules, Solomon reminded commissioners that the votes they cast Thursday would not be their final, saying that getting the rules out for public comment is an incremental step in a process aimed at ultimately reducing PFAS discharges.

A district court judge has ruled that Chemours and its predecessor company cannot conceal thousands of pages of documents from the public.

The manufacturing giant failed to provide sufficient evidence the documents include commercially sensitive information that, if released, could competitively undermine the companies, Judge James Dever III concluded in his Dec. 3 ruling.

Information the companies requested to keep under seal are among 25,000 pages of documents lawyers representing public utilities and local governments downstream of Chemours’ Bladen County plant submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina as part of lawsuit those entities brought against the companies in October 2017.

Related: EPA seeks reporting rollback as new study finds hidden PFAS

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, or CFPUA, Brunswick County, Lower Cape Fear Water & Sewer Authority, and Wrightsville Beach aim to recover costs and damages associated with the Fayetteville Works’ plant’s discharges of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, for decades into the Cape Fear River. The river is a drinking water source for tens of thousands of residents.

PFAS are a group of more than 14,000 chemicals used in everyday consumer products including food containers, stain-resistant carpet and water-repellant gear. These human-made chemical compounds are persistent in the environment and have been found to accumulate in humans and animals. Exposure to these substances has been linked to weakened immune function, reproductive and development issues and increased risk of some cancers.

Last February, attorneys for Chemours and its predecessor company DuPont filed a motion requesting that the court keep thousands of pages of those documents under seal, arguing information in those documents contain internal communications about chemical production that, if made public, could give a leg up to their competitors.

Dever denied that request. He also rejected a second motion by the companies’ attorneys seeking to keep from the public an April 2018 report of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency detailing its inspection the Fayetteville Works facility.

“Defendants’ second motion to seal fails for the same reason as defendant’s first motion to seal. Defendants provide insufficient evidence to demonstrate that sealing the [Toxic Substance Act Compliance Monitoring Inspection] report serves a compelling interest which outweighs the public’s right of access,” Dever wrote in his 13-page ruling.

A document’s “status as confidential or commercially sensitive alone does not justify its sealing,” he continued.

“We thank the Court for its wise ruling in denying the motion to seal,” Cammie Bellamy, CFPUA public information officer, said in an email responding to a request for comment. “CFPUA will oppose every attempt by Chemours to delay, obfuscate, and deny the public its right to access the facts of this case. The documents that Chemours and its codefendants wanted to hide from the public include records of its decades of wrongdoing. The people of Southeastern North Carolina deserve better. CFPUA continues to work to hold Chemours accountable for its decades of polluting of the Cape Fear River – the source water for 500,000 North Carolinians.”

Dever also denied requests submitted to the court last April by environmental and community organizations, and the NAACP New Hanover County Branch, to intervene in the case and object to the companies’ motion to keep the documents sealed, ruling those motions are moot.

The Southern Environmental Law Center filed a motion to intervene in the case on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch, the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and the Environmental Justice Community Action Network.

“We think that this is absolutely the right outcome,” Jean Zhuang, a senior attorney with the center’s Chapel Hill office, said in a telephone interview Friday morning. “In this case, the companies have concealed decades of pollution in southeastern North Carolina and harmed drinking water from the Cape Fear River for 500,000 people.”

The release of the documents comes at a crucial time, she said, because Chemours wants to expand its production of vinyl ethers, which are a class of compounds used to create a variety of products used in a range of technologies from semiconductor chips to aviation components.

The company’s permit application for that expansion is under review by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

“Chemours is expecting the public to just trust them while they are planning a massive expansion of their facility,” Zhuang said. “After all these decades of harm they have caused on North Carolina communities, secrecy is not an option anymore.”

Tests commissioned by the SELC and Cape Fear River Watch showed that Chemours is releasing “extremely high levels” of ultra-short chain PFAS, which are highly mobile and difficult to remove from raw drinking water, into the Cape Fear River.

The results of those tests, released last October, confirmed earlier test results published by CFPUA, which has spent tens of millions of dollars upgrading its Sweeney Water Treatment Plant in downtown Wilmington to filtrate PFAS from reaching its customers’ taps.

CFPUA officials, along with those from other downstream facilities, are calling on the state to enforce polluters to treat chemicals at the source and set enforceable limits in discharge permits.

Anne Harvey David, chief counsel for environmental justice for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which asked to intervene in the case on behalf of the NAACP New Hanover County Branch, said in a release, “An effort to conceal information that details with the health and safety of thousands of North Carolinians cannot go unchallenged. We are happy to see this decision in favor of protecting public access to these documents. Information and transparency around the extent of the pollution is fundamental for the health and safety of the impacted communities.”

NACCP New Hanover County Branch President LeRon Montgomery said last week’s ruling “is one win in a long battle for our community to live free from harmful contamination of our air and water,” according to the release.

“The importance of this decision goes far beyond who it will impact today,” he stated. “The pollution of the Cape Fear River will impact generations to come, but so will having access to this information.”

As of this publication, it was unclear when the documents would be made public or whether the companies’ attorneys would appeal the ruling.

North Carolinians from cities, towns and communities throughout the Cape Fear River Basin urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to uphold its objection to a municipal wastewater treatment plant’s proposed permit that excludes an effluent discharge limit for 1,4-dioxane into their drinking water sources.

One after another, speakers at a public hearing the EPA hosted last Wednesday night asked the agency to force the state to reissue a permit that will limit discharges of the likely human carcinogen into surface waters that flow into tributaries of the Haw and Deep rivers, which converge to form the Cape Fear River.

Residents from Wilmington northwest to Fayetteville, Sanford, Pittsboro, Siler City, and Asheboro joined representatives of environmental organizations and downstream public water utilities at the hearing at Randolph Community College in Asheboro, the very city that fought to get 1,4-dioxane limits removed from its permit.

“Frankly I’m embarrassed that Asheboro is polluting the drinking water of as many as 900,000 people who live downstream from us,” longtime Asheboro resident Susie Scott said. “The solution, to me, seems simple. Our city should hold the companies producing this pollution to account and insist that they clean up their waste before we accept it into our treatment plant. People living downstream from us deserve safe drinking water.”

In August 2023, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources issued Asheboro a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit limiting the city water treatment plant’s release of 1,4-dioxane.

The city sued, challenging the state’s power to include a water quality standard for the clear, odorless chemical solvent used in manufacturing processes.

In September 2024, the Chief Administrative Law Judge for North Carolina at the time, Donald van der Vaart, ruled in the city’s favor and revoked permit limits of 1,4-dioxane.

In his ruling, van der Vaart said that DEQ officials did not follow the letter of the law written in state statutes when they calculated discharge limits and established an enforceable water quality standard for 1,4-dixoane. He also noted anticipated high costs associated with monitoring and treatment of the chemical compound.

DEQ’s appeal of that ruling is pending in Wake County Superior Court.

Costs to treat 1,4-dioxane will fall on the backs of downstream water utilities customers if the pollutant is not controlled at the source, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Kenneth Waldroup said.

“The presence of 1,4-dioxane in our source water is just the latest example of how gaps in regulation can lead downstream communities exposed to risk,” he said. “1,4-dioxane is a synthetic, highly mobile compound that resists natural degradation and conventional water treatment. Once it enters our watershed, it is persistent and travels far downstream, all the way to our drinking water intakes. Removing 1,4-dioxane from our drinking water requires advanced and very costly treatment technologies. We’re talking millions of dollars in systems and additional millions in operations costs over a period of time.”

Waldroup said DEQ “took appropriate action” when it included 1,4-dioxane limits in Asheboro’s NPDES permit, but that the state Office of Administrative Hearings “inappropriately and inaccurately invalidated that move.”

“EPA is obligated to assume permitting authority if the state fails to comply with federal permits, and EPA must require the state of North Carolina to address this pollutant and protect 900,000 downstream users,” he said.

Public water utilities, including CFPUA, and businesses downstream of Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant were notified by DEQ last January that the plant had discharged substantially high concentrations of 1,4-dioxane into Hasketts Creek, which empties into the Deep River.

Misty Manning, Fayetteville Public Works Commission’s chief operations officer for water resources, recalled to EPA officials last week of the Jan. 24 sampling results reported by the state and Asheboro.

“Asheboro’s own sampling result from that day was 3,520 parts per billion. This is more than 10 times higher than EPA’s calculation of what Asheboro’s discharge should be to protect public health at 22 parts per billion. Without enforceable limits, the city of Asheboro’s pretreatment program has yet to be successful in limiting 1,4-dioxane discharges to levels that meet water quality goals for a pollutant with a reasonable potential to cause or contribute to an excursion above state water quality standards,” Manning said.

She was one of several speakers at the hearing to point out that other municipalities in the state have successfully reduced 1,4-dioxane discharges through industrial pretreatment processes without bearing economic hardship.

“And Asheboro has the responsibility to do likewise, using its permitted authority over their local industrial users,” Manning said. “Downstream communities should not bear the financial burden of treating and removing pollutants introduced by unchecked upstream discharges.”

Last June, the Southern Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch and Haw River Assembly against Asheboro and the city’s industrial customer StarPet Inc., to stop their discharges of 1,4-dioxane into the Cape Fear River basin.

“As part of its antiregulatory fight, Asheboro has raised the absurd argument that it should not be the one that has to pay to control the cancer-causing pollution that it dumps upstream of drinking water supplies,” SELC attorney Hannah Nelson said. “I want to be clear. Asheboro could stop this pollution today by requiring its industries to treat for 1,4-dioxane, but it has chosen not to. In making that choice, Asheboro forces us, the families, the drinking water utilities, the local businesses, the schools, all of those who live downstream of the city, choose us to have to pay for their pollution.”

Stephen Bell, an attorney with Cranfill Sumer law firm’s Wilmington office and outside counsel for Asheboro, said that the city he represents believes steps DEQ took in implementing the August 2023 permit “set dangerous precedent with far-reaching implications.”

“Asheboro is not asking for no water regulation. They’re asking for regulation in accordance with the state law. As it stands today, based upon the court’s ruling, there is no water quality standard for 1,4-dioxane. The courts, our environmental rulemaking agency, they’re currently addressing this issue of limits for 1,4-dioxane and the EPA should respect that state-level process,” he said.

Once everyone at the hearing who signed up to speak addressed EPA officials, a member of the audience asked when the agency expects to make a final determination on the permit. The EPA may reaffirm its objection to the permit, require that the state modify the permit, or withdraw its objection of the permit.

Paul Schwartz, associate regional counsel in the Water Law Office at EPA’s Atlanta region office, said there is no statutory or regulatory timeline in which the agency must decide.

“In terms of specifying a date, certain that it would be done by, I don’t think we can do that,” he said. “And it doesn’t make it any easier that we’re operating during a period of government shutdown. But I think we want to give it immediate attention and focus on it so it doesn’t drag on too long.”

If the EPA decides to reaffirm its objection or require the permit to be modified, DEQ will have 30 days to submit a revised draft permit to the agency. If DEQ does not do that, the EPA will become the permitting authority.

The EPA is accepting public comments through Oct. 31 via email to R4NPDESComments@epa.gov or by mail to US EPA, NPDES Permitting Section, Water Division, 61 Forsyth Street, SW, Atlanta, GA 30303-8960.

Chemours’ air permit application to expand production at its Fayetteville Works plant excludes emissions data that should be disclosed to the public, environmental lawyers say.

The company “improperly withheld vital emission data from the public” in its Aug. 14 application to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality, according to a letter Southern Environmental Law Center attorneys sent the department last month.

“We urge the Department to require Chemours to re-submit its application with disclosed emissions data,” the Sept. 19 letter states. “North Carolina law clearly states that emission data cannot be kept secret.”

Jess Loizeaux, Chemours’ communications leader, refuted that claim, writing in an email responding to a request for comment, “our permit application fully disclosed the projected emissions associated with the expansion.”

“Certain details included in the application submitted to DAQ – such as production capacity, operating hours, and emissions factors – were redacted from the public version because they are considered confidential business information and, if made public, could harm our competitive position,” Loizeaux said. “Protecting confidential business information is standard practice and does not affect transparency regarding environmental impacts.”

Attorneys for Chemours and its predecessor company DuPont made a similar argument earlier this year when they filed a court motion to keep under seal thousands of pages of documents they say include “non-public facts” that largely pertain to chemical production.

Lawyers representing public utilities and local governments downstream of Chemours’ Bladen County plant submitted 25,000 pages of documents to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina as part of lawsuit those entities brought against the companies in October 2017.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, Brunswick County, Lower Cape Fear Water & Sewer Authority, and Wrightsville Beach aim to recover costs and damages associated with the Fayetteville Works’ plant’s discharges of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, for decades into the Cape Fear River. The river is a drinking water source for tens of thousands of residents in the region.

The court had not rendered a decision on Chemours’ request as of this story’s publication.

In 2020, Chemours submitted an application to renew its Title V permit, which applies to major source of air emissions, for its Fayetteville Works plant to the state Division of Air Quality.

Two years later, the company applied for a separate permit to expand its production of vinyl ethers and IXM.

Chemours revised and resubmitted that permit application to expand only its production of vinyl ethers last August. Vinyl ethers are a class of compounds used to create a variety of products used in a range of technologies from semiconductor chips to aviation components.

Vinyl ethers are used to create a wide variety of products, including polymers for adhesives, coatings, and plastics

The expansion would pertain to the plant’s two existing vinyl ethers production units, Loizeaux said.

“As outlined in the revised permit application, additional abatement technology will be installed alongside each expansion and is projected to decrease the site’s overall fluorinated emissions by approximately 15%, despite an increase in production,” she said. “A timeline for the expansions has not yet been set.”

Southern Environmental Law Center attorneys argue in their Sept. 19 letter to DEQ that Chemours is violating provisions within the state law that outlines protection and disclosure rules for confidential information.

The application, “blacks out emission rates from stack testing, uncontrolled emission factors, hours of operation, maximum hours of operation, historic production, and post-modification production capacity. The information is necessary to verify and fully understand the emissions and authorized emissions at the facility and cannot be withheld from the public,” according to the letter.

The letter goes on to state that Chemours previously disclosed similar information in previous submissions to DEQ.

“Chemours’ about-face from its past submissions further confirms that this information cannot be treated as confidential,” the letter states.

Last April, the SELC, on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch, asked DEQ to deny Chemours’ request to expand production at its Bladen County plant, arguing that the company’s air permit application was riddled with flaws.

As part of 2019 consent order with DEQ and Cape Fear River Watch, Chemours installed a thermal oxidizer to capture and destroy PFAS from emitting into the air. The order also requires the company to test tens of thousands of private drinking water wells for PFAS contamination throughout the region.

In a 20-page letter to DEQ, SELC attorneys argue Chemours questioned the efficacy of thermal destruction technology on PFAS.

“Investigating Chemours’ thermal oxidizer specifically, [the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] determined that, due to a lack of data, ‘removal processes for products of incomplete combustion or of destruction of potential compounds not studied … are still unclear.’ In other words, it is possible that the company’s thermal oxidizer does not fully destroy many PFAS. Some may break down into other harmful chemicals, and others may not be destroyed at all,” the letter states.

DEQ Interim Deputy Communications Director Shawn Taylor said in an email earlier this month that while air quality officials deem the latest version of Chemours’ application administratively complete, “the Division may require additional information from the applicant to conduct its technical review.”

“The Division plans to schedule a full public engagement process, including a public comment period and public hearings, to be announced at a later date,” he said.

North Carolinians whose raw drinking water sources are contaminated with chemical compounds will have to wait at least another two months before proposed rules establishing monitoring requirements for dischargers go out for public comment.

The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission’s Water Quality Committee unanimously voted earlier this week to wait to present to the full commission draft rules for monitoring and minimizing discharges of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and 1,4-dioxane into the state’s surface waters.

Committee members said Wednesday that while they had hoped to present the draft rules to the commission this month, the N.C. Office of State Budget and Management, or OSBM, needs more time to review and approve regulatory impact analyses of those proposed rules. A regulatory impact analysis, or RIA, is an evaluation of the potential costs and benefits associated with a proposed regulation.

“Only yesterday morning did the department receive comments from OSBM on PFAS and didn’t receive anything yet on 1,4,” Committee Chair Steve Keen said Wednesday afternoon. “Though this was launched to the public through the (Department of Environmental Quality) website two weeks ago, nothing from OSBM until yesterday.”

Committee Vice Chair Michael Ellison alluded to staffing issues at DEQ as one possible reason for the lag in the proposed rules being ready.

“We have heard that some of the economic analysis required for an RIA has been impeded because the department lack sufficient staff trained in economics and that there has been an economist on maternity leave, all of which is fine and wonderful, but this has been going on for over a year,” Ellison said.

Ellison suggested the department turn to universities in the state for help.

“We have had presentation after presentation about the near ubiquitous nature of PFAS in our surface waters statewide and we know they’re there, but we really don’t know all the places that they’re coming from other than Chemours, and we don’t know what tools are available,” he said. “And this draft rule was a step, a critical step, toward this committee, and ultimately the full commission, developing a rule to protect the health and safety and environment of North Carolina and I would hope that the department takes this continuation and makes good use of the time before our next meeting and can get the RIA approved.”

The draft rule for monitoring and minimalizing PFAS targets three chemical compounds: PFOS, PFOA, which are classified as likely carcinogens, and GenX, a compound specific to Chemours Fayetteville Works plant in Bladen County.

The chemical manufacturing facility knowingly emitted GenX and a host of other PFAS into the environment, including the Cape Fear River, the ground and air for decades.

But it is hardly the only industrial polluter discharging such chemical compounds into the environment in North Carolina.

Hundreds of industries in the state pay wastewater treatment plants to take their industrial waste. Those treatment plants do not remove PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, which the Environmental Protection Agency also classifies as a likely carcinogen, before discharging their effluent into the environment, including waterways that are the raw drinking water sources for hundreds of thousands of residents.

Downstream drinking water utilities were notified one week ago that elevated levels of 1,4-dixoane had been discharged from the Asheboro Wastewater Treatment Plant into Hasketts Creek, which drains into the Deep River in the Cape Fear River Basin.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, Brunswick County, Fayetteville Public Works Commission and the city of Sandford were notified May 3 that the samples the plant collected April 25 from discharge detected a concentration of 826 parts per billion or ppb, according to a DEQ release. The state Division of Water Resources collected a sample that same day with results detecting a concentration of 730 ppb.

“DEQ, using EPA toxicity calculations for lifetime exposure, has determined that the average monthly 1,4-dioxane concentration protective of downstream water supplies is about 22 ppb for the Asheboro discharge,” the release states.

There is growing public outcry among residents, local governments and water utilities downstream of industrial polluters calling for state regulations to stop discharges at the source.

Critics of the proposed rules argue they do not require industries to reduce their PFAS discharges.

During the Water Quality Committee meeting, Keen said the initial game plan was “to create a narrative” on how the state can identify dischargers, what those dischargers are doing, and how they’re doing it, “and minimize it, if not get rid of it.”

“But the foundation was to start by monitoring and minimizing it,” he said. “That was the motion by this committee and that’s where we began officially. We want to get the right numbers for all of the river basins. We want to know what those are. Now, how do we do it? We have to go through OSBM. We have to get the regulatory impact analysis that has the fiscal note and a lot of things tied to it that’s going to give us answers.”

DEQ’s Division of Water Resources Director Richard Rogers reiterated that staff was under a tight deadline get the rules drafted.

“We will continue to work and hope we can continue to work cooperatively with the committee in this process,” he said.

In comments made early in the full commission’s Thursday meeting, Chair JD Solomon explained to the board that the draft rules were not ready to be put to a vote to go out for public comment because of the RIA.

“Regardless of what did last year or what we’re doing this year, we have to get the cost benefit right,” he said. “I will say everybody did work on it. It is what it is and we just have to resolve to come back in July with the fiscal notes in place and have those debates and whatnot.”

The full commission’s next scheduled meeting is July 10. Committees meet one day prior to the commission.

In an update to the Groundwater and Waste Management Committee on Wednesday morning, DEQ Environmental Program Analyst Jared Wilson said that more than 9,000 homes are expected to be added to those eligible for private water well testing for PFAS.

Well testing has expanded into 10 counties in the vicinity and downstream of Chemours’ plant.

“To date we have not found the edge of contamination,” Wilson said.

State Division of Waste Management Director Michael Scott told committee members that decades of air emissions of PFAS from the Chemours plant infiltrated the ground and migrated to private drinking water wells more than 30 miles away.

“How many plumes do you have in North Carolina that are 35 miles wide?” Solomon asked.

“One,” Scott answered.

The chemical manufacturing company that has publicly touted its products, business strategies and chemistries in ad campaigns aimed at polishing its image will further harm North Carolinians if it is successful in keeping thousands of pages of documents sealed in court, environmental organizations argue.

The Southern Environmental Law Center on Monday filed a court motion to intervene in a case brought against Chemours and its predecessor company DuPont, attorneys for which have asked the court to keep up to 21,000 pages of documents under seal.

Those documents, SELC argues in its motion, “will help communities understand the harm the facility has caused, and will continue to cause, to their own health, their property values, and even the lives of future generations.”

The motion was filed on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch, the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and the Environmental Justice Community Action Network in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

In February, attorneys for Chemours and DuPont requested the court keep from public view what they say are mostly internal communications between company employees about “non-public facts” that pertain, in part, to chemical production and is therefore “competitively sensitive.”

An attorney with Brooks Pierce Law Firm, which represents public utilities and local governments downstream of Chemours’ Bladen County plant, told Coastal Review last month that many of the documents in question are already on public record.

Brooks Pierce was expected on Monday to respond to the companies’ motion to keep the documents under seal. A lawyer with the firm did not respond to a request for comment by the time of this publication.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, Brunswick County, Lower Cape Fear Water & Sewer Authority and Wrightsville Beach in October 2017 sued the companies to recover costs and damages associated with Fayetteville Works’ plant’s discharges of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, for decades into the Cape Fear River, the drinking water supply for tens of thousands of residents in the region.

PFAS are a group of more than 14,000 chemicals used in everyday consumer products including food containers, stain-resistant carpet and water-repellant gear. These human-made chemical compounds are persistent in the environment and have been found to accumulate in people and animals. Exposure to these substances has been linked to weakened immune function, reproductive and developmental issues and increased risk of some cancers.

“After intentionally hiding their toxic PFAS pollution for decades, Chemours and DuPont now want to conceal essential information that directly affects the lives of half-a-million people,” SELC Senior Attorney Jean Zhuang said in a release Monday. “And Chemours has the audacity to try to hide thousands of pages of information as the company plans to expand its PFAS manufacturing operations. After defiling these communities’ drinking water, air, soil and food for years, Chemours has no right to hide information about its toxic pollution yet ask the public to trust that it won’t harm North Carolina families again.”

In 2022, five years after the public first learned that Chemours had been knowingly discharging PFAS directly into the Cape Fear River for decades, the company announced plans to expand its monomers and Nafion production facilities at the Fayetteville Works plant.

As part of a 2019 consent order with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and Cape Fear River Watch, Chemours has taken steps to reduce its emissions of PFAS into the Cape Fear, the ground and the air. That agreement also deems the company responsible for overseeing the testing of thousands of private water wells in the region and providing a means of uncontaminated drinking water to households with private wells that contain elevated levels of PFAS.

But the brunt of costs associated with removing PFAS from raw water sources ultimately falls on the downstream public utilities that provide drinking water to thousands of customers in the region, including Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties.

“The fact that Chemours and DuPont are trying to hide from the public eye 20,000 pages of documents about their companies’ facility and its pollution is almost comically transparent, if it weren’t so dangerous and sinister; and this attempt, in and of itself, should be considered profound proof that this information needs to see the light of day, especially considering Chemours is actively seeking to expand PFAS production at the site,” Cape Fear River Watch Executive Director Dana Sargent said in an email.

Coastal Federation Executive Director Braxton Davis said the public, “which has suffered the effects of this pollution, has a right to review documents that may shed more light on the scope and scale of contamination and the company’s response.”

In its motion to intervene, the SELC lists several categories of documents Chemours and DuPont want to keep under seal, including research into toxicological data, communications about product safety and toxicity studies, environmental assessment and toxicology research, and a list of chemical compounds associated with the Bladen County plant.

“The companies’ own motion admits that the documents are littered with information on Chemours’ and DuPont’s PFAS pollution, sampling data, air and wastewater treatment options, toxicology and health impacts associated with PFAS, environmental and human health concerns, and the public’s exposure to their toxic chemicals,” the motion states. “These and other documents are necessary for the public to understand the impacts to their own health and property values and the potential for subsequent harm from the companies’ past, current, and future air, water, and soil pollution.”

The motion goes on to say that the public “has access to many of the categories of information in the companies’ documents – in large part because the companies have touted their PFAS chemistries, products, and business strategies in public forums as a means of broadcasting their goodwill.”

Late last month, Clean Cape Fear posted an online petition for members of the community to sign in support of unsealing the documents. As of Monday afternoon, more than 1,700 signatures had been collected.

A proposed rule to establish monitoring and minimization requirements for PFAS dischargers in the state was crafted largely from input provided by a utility association.

A draft of the rule was discussed last week in a meeting of the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission’s Water Quality Committee. The role of the commission is to adopt rules to protect, preserve and enhance the state’s water and air resources.

The draft will likely be presented to the committee this spring, short of any further suggestions from community and environmental groups. The draft then will go to the full commission if the committee decides to move forward.

North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources Director Richard Rogers told the committee during its meeting Wednesday that while the draft rule includes “some” of the input from those groups, the “full scope of their written feedback has not been integrated in the rule that you have before you today.”

“At the direction of the committee chair, staff used the PFAS monitoring and minimization framework submitted by the North Carolina Water Quality Association to develop the draft rule before the committee today,” he said. He was referring to committee chairman Steve Keen. The statewide association members are from public water, sewer, and stormwater utilities.

Rogers went on to say that he would like to consider a rule on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances discharges into surface waters that incorporates feedback from the other groups, the full engagement of which would push the division past a May deadline.

The committee instructed division staff to complete and present a draft to the rule and a regulatory impact analysis, which assesses the impacts of a proposed regulation, at its May 7 meeting.

“We need to get this thing through,” Commission Chair JD Solomon said. “We need to get it to public comment. That’s the most important thing right now.”

Community and environmental groups will then get the opportunity to submit their responses to the draft rule, he said.

The language included in the draft presented to the committee last week has already drawn the ire of environmental advocates who argue it does not require industries to reduce their PFAS discharges.

“They moved forward a rule that is worse than doing nothing and that is because it will give cover to polluters to do nothing even if DEQ tries to put protections in permits,” Cape Fear River Watch Executive Director Dana Sargent said in an interview Thursday. “DEQ should be drafting the rule, the EMC should be there for review and obviously it should not be drafted by industry.”

The Cape Fear region became ground zero for PFAS contamination in the state after news broke in 2017 that Chemours Co.’s Fayetteville Works facility, some 70 miles upstream of Wilmington, had for decades been discharging PFAS into the Cape Fear River and groundwater, contaminating the drinking water sources for tens of thousands of residents.

But Chemours is not the sole discharger of these chemical compounds, which are used to produce everyday goods like food containers, waterproof clothing and stain-resistant carpets, into the region’s drinking water sources.

According to DEQ, there are hundreds of industries in North Carolina that pay wastewater treatment plants to take their industrial waste, the Southern Environmental Law Center said in a March 10 release.

Those treatment plants do not remove PFAS, but “have the authority and obligation to stop their industrial customers from sending toxic pollution like PFAS to their wastewater plants in the first place,” the release states.

Jean Zhuang, a SELC senior attorney, stated in the release that the draft rule presented last week “is offensive to families throughout North Carolina who deserve clean, safe drinking water.”

“Under this rule, PFAS-polluting industries could do absolutely nothing to reduce their toxic waste for the next century and face no consequences,” she said. “This rule protects over 600 industry polluters above communities and abandons the 2.5 million North Carolinians drinking water contaminated with harmful forever chemicals. The Environmental Management Commission cannot move this rule forward.”

During last week’s meeting, committee members discussed various language in the proposed rule, including the frequency with which dischargers would have to collect samples to test for PFAS contamination.

If an industry exceeds a certain PFAS discharge threshold, it would be required to implement a minimization plan and submit that plan to the state or publicly owned treatment works, or POTWs, within a timeframe established in the rule. A minimization plan would be reviewed every two years until the PFAS reduction goals set in the plan are met.

The committee also instructed the Division of Water Resources to complete a draft rule pertaining to 1,4-dioxane and present it in May.

The commission is expected to decide at its May 8 meeting whether to approve a rule outlining health standards for three compounds, PFOA, PFOS, and GenX, in groundwater.

If the rule is approved it will be presented to the state Rules Review Commission this summer. If that commission approves the draft rule, it would become final in July.

A city-operated wastewater treatment plant in Randolph County discharged substantially high levels of 1,4-dioxane last month into a tributary of the Cape Fear River, the drinking water supply for about 1 million North Carolinians.

Several downstream businesses and water utilities, including Cape Fear Public Utility Authority in Wilmington and Pender County Utilities, were recently notified that the state “grab samples” collected Jan. 24 at Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant returned a final concentration of 2,200 parts per billion, or ppb.

The plants own grab sample, which was collected the same day, detected a concentration of 3,520 ppb, according to North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources, or DWR. Grab samples are taken at a single point in time.

The federal drinking water health advisory level is 0.35 ppb for 1,4-dioxane, which the Environmental Protection Agency categorizes as a likely human carcinogen.

“After the initial analysis of the samples, DWR completed quality assurance and control measures to validate the results,” a DEQ release states. “DEQ, using EPA toxicity calculations for lifetime exposure, has determined that the average monthly 1,4-dioxane concentration protective of downstream water supplies is about 22 ppb for the Asheboro discharge.”

The chemical compound is used primarily as a solvent in chemical manufacturing.

DWR’s Jan. 28 notice to downstream drinking water utilities and businesses comes just months after a state chief administrative law judge last September revoked 1,4-dixoane limits included in Asheboro’s discharge permit.

DEQ appealed Judge and Office of Administrative Hearings Director Donald van der Vaart’s decision in Wake County Superior Court. The court has not yet ruled on the appeal.

As it awaits a ruling, DEQ is on a timetable set by the EPA to reissue Asheboro’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit and restrict how much 1,4-dioxane it’s wastewater treatment plant may discharge into surface waters.

The federal agency gave the department a 90-day window to submit a proposed revised permit.

DEQ or “any interested person” may request a public hearing on the EPA’s objection to the permit within those 90 days.

If that request is not made and DEQ does not meet the deadline, “exclusive authority to issue the permit passes to the EPA” in accordance with the code of federal regulations, according to the letter.

It is unclear whether the EPA under President Donald Trump will move forward with that mandate.

Trump’s executive order that freezes new regulations prompted the Office of Management and Budget to withdraw a federal rule that would require per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, manufacturers to monitor and reduce discharges into surface waters under the Clean Water Act.

The elevated levels of 1,4-dioxane recorded last month were found in discharge from the treatment plant to Hasketts Creek, which empties into the Deep River within the Cape Fear River Basin.

“DEQ continues to sample at municipal wastewater treatment plants and in surface waters across the Cape Fear River Basin to identify 1,4-dioxane sources,” Laura Oleniacz, DWR public information officer, said in an email. “In addition, DEQ continues to assist municipalities to minimize or reduce 1,4-dioxane coming from industrial wastewater. DEQ is also exploring other avenues for protecting drinking water.”

The agency “agrees with EPA that limits are necessary to protect North Carolinians,” she said.

There have been “significant reductions” at some wastewater treatment plants in what DEQ says has been a collaborative effort between the agency, Environmental Management Commission and municipal operators.

Residents, local governments and water utilities in the Cape Fear Region have been pushing for tighter limits of 1,4-dixoane and PFAS releases from upstream dischargers.

Proponents for such limits argue that the dischargers should bear the brunt of responsibility in keeping these synthetic compounds out of drinking water sources.

“The primary means to achieve health-based levels is to reduce and minimize the release of the contaminant at the sources,” DEQ stated in a Feb. 7 release. “Industrial best management practices and treatment technologies exist to achieve these outcomes that protect North Carolinians’ drinking water sources.”

Last November, the Cape Fear utility’s executive director petitioned DWR Director Richard Rogers and Environmental Management Commission Chair J.D. Solomon to begin emergency rulemaking to limit 1,4-dioxane discharges upstream.

The petition was returned to the utility later that same month with Rogers stating it lacked appropriate text for a proposed emergency rule.

The utility has not taken further action on the matter.

In an email responding to questions Wednesday, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Director of Communications Vaughn Hagerty said utility staff had “been monitoring the situation since we received notification” from DEQ regarding the elevated 1,4-dioxane discharge levels from the Asheboro plant.

The utility’s Sweeney Water Treatment Plant treats raw water from the Cape Fear River.

“Treatment technologies at Sweeney, specifically ozonation and biological filtration, are very effective at removing 1,4-dixoane,” Hagerty said.

Additional information about Sweeney’s treatment of 1,4-dioxane and other compounds is available online.

DWR’s Cape Fear River Basin 1,4-dioxance wastewater discharge data is available online.

Time is ticking on North Carolina’s environmental agency to reissue a permit that will limit discharges of a likely human carcinogen into the drinking water sources for about 1 million state residents.

The state Department of Environmental Quality was recently notified it has until mid-April to submit to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a proposed revised permit that restricts how much 1,4-dixoane a municipal wastewater treatment plant may discharge into surface waters upstream of the Cape Fear region.

The department is in the midst of an ongoing legal challenge to reinstate the cap it had placed on the amount of the chemical solvent being discharged by the city of Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant.

In a letter to DEQ Division of Water Resources Director Richard Rogers, the EPA acknowledged the department’s challenge to a Sept. 12, 2024, ruling that revoked permit limits of 1,4-dioxane. The chemical compound is used primarily as a solvent in chemical manufacturing.

DEQ appealed Chief Administrative Law Judge and Direct of the Office of Administrative Hearings Dr. Donald van der Vaart’s decision in Wake County Superior Court.

The court has not yet ruled on the appeal, which “may affect and complicate NC DEQ’s ability to submit a revised permit addressing this objection,” EPA’s letter states.

“However, the time frames applicable to the objection process are mandatory and no extension can be granted for NC DEQ to wait for outcome of an appeal or to otherwise seek relief from the OAH decision,” the letter continues.

DEQ or “any interested person” may request a public hearing on the EPA’s objection to the permit.

A public hearing must be requested within 90 days from when DEQ received the letter.

“If a public hearing is not requested and NC DEQ does not submit a proposed permit that has been revised to meet our specific objection within 90-days of receipt of this letter, exclusive authority to issue the permit passes to the EPA” in accordance with the code of federal regulations, the letter states.

Division of Water Resources Public Information Officer Laura Oleniacz confirmed in an email that the division had received the letter “and it is under review.”

The state Department of Justice does not comment on pending litigation.

In August 2023, DEQ’s Division of Water Resources issued Asheboro a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit limiting the city water treatment plant’s release of 1,4-dioxane.

The city sued, challenging the state’s power to include the 1,4-dioxane water quality standard in the permit and argued the new limits created an excessive financial burden.

The cities of Greensboro and Reidsville joined the lawsuit after both were issued notices of violation for 1,4-dioxane discharges in November 2019 and required to include discharge limits in their draft NPDES permits.

Brunswick County, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority and Fayetteville Public Works Commission intervened in the case, asserting that upstream 1,4-dioxane dischargers placed an undue financial burden on them to sample drinking water sources for the chemical and try and reduce the level of consumption of it to their customers.

In his ruling, van der Vaart said DEQ officials did not follow the letter of the law written in state statutes when they calculated discharge limits and established an enforceable water quality standard for 1,4-dioxane and noted anticipated high costs associated with monitoring and treatment of 1,4-dioxane.

He also wrote that the EPA has not characterized 1,4-dioxane as carcinogenic to humans, but that the agency identifies it as “likely” carcinogenic to people.

In its 2023 draft revised risk determination for 1,4-dioxane as a chemical under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the EPA “proposes that exposure to drinking water sources from surface water that is contaminated by 1,4-dioxane released from industrial facilities contributes to the unreasonable risk” to human health.

Since van der Vaart’s ruling, Asheboro has released “extremely high levels” of the chemical upstream of the drinking water supply for nearly half a dozen cities, including Wilmington, and Brunswick and Pender counties, according to information made available by the Southern Environmental Law Center.

An analysis of Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant showed 1,4-dioxane discharges exceeded 800 parts per billion, “2,322 times the cancer risk level for the chemical,” the center said in a release.

“DEQ tried to do the right thing and protect North Carolinians from toxic 1,4-dioxane coming from the city of Asheboro, but three cities tried to overturn our water protection laws in an effort to shield their industrial customers rather than people downstream,” SELC Senior Attorney Jean Zhuang state in the release. “EPA’s letter sets the record straight that existing law protects people against pollution, making clear that the North Carolina Administrative Law Judge was wrong in siding with polluters and that DEQ must control toxic 1,4-dioxane pollution. Controlling toxic chemicals at the source is the only way to ensure polluters bear the burden of their pollution, not families and communities downstream. We hope that EPA will stand strong to protect people against toxic water pollution and make sure that the city’s 1,4-dioxane releases are controlled in the future.”

WILMINGTON – Wayne Lewis stood before state environmental regulatory officials Monday night and told the story about his wife.

He described how, on an evening in 2009 just before she went to bed, she started vomiting blood. He detailed how the couple was shocked by her medical diagnosis: sclerosis of the liver. He explained how the doctors who made that diagnosis at the University of North Carolina Medical Center in Chapel Hill could not determine how or why she got the disease.

“She never drank,” Lewis said, referring to alcoholic beverages. “The only thing she would drink was water, unsweetened tea, maybe a little Sprite. When we went out to eat it was unsweetened tea. She didn’t smoke. They ruled out Tylenol because she didn’t take Tylenol.”

She was tested a handful of times for hepatitis. The results always came back the same, negative.

“They said it was no reason for her to have that disease and that’s why I brought you my report from my water,” Lewis said.

Preliminary and final results indicate that his drinking water contained a total per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, concentration of 381.5 parts per trillion, more than 50 times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum contamination level for legacy compounds PFOA and PFOS, and nearly 40 times higher than limits established for a handful of other compounds, including GenX, which is manufactured upriver near Fayetteville.

Lewis was the first in a string of residents predominately from New Hanover and Brunswick counties who braved the evening chill Monday to speak during the state-held public hearing at Cape Fear Community College on proposed health standards for PFAS in groundwater. The hearing was the second of three held in recent days, the last of which was in Raleigh Tuesday night.

Most of those who spoke at the hearing in Wilmington shared sentiments of frustration with the state Environmental Management Commission for not adopting health standards sooner, for including only three substances — there are anywhere from 12,000 to upwards of 15,000 related compounds — of the eight for which the Department of Environmental Quality had proposed standards, and for what the commission’s critics call pandering to the very industries responsible for discharging the chemical compounds into the environment.

Looking back: Commission members balk on 5 proposed PFAS standards

Hearing officer Jacqueline Gibson, one of the 15 commission members, listened as residents from the lower Cape Fear region urged the commission to adopt health standards for PFAS as a class of chemicals, rather than as individual chemical compounds, for both groundwater and surface waters.

The Cape Fear region was rocked by news in 2017 that the Chemours Co.’s Fayetteville Works facility, some 70 miles upstream of Wilmington, had for decades been discharging PFAS into the Cape Fear River, groundwater and air, contaminating drinking water sources for tens of thousands of residents.

Chemours is not the sole discharger of these chemical compounds — varied PFAS are used to produce everyday goods like food containers, waterproof clothing and stain-resistant carpets — into the region’s drinking water sources. Communities, private well owners and utilities throughout the state are struggling with PFAS contamination.

Earlier this fall, the commission, whose role is to adopt rules to protect, preserve and enhance the state’s water and air resources, voted to move forward with a proposed draft rule outlining health standards for PFOA, PFOS and GenX in groundwater.

The EPA classifies those first two compounds as likely carcinogens. Researchers are still trying to grasp the potential health effects of GenX, a compound specific to Chemours’ plant on the banks of the Cape Fear River.

The proposed rule omits the five other compounds that DEQ had sought to include in proposed groundwater limits.

“We’re worried about our health and we don’t want unnecessary groundwater exposure,” Brunswick County resident Joanne Levitan said. “It’s time to stop putting business interests ahead of people to protect the citizens of North Carolina from PFAS by enacting proposed groundwater standards and further by regulating all PFAS as a class.”

In October, DEQ Division of Water Resources Director Richard Rogers set interim maximum allowable concentrations for eight PFAS, including PFBS, PFNA, PFHxS, PFBA and PFHxA.

State groundwater rules grant any person the right to request the water resources director establish an interim maximum allowable concentration for a substance for which a groundwater standard has not been set. Rogers set the limits after an Alamance County couple made the request for him to do so.

Rogers will, within a year, recommend to the commission whether any of the interim maximum allowable concentration should be replaced or terminated.

Dr. Robert Parr, a retired emergency physician and Wilmington resident who spoke before the Environmental Management Commission Monday, listed the human health effects associated with PFAS, including various types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, weakened immune function and decreased liver and kidney function.

“It is well past the time that the EMC stopped fooling around and playing around with deadly chemicals, toxic pollutants that endanger public health and safety,” he said. “Now is the time for the EMC to fulfill its primary responsibility and defend present and future generations of North Carolinians from protecting, preserving and enhancing our state’s air and water quality resources.”

Brunswick County resident Jonathan Pattishall described the difficulties he’s had with getting answers on how he can get his private well tested for PFAS.

“I’m asking you to adopt rules governing PFAS as an entire class of chemicals,” he said. “This process is already difficult and confusing enough. Most people who are on private wells are not chemists or lawyers. They’re not government administrators. We don’t handle this kind of information. We need the EMC and the DEQ to help us out, to make it easier by drafting separate rules for all PFAS.”

The commission is expected to decide whether to approve the hearing officer’s report and final fiscal and regulatory impact analysis on the draft rule in May 2025. If approved, the rule would be presented to the state Rules Review Commission next summer.

If the rules commission approves the draft rule, it would become final in July, roughly five years after Lewis lost his wife in 2019.

She spent her final 10 days in an intensive care unit. She was 58.

After Gibson proclaimed the hearing adjourned, Lewis shouted from his seat, “Does it do any good? Or, are you just going to do what you want to do?”

Public comments on the proposed draft rule will be accepted through Dec. 31 by email to GWTriRevComments@deq.nc.gov or by mail to Bridget Shelton, NC DEQ Division of Water Resources, Planning Section 1611 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C. 27699-1611.

The state’s environmental regulatory agency has established temporary caps on the amounts of several PFAS that industries will be allowed to release into groundwater.

Until permanent limits are set, interim maximum allowable concentrations introduced by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources allows officials to set cleanup targets for groundwater contaminated with high levels of the chemical compounds.

The division’s announcement last week came on the heels of a study that found per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, including some of those for which the state has set interim allowable limits, have remained in groundwater offsite of Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant for up to more than 40 years.

Water resources division Director Richard Rogers will, within a year, recommend to the state Environmental Management Commission, or EMC, whether any of the interim maximum allowable concentrations, or IMACs, should be replaced or terminated.

That 15-member commission, whose role is to adopt rules that protect, preserve and enhance the state’s water and air resources, voted earlier this fall to move forward with a proposed draft rule outlining health standards for three PFAS in groundwater.

The proposed rule includes PFOA and PFOS, which are classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as likely carcinogens, and GenX, a compound specific to Chemours’ plant on the banks of the Cape Fear River.

The Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, announced Monday that public comments on the proposed draft rule will be accepted from Nov. 1 – Dec. 31 by email to GWTriRevComments@deq.nc.gov or by mail to Bridget Shelton, NC DEQ Division of Water Resources, Planning Section 1611 Mail Service Center Raleigh, N.C. 27699-1611. The EMC and DEQ will also host three public hearings on the proposed draft rule beginning next month.

The commission is expected to vote on the draft rule next year. If approved, the rule is anticipated to be effective by mid-2025.

The commission omitted five other compounds state environmental quality officials sought to include in proposed groundwater limits.

Those five – PFBS, PFNA, PFHxS, PFBA and PFHxA – were specifically listed along with PFOA, PFOS and GenX in a July request by an Alamance County couple asking Rogers to establish interim maximum allowable concentrations in groundwater for all eight compounds.

Related: Public may comment on requested interim PFAS limits

State groundwater rules grant any person the right to request the water resources director establish an IMAC for a substance for which a groundwater standard has not been set.

Graham residents Jonathan and Stephanie Gordon wrote that at least a half-dozen drinking water wells in their community tested for “extremely high levels of PFAS.”

“Issuing an IMAC will only be one step towards the relief we need, but it will at least give us greater clarity about the risk we face and the eventual obligations for unknown responsible parties to address the contamination they have visited upon us,” they wrote.

The EMC’s decision to move forward with only three of the eight PFAS recommended by DEQ was met with swift backlash from residents and environmental groups fighting for protections from PFAS for both groundwater and surface water.

Groundwater supports about 50% of drinking water in North Carolina.

Environmental justice organization Democracy Green has launched the campaign “Ban the Eight,” which includes an open petition urging the EMC to include all eight compounds in the draft proposed rule.

“We want all eight because if you’re going to do it for one you do it for all because that reaches more of the 100 counties of North Carolina that are dealing with PFAS, whether it’s from military bases, whether it’s from airports, both small and large, the Haw River all the way down to the Cape Fear,” said Democracy Green cofounder, La’Meshia Whittington. “They’re piecemealing it. People in North Carolina can’t afford that. This is a big deal for DEQ to set this precedence to say we’re going to use the EPA’s fullest authority because EMC keeps dragging their feet.”

The EMC is scheduled to meet Nov. 13-14 in Raleigh. An agenda for that meeting has not been published.

PFAS have been observed in more than 7,000 private drinking water wells within about a 13-mile radius of the Chemours plant, according to DEQ.

The chemistry company and other industries are responsible for emitting PFAS into the environment in the Cape Fear River basin, the largest in the state and one with surface water resources that are the drinking source for about 1.5 million people.

The long, slow purge

A recently published study headed by researchers at N.C. State University found it may take decades before PFAS flushes from groundwater around the Chemours plant and into the Cape Fear River.

Dr. David Genereux, a professor with the university’s Department of Marine, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, and coauthor of the study said PFAS emitted into the environment up to more than 40 years ago were found in groundwater within a test site immediately surrounding Chemours’ Fayetteville Works Facility in Bladen County.

Researchers collected samples beneath streams, which is where groundwater directly flows into surface waters.

Genereux said that a great deal of work is being done by researchers documenting the current state of PFAS by measuring it in groundwater and defining what’s there now.

“What’s different in this new paper is that we’re looking ahead to the future and not just the way things are right now,” he said. “We’re specifically looking ahead to estimate how long that PFAS would be in groundwater up near Fayetteville Works and how long it would take for that PFAS to flush out of the ground and into streams by the natural flow of the groundwater because that really is its ultimate fate.”

Instead of degrading in the ground, PFAS flows toward streams. Once the compounds make into the streams, they then flow into the Cape Fear River.

Genereux said researchers estimate it will take until about at least 2060 “possibly much longer” for PFAS currently in the ground to flush into tributaries of the Cape Fear. If compounds diffuse into clays, “that would really slow it down,” he said.

“That means that PFAS could continue to affect the river water users downstream for some decades to come,” he said.

PFAS targeted in the study are those released during the so-called high emission years from roughly the 1980s to 2019, the year Chemours, DEQ and Cape Fear River Watch entered into a Consent Order that requires the plant reduce its PFAS emissions into the air, ground and river.

The company has, through various emission controls, reduced the amount of PFAS it releases into the environment in recent years, but not at net-zero, Genereux said.

That means PFAS released into the air and hitting the ground continues to feed into the groundwater.

“There’s no time horizon for when that will flush because that source is still ongoing,” Genereux said.

If PFAS diffuse into and then back out of clays, that can significantly slow the flushing process of a compound through a groundwater system. It’s a phenomenon studied for chemicals in other places, but not the private land and agriculture fields around the Fayetteville Works plant.

Researchers have large proposal pending to try and additional funding to study clay diffusion in that area and other aspects of PFAS, including health outcomes of private well water users exposed to decades of contamination.

They’re also working on a study focusing on a small number of drinking water wells to try and estimate how long PFAS might remain persistent in wells.

“The conclusions we reached in the paper about the groundwater system broadly, as a whole, are not necessarily directly applicable to each individual drinking water well,” Genereux said. “Some drinking water wells might clear up faster than the groundwater systems as a whole, especially shallower wells. But, overall, it could be a problem at individual wells for decades.”

North Carolina’s chief administrative law judge and former head of the state’s environmental regulatory agency has eliminated a state cap on the amount of a chemical solvent some municipal wastewater treatment plants discharge.

Chief Administrative Law Judge and Director of the Office of Administrative Hearings Dr. Donald van der Vaart revoked permit limits of 1,4-dioxane for wastewater treatment plants that discharge the chemical substance, one the federal Environmental Protection Agency classifies as a likely human carcinogen, into the drinking water sources of tens of thousands of people.

North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality officials did not follow the letter of the law written in state statutes when they calculated discharge limits and established an enforceable water quality standard for 1,4-dioxane, van der Vaart ruled. In his Sept. 12 decision, van der Vaart also said DEQ erred by considering the chemical substance a carcinogen.

“The [Environmental Protection Agency] has characterized 1,4-dioxane as ‘likely to be carcinogenic to humans,’” he wrote. “The EPA has not characterized 1,4-dioxane as ‘carcinogenic to humans.’”

DEQ has 30 days to appeal van der Vaart’s decision.

A North Carolina Department of Justice spokesperson said by email Monday state attorneys are reviewing the decision with DEQ.

In its 2023 draft revised risk determination for 1,4-dioxane as a chemical under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the EPA “proposes that exposure to drinking water sources from surface water that is contaminated by 1,4-dioxane released from industrial facilities contributes to the unreasonable risk” to human health.

The compound is used primarily as a solvent in chemical manufacturing.

Wastewater treatments plants operated by the cities of Greensboro, Asheboro and Reidsville receive 1,4-dioxane emitted from textile, chemical and plastics manufacturers. Those wastewater treatment facilities then discharge the chemical into surface waters that flow downstream to the Cape Fear region, an area plagued with drinking water contamination from industrial releases of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

PFAS are widely used, human-made chemicals that can be found in a host of consumer products, including stain-resistant carpets, fast food packaging, and water-resistant apparel. Studies of possible human health effects of PFAS, including those found in the Cape Fear River, the drinking water source for tens of thousands of North Carolinians, have found that the chemical substances can cause damage to the liver and immune system, low birth weight, and increase risk of some cancers.

In August 2023, DEQ’s Division of Water Resources issued Asheboro a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit limiting the city wastewater treatment plant’s release of 1,4-dioxane.

The city sued, challenging the state’s power to include the 1,4-dioxane water quality standard in the permit and arguing it faced excessive financial burden because of the new limits.

The cities of Greensboro and Reidsville joined in the lawsuit after both were issued notices of violation for 1,4-dioxane discharges in November 2019 and required to consent by special order to include discharge limits in their draft NPDES permits.

Brunswick County, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority and Fayetteville Public Works Commission intervened in the case, asserting that upstream 1,4-dioxane dischargers placed an undue financial burden on them to sample drinking water sources for the chemical and try and reduce the level of consumption of it to their customers.

In his ruling, van der Vaart noted that a regulatory impact analysis, which assesses possible financial impacts of proposed rules, states that costs associated with controlling discharges of 1,4-dioxane “… are anticipated to be prohibitively expensive for local governments and the citizens served by public utilities,” but acknowledges “ongoing costs benefits associated with the monitoring and treatment of 1,4-dioxane are likely to be considerable.”

Van der Vaart was appointed DEQ secretary in 2015 by then-Gov. Pat McCrory. In 2017, under the leadership of then-Secretary Michael Regan, van der Vaart was placed on administrative leave. Van der Vaart later resigned from DEQ.

Following growing public outcry in recent years, both the EPA, now headed by Regan, and DEQ have begun to address the releases of some of these compounds – there are more than 10,000 – into drinking water sources.

Earlier this year, EPA announced final maximum contaminant levels limiting a half-dozen PFAS in drinking water.

DEQ’s proposed draft rule outlining health standards for PFOA, PFOS and GenX in groundwater is heading for public comment after a unanimous vote of the state’s Environmental Management Commission.

Groundwater supports about half of drinking water supplies in North Carolina.

The commission decided to omit five PFAS initially included in the proposed draft rule.

The board is still hashing out DEQ’s proposal to establish surface water rules for all eight PFAS. Earlier this month, the commission’s water quality committee instructed DEQ to develop a draft rule and regulatory impact analysis that would establish monitoring requirements for every industrial and NPDES permit and require every industrial and significant industrial user to include PFAS source-reduction plans in their municipal pretreatment plans.

The Republican-majority commission has come under fire for what some state officials and environmental groups are calling stall tactics.

In a meeting earlier this month, some commissioners continued to refute those claims, saying that they were committed to addressing 1,4-dioxane discharges into drinking water sources in the state.

Commission members briefly discussed a petition to the EPA asking the agency to strip North Carolina’s authority to administer the NPDES permit program. North Carolina is one of 47 states authorized by the EPA to implement the permit program.

Cape Fear River Watch, Environmental Justice Community Action Network, Haw River Assembly, and MountainTrue filed the petition Aug. 28, arguing that the North Carolina General Assembly had blocked DEQ from “effectively implementing” its NPDES permit program and protecting North Carolinians from water pollution.

The General Assembly has amended laws that dictate who appoints members of the Environmental Management Commission and Rules Review Commission, “such that these commissions have been effectively captured by a supermajority in the legislature that is hostile to environmentally protective regulation,” according to the petition.

Legislators have also enacted laws that give the Office of Administrative Hearings “final decision-making authority over NPDES permits, thereby stripping DEQ and the EMC of the roles assigned them,” the petition states.

The EPA “generally works” with a state and petitioner to resolve issues raised in a petition, according to the agency’s website.

Kelly Moser, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Chapel Hill office, confirmed late last week that the EPA is taking the petition under advisement. The EPA’s Atlanta region press office did not respond to a request for comment.

“We’ve had concerns about the legislature control over the EMC and we’re just seeing that playing out in the latest delays that the EMC has created in North Carolina’s attempts to protect people from harmful industrial chemicals,” she said in a telephone interview. “The people of North Carolina deserve to have access to clean water and the actions by the state legislature, the EMC and now ALJ van der Vaart are standing in the way of North Carolinians having access to clean water. We are confident that EPA will take our petition seriously and that the state will hopefully be forced to come into compliance.”

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

Last month, Tropical Storm Debby brought soaking rains to North Carolina that overwhelmed some wastewater treatment infrastructure in the eastern part of the state.

For instance, Brunswick County posted public notices on Aug. 8 and Aug. 10 estimating that a total of about 1.5 million gallons of treated and partially treated wastewater overflowed a stormwater pond and drained into a tributary of the Lockwood Folly River. A county news release noted both spills were related to the inundation created by Debby.

Aging water and wastewater infrastructure is an issue in North Carolina. According to the 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, the state’s wastewater infrastructure needs about $5.3 billion in upgrades.

Recently, state leaders have rolled out funding initiatives to address that glaring need.

In July, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office announced $253 million that will, in part, support “drinking water and wastewater infrastructure funding and stormwater construction grants,” according to a release. The funds would support “70 projects in 30 counties statewide, including 51 construction projects.”

“Strong water and wastewater systems are vital for safe drinking water and economic development,” Cooper said. “Thanks to federal funding from the Biden-Harris administration and state appropriations, we’ve made historic investments to rebuild and replace aging systems, especially in rural communities, which will make our state stronger.”

That’s on top of close to $2 billion that the legislature appropriated in the state budget in 2023 for at least 241 water and sewer projects paid for by federal dollars that flowed to the state for coronavirus relief. 

Missing, however, from the billions dedicated to shoring up the state’s water infrastructure is funding to help owners of properties that have septic tanks. 

Septic vs. municipal wastewater systems

Septic systems provide wastewater treatment to homes in areas without municipal treatment facilities, such as rural and unincorporated communities. Roughly half of all North Carolina households rely on septic or decentralized wastewater systems, according to information provided by North Carolina State University’s Crop and Soil Sciences program.

Septic tank owners bear sole responsibility for their systems’ upkeep. What’s more, if a system is not properly maintained, it could seep sewage into ground and surface water and pose a threat to public health.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s annual SepticSmart week falls this month, an effort to bring attention to the needs of septic systems and the importance of maintaining them. 

The agency notes that one-in-five households in the U.S. is on a septic system. In North Carolina, that number is more like one-in-two households, and the vast majority of the households in coastal areas (close to 80%). 

And those systems are not always in optimal conditions, North Carolina State Extension Specialist Erik Severson said in an article on the extension’s website.

““Across the state, we have enormously different soils, some of which are challenging to drain,” he said. 

Rachel Noble, a researcher at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City, said residents who are connected to municipal wastewater treatment systems enjoy a peace of mind not afforded to septic system owners.

“(Municipal) sewage systems have a level of preventive maintenance, making sure that when you live in a city or town (and) you flush the toilet, you don’t see it again,” Noble said.

“You know (the sewage) is going somewhere, and it’s being treated and discharged in a responsible manner that adheres to the EPA recommendations,” she added. “With septic systems (…) you flush the toilet, you hope you don’t see it again, but there’s no structure for that kind of preventive maintenance.”

Septic systems at a glance

While there are several types, a septic system consists of four basic components: the source (home), the septic tank, the drainfield or leach field, and the soil beneath the drainfield. 

The type of system used is based on the lot’s soil and site conditions. The conventional system, which consists of a tank and drainfield that often contains between two and six gravel trenches, is the most commonly used in the state, according to information provided by N.C. State Extension. 

North Carolina is roughly halfway through the Atlantic hurricane season, which the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration has predicted to be an above-average one for named storms. If Tropical Storm Debby is any indication, more frequent and intense storms generated by climate change have the potential to stress storm drains and wastewater systems, experts say.

Communities are looking for better ways to ensure the health of septic systems. 

When asked why septic systems were not addressed in the latest round of water and wastewater infrastructure funding, a North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality spokesperson said that failing septic systems are a “high priority.” 

The department has a pilot program for “decentralized” wastewater treatment systems that could provide funding for “qualified applicants,” including septic tank owners whose systems are in need of repair.

Recipients could receive as much as $500,000 under the program to do the work. The deadline for local governments to apply during the 2024 funding cycle is 5 p.m. Monday, Sept. 30. 

A preventative model

The town of Nags Head, where nearly 80% of properties use septic systems to process waste, has a program to help its residents maintain healthy decentralized wastewater systems.

In 2000, Nags Head launched the Todd D. Krafft Septic Health Initiative Program. Under the program, the town will provide free septic tank inspections and financial assistance to residents whose systems are in need of maintenance, repair or replacement.

“We’re definitely the only ones here on the Outer Banks that offers (a program) like this, as far as I know,” said Conner Twiddy, environmental planner for Nags Head. 

Twiddy said a range of issues can present problems for septic tanks, including “root intrusion in the drain fields” and issues arising from tanks operating at near capacity for extended periods.

Additionally, Twiddy said that sometimes he finds odd items during inspections. 

“(I’ve) found a variety of different things in tanks that shouldn’t be in tanks, like ping-pong balls, kid’s toys (and) different things that could cause damage to the drainfield.”

Towns work to help residents

According to information on its website, Nags Head provides nonemergency septic system inspections at no cost to homeowners with conventional septic systems for residences generating fewer than 3,000 gallons of outflow per day.

Free services from town staff include locating the system, discussing concerns about installation and maintenance, inspections to detect problems early and a follow-up report outlining the system’s location and whether it needs pumping or repair. The town also offers low-interest loans for those who need to make repairs.

More information about the program, including contact information, is on Nags Head’s website.

Twiddy said that monitoring septic systems is beneficial for the individual owner and the broader community, as it can help reduce costs down the road.

“You’re making sure your drain field is taking the water properly,” he said. If needed, property owners can “have the tank pumped or get the filter clean so you’re not dealing with that backup.”

In addition to Nags Head, Wake and Buncombe counties also provide financial assistance to septic owners, according to the Environmental Finance System Network, a national nonprofit organization that works to find creative funding solutions to environmental issues.

“If you’re being more proactive (…) if there’s a problem, you can go ahead and address it,” Twiddy said.

This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The U.S. Court of Appeals this week dismissed a chemical company’s claim that the health advisory the Environmental Protection Agency issued in June 2022 for certain man-made chemicals found in drinking water was “unlawful and should be vacated.”

The 3rd Circuit three-judge panel in Philadelphia heard the argument Jan. 31 and filed its opinion Tuesday.

Chemours Co., which has a facility near Fayetteville, cited a section of the Safe Drinking Water Act that allows petitions for review of “any … final action of the Administrator under this chapter,” according to the ruling.

“Contending that the advisory was unlawful, the Chemours Company petitioned for review of EPA’s action. We will dismiss the petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the health advisory is not a final agency action,” the judges found.

The EPA estimates that there are thousands of different per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, chemicals used in a range of products like home goods and in manufacturing. PFAS have been detected in surface water, groundwater, rainwater and drinking water. Exposure to some of these widely used, long-lasting synthetic chemicals may be toxic to humans.

“This decision supports the very important Safe Drinking Water Act health advisory program,” EPA press secretary Remmington Belford told Coastal Review Wednesday about the ruling.

The Center for Environmental Health, Cape Fear River Watch, Clean Cape Fear, Democracy Green, North Carolina Black Alliance, Toxic Free North Carolina, Natural Resources Defense Council and five residents intervened a month after Chemours filed the petition for review in July 2022. Officials with the groups released an announcement Tuesday applauding the court’s decision.

“Through the years, our community has learned that when companies like Chemours are not actively hiding the science, they are usually attacking it. This is a win for public health and every resident harmed by GenX exposures. The courts got it right this time,” Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear said Tuesday in a release.

“We were hopeful and cautiously optimistic; however, we’ve also seen a shift in court rulings recently that have not been friendly to environmental protections and public health. Yesterday’s verdict was refreshing,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

“We believe this ruling is significant for private well owners in the region dealing with Chemours-specific PFAS contamination,” Donovan continued, adding that DEQ adopted the EPA’s GenX health advisory when it came out in 2022 and the ruling Tuesday means DEQ can keep moving forward and require Chemours to provide remedies to private well owners who have levels of GenX exceeding 10 parts per trillion. Historically it was 140 ppt.

“DEQ has made addressing PFAS a priority and will continue to rely on science-based, peer-reviewed health standards to protect human health in North Carolina while implementing the Maximum Contaminant Levels set by EPA and pursuing state-level surface water and groundwater standards for PFAS compounds, including GenX,” NCDEQ Deputy Communications Director Josh Kastrinsky said Wednesday.

“The Court strongly and unanimously rejected Chemours’s attempt to kill EPA’s scientific guidance on how communities can protect themselves from toxic GenX contamination in tap water,” said Sarah Tallman, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Everyone has a right to turn on their kitchen tap and have safe water, so we will continue to fight the chemical industry and others who try to block efforts to protect our health from toxic hazards.”

Cape Fear River Watch Executive Director Dana Sargent said in the release that Chemours fought this health advisory level “for the same motivation behind all their actions: money. While the court did not acknowledge their smokescreen, we are grateful they rejected Chemours’ nefarious claim.”

Chemours said the ruling was merely a procedural loss.

“While we are disappointed with the Third Circuit’s dismissal of our appeal on procedural grounds, the decision means the U.S. EPA’s health advisory on HFPO-Dimer Acid (HFPO-DA) is not enforceable,” Chemours Representative Cassie Olszewski told Coastal Review Wednesday.

“Chemours has challenged — along with groups of drinking water providers and manufacturers — the EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Limits (MCL) for drinking water which utilize, in part, the same scientifically unsound analysis. We look forward to having the D.C. Circuit consider the merits of our arguments in connection with our pending challenge to the EPA’s MCL regulation,” Olszewski said.

Leading up to the judges’ decision

After news reports in June 2017 that several types of PFAS had been detected in the Cape Fear River, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality identified Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility as the source.

Cape Fear River watch sued both the Department of Environmental Quality and Chemours, resulting in a consent order that has allowed the company to continue operating since February 2019. Since then, both the EPA and DEQ say they have been taking steps to address PFAS.

“Drinking water health advisory levels are non-regulatory health-based values that are provided for informational purposes,” according to the EPA. “On June 15, 2022, the EPA published final drinking water health advisories (HAs) for perfluorobutane sulfonic acid and its potassium salt (PFBS) and hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA) and its ammonium salt (‘GenX chemicals’).”

The final health advisory values were based on the final EPA toxicity assessments published in 2021, the agency said.

Chemours uses HFPO-DA as a “patented polymerization aid in the manufacture of fluoropolymers,” the trade name for which is GenX, according to the company.

Chemours filed the petition for review in July 2022, saying the health advisory was arbitrary and capricious and that it was otherwise inconsistent with the law, because EPA incorporated grossly incorrect and overstated exposure assumptions―in essence, EPA used the wrong chemical when making its exposure assumptions, thereby resulting in a significantly less tolerant health advisory for HFPO Dimer Acid than is warranted by the data,” according to the petition.

The 3^rd Circuit found that Congress enacted the Safe Water Drinking Act to protect drinking water quality, and authorizes the EPA administrator to address contaminants in waters by taking various actions, such as putting a regulation in place or issue health advisories.

Once EPA officials have the final toxicity assessment, exposure factors and relative source contribution, the federal agency can then publish a health advisory “to inform decisionmakers of what it deems is a safe level of the contaminant in drinking water.”

In this instance, the EPA developed a health advisory. Advisories are not regulations, but “provide information’ about a safe level of a contaminant so that government officials and managers of public water systems can ‘determine whether actions are needed to address the presence of [the] contaminant in drinking water,’” the court found.

In August 2022, the nonprofit organizations and five residents intervened in the case.

The Center for Environmental Health represented Cape Fear River Basin community groups and individuals who have relied on the advisory to fight for health protective drinking water, Senior Legislative Counsel Tom Fox said in a release.

“The Third Circuit correctly found that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the GenX health advisory is not a final agency action. The court rejected Chemours’ attempts to convert the advisory into a reviewable action with examples of indirect consequences of the health advisory,” Fox said.

Donovan told Coastal Review Wednesday that Clean Cape Fear intervened because ‘We wanted the courts to see that the American people — especially those of us living in North Carolina, are hungry for strong enforceable protections the Biden/Harris EPA is implementing regarding PFAS. Chemours publicly claims GenX is safe but the best available science disagrees. We’re tired of Chemours attacking the EPA when it actually begins to do its job and serve the people.”

What’s next?

Chemours filed in June a similar petition for review in the Washington, D.C., circuit after the EPA issued in April the final National Primary Drinking Water Regulation for six PFAS, including perfluorobutane sulfonic acid and its potassium salt, or PFBS, and GenX chemicals, specifically, HFPO-DA.

“EPA expects that over many years the final rule will prevent PFAS exposure in drinking water for approximately 100 million people, prevent thousands of deaths, and reduce tens of thousands of serious PFAS-attributable illnesses,” the agency said in April. The drinking water regulation established legally enforceable levels for several PFAS.

Donovan noted Wednesday that Clean Cape Fear had learned Tuesday that the group was granted the ability to intervene in defense of EPA’s PFAS drinking water standards.

“Chemours, the American Chemistry Council and other groups sued the EPA earlier this year when the first-ever federal drinking water standards for PFAS were finalized. We joined forces with EarthJustice and other contaminated community groups across the nation to intervene in that lawsuit, as well,” she said.

Members of the commission charged with adopting rules to protect the state’s air and water resources voted this week to pursue health-based standards for only three PFAS prevalent in North Carolina drinking water sources.

The Environmental Management Commission’s groundwater and waste management committee Wednesday afternoon declined to recommend to the full commission all eight per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances included in proposed rules set forth by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ.

The commission’s water quality committee also voted Wednesday to defer a motion to send the surface water rule package on all eight PFAS to the commission for action in its full meeting on Thursday.

The decisions of both committees this week further delay the rulemaking process for the chemical compounds, two of which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified as likely carcinogens.

The earliest the full commission could take action on each committees’ recommendations is at its next meeting in September. The commission can either accept the groundwater committee’s recommendation or put a public notice of standards for all eight PFAS.

The committees’ votes this week frustrated proponents, residents, DEQ officials and some commissioners.

But others on the commission continue to defend their decisions, with those on the water quality committee arguing that they need more time to review revisions to a fiscal analysis associated with the proposed surface water standards.

Groundwater and waste management committee Chair Joe Reardon said that the members on Wednesday agreed to recommend groundwater health standards for the three PFAS because two – PFOA and PFOS – have been identified by the federal government as likely carcinogens. The third, GenX, which had been discharged into the Cape Fear River directly from Chemours’ Fayetteville Works Facility, was included he said, “because obviously the citizens of this state have struggled with (it).”

The committee agreed not to advance PFBS, PFNA, PFHxS, PFBA and PFHxA.

“The science is evolving in this dynamic and I believe the work of this committee was respectful and very pragmatic,” Reardon said.

Groundwater standards would be used to limit permitted releases of PFAS to groundwater, set the health threshold for providing alternative water supplies to residents whose drinking water exceeds contamination limits, and used to establish goals for cleaning contamination in groundwater.

Commissioner Marion Deerhake was one of two water quality committee members who voted Wednesday to recommend the commission take action on the proposed health-based standards for surface water. Fish consumption also is taken into consideration of surface water standards.

She cautioned fellow committee members during their meeting Wednesday against delaying a vote.

Commissioner and Water Allocation Committee Vice-Chair Robin Smith and Thursday during the full commission meeting that she was disappointed in the groundwater committee’s discussion and decision.

“I sat through the entire (groundwater) committee meeting and didn’t hear any substantive flaw identified in the calculation of those standards,” Smith said. “There was no contradiction of the bottom-line conclusion of the regulatory impact analysis. The adoption of all eight standards would impose no new cost on the state, or the citizens of the state, and, to the contrary, would actually reduce regulatory burden. If we can’t adopt standards in that set of circumstances it is hopeless to consider adopting standards in the much more common circumstance we’re going to be looking at in the surface water standards where there are going to be costs.”

DEQ Assistant Secretary Sushma Masemore asked water quality committee members at their meeting Wednesday to consider three points: whether or not the public accepts the science behind the health impacts of the eight compounds; the presence of the eight PFAS in drinking water sources in the state; and how the state wants to protect public health.

“We’re not saying thousands of PFAS out there, but these eight specific chemicals for which multiple federal agencies, credible academia, scientists and experts around the country and the world have put together in their consensus documentations and peer reviewed reports,” Masemore said. “We’ve shown in the many presentations, data, monitoring information, not only from us, but also third party, the permittees, that shows the presence of these PFAS at different levels. And we have articulated here, the best way to acknowledge the cost and the impact to the regulated community, because in the absence of that, the ratepayers, the everyday North Carolinian is going to have to pay for that to clean up that drinking water. They may have to pay for that through their health outcomes over a lifetime.”

The department estimates the tap water of some 3.4 million residents comes from systems that contain at least one compound exceeding new federal contamination limits on several PFAS.

More than 300 municipal and small water systems in North Carolina sampled in 2022 had PFAS detections above newly established federal maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs. Utilities that have drinking water contaminated with PFAS exceeding the MCLs have five years to integrate technology to bring them into compliance.

The costs associated with upgrading systems are by and large getting passed down to customers.

DEQ officials have been discussing proposed health standards with the commission since last November.

In April, the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce asked DEQ to postpone its pursuit of surface and groundwater standards for PFAS, arguing that further research is needed to understand the economic impacts of the proposed regulations.

Commission members continue to be accused of stalling the rulemaking process in order to protect industry.

During a virtual press conference hosted Tuesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, speakers, including residents, business owners and elected officials in the lower Cape Fear region, reiterated those claims.

“The EMC’s mandate is to protect, preserve and enhance the state’s air and water resources and it’s time for them to fulfill this responsibility,” Wilmington City Councilwoman Salette Andrews said Tuesday. “I predict they will once again fail to act in the best interest of North Carolinians. The EMC should work for the people, not the Chamber of Commerce. The chamber has its own lobbyists and doesn’t need to commission in order to do their bidding.”

Cape Fear River Watch Executive Director Dana Sargent specifically called out newer commission members appointed last year by the Republican-controlled legislature, saying those members “have made it clear that they care more about the cost to heavy industry and the Chamber of Commerce’s values, which are also heavy industry.”

“They’re waiting for the Clean Water Act to be basically opened up by potentially a new EPA,” she said, referring to the November presidential election.

Cori Bell, a NRDC senior attorney for environmental health, said the commission has had months to ask questions of DEQ.

“There have been multiple opportunities to get more information and I don’t think that it’s a lack of information and DEC has also said publicly that it’s not a lack of information on the financial analysis here,” Bell said. “It’s really, I think, a result of chamber pressure and outside pressure.”

Commission Chair J.D. Solomon assured commission members at the close of their Thursday meeting that they’re going to “work this thing down the middle.”

“This is a long game,” he said. “We made some progress yesterday. We just have to find the balance.”

NAGS HEAD — Not unlike getting a vehicle tune-up before a risky cross-country trip, emergency responders and weather officials are reinforcing the messaging about ocean safety as hundreds of thousands of beach lovers head to the coast for the July Fourth holiday.

“In the Carolinas, rip currents are our biggest killer,” said Erik Heden, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Newport/Morehead City office. Heden was speaking Thursday at the 2024 Eastern Carolinas Beach Hazards and Rip Currents Integrated Warning Team event held at Jennette’s Pier.

In addition to representatives from the National Weather Service, the team included input from local emergency and public safety officials and ocean rescue personnel, as well as government communication representatives to discuss current and future beach safety issues.

Since 2000, there have been 184 victims of rip current drownings in the Carolinas, 49% of whom were out-of-state residents, Heden said. Of them, 86% were male, most of them aged 41 to 50. Female victims were mostly between 31 and 40 years old.

“That’s four times the number of deaths from tornados, floods and wind combined,” Heden said.

The data didn’t include those who were caught in rips but their deaths were attributed to an associated cause such as a heart attack, he added. About 100 fatalities annually in the U.S. are estimated from rip currents, and as much as 80% of all ocean rescues are rip current-related.

But fortunately, there has been a lot of progress made in preventing the loss of life from rips, mostly by educating the public of the hazard, and by providing better tools to avoid the risk.

To stretch the road trip metaphor, staying safe can come down to commonsense measures such as checking road conditions and the weather report. Going to the ocean should be no different.

“Before we even get to the beach,” Heden said, “let’s talk about knowing some things.”

Those “things” include questions such as: Where are lifeguarded beaches? What are conditions that day at the beach location? Do you need a floatation device? What is the rip current risk?

Awareness can not only prevent drowning, it can also mean not having to be saved by lifeguards.

Recently, numerous news outlets reported that more than 150 beachgoers in New Hanover and Carteret counties and more than 80 at Carolina Beach alone were rescued from rip currents, which are channels of water typically formed at breaks in sand bars and that flow away from the beach.

People can sign up for alerts on beach conditions and daily rip current risks at North Carolina beaches from the National Weather Service. Dare County also offers a service that provides alerts from Dare County lifeguards about local beaches. 

Beachgoers also need to know about other hazards that include lightning, another big weather-related killer. Leave the beach immediately if you hear thunder. Lightning strikes can happen when a storm is as far as 10 miles away. Several strikes on the Outer Banks have happened when people were in the parking lot after exiting the beach.

Other risks ocean swimmers need to be aware of is shore break, that is, when a wave breaks forcefully in shallow water, and rogue waves that seemingly come out of nowhere and can throw a person into the surf.

“They can be deceptive and you don’t see them coming,” Hatteras Island Rescue Squad Supervisor Molly Greenwood said at a press briefing. “Never turn your back to the ocean.”

Even something as seemingly harmless as walking on the sand is dangerous when temperatures are high and the sun is strong. Ben Abe with Chicamacomico Banks Volunteer Fire Department water rescue said that one man suffered second-degree burns on the bottom of his feet from going barefoot on the beach and had to be transported to the hospital.

In recent years, the National Weather Service has produced numerous informational videos and pamphlets about beach safety that are available through its website, including the award-winning “Play it Safe” series.

The public information is geared to a fifth-grade education level, so it’s readily accessible for school-aged children, Heden said.

“We do a tremendous amount of public education,” he added.

Two important new infographics are focused on hazards that are related to rip currents, but had often been overlooked in risk assessments.

One provides advice to bystanders who want to help swimmers caught in a rip current or are struggling in the ocean, with a warning to call for help but not to enter the ocean without a floatation device.

According to the weather service, nearly 30% of rip current drownings in the Carolinas since 2011 were bystanders trying to save another person.

The other graphic illustrates the risk that far-offshore tropical storms create by intensifying the strength of currents, with a West Coast and East Coast version. Several videos and graphics are also offered in Spanish.

The weather service beach forecast webpage will soon be transformed into a GIS-based platform, compatible with mobile devices, said Melinda Bailey, NWS National Marine Services program manager, who attended the event remotely.

Web-based users will not have to download any proprietary software to access the platform, which is expected to be implemented by fall 2024, she added.

“It’s a long time coming but it’s very exciting,” Bailey said.

Bailey said the weather service has been working on predictive artificial intelligence models to improve accuracy of information on rip currents and other forecasting.

Heden said that he looks forward to continued progress in beach safety through advancement in communication and predictive modeling tools, including cutting edge technology.

“I’m intrigued by the virtual reality stuff,” he said. “It would be interesting to incorporate that.”

Learn more

• National Weather Service Rip current brochure

BUXTON  — Two Army Corps of Engineers officials who oversee environmental pollution cleanup at a former Navy base at Cape Hatteras met Tuesday evening with area residents to address their frustration about intermittent petroleum odors and exposed infrastructure debris on the eroded beach near the site.

“Sometimes you see things there, and a day later they’re covered up,” Col. Ronald Sturgeon, the Corps’ Savannah District commander, told attendees at Dare County’s Fessenden Center. “It is certainly a complex site, a very unique situation down here.”   

As part of Sturgeon’s duties with the Corps, he is in charge of the Savannah District’s Formerly Used Defense Site, or FUDS, program in the Southeast that has previously removed storage tanks and 4,000 tons of petroleum-contaminated soil at the former submarine survey operation in Buxton, as well as groundwater remediation and continued monitoring. The Corps was designated in 1991 to take responsibility for environmental restoration of the site.

Although the area is part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore — the landowner — the debris and apparent contamination are remnants of two military bases that operated from 1956 to 2010, first by the Navy and then the Coast Guard. Increasingly severe coastal erosion has unburied remains of base structures, including septic systems and pipes sticking out of dunes where there’s been escarpment.

Since a series of late summer storms, there have been periodic reports from the public of a strong diesel smell at Buxton Beach, as well as evidence of petroleum-contaminated soil, an oily sheen on the nearshore ocean waters, and expanding amounts of concrete, rebar and pipes exposed on the shoreline. In September, the National Park Service closed 0.3 miles of beach near the end of Old Lighthouse Road.

Sturgeon said a FUDS team has come to the site repeatedly since September. Most recently on Monday, May 13, when contractors removed a suspect pipe from the beach and collected samples from surrounding soil. Results were expected within 10 days.

If the sampling shows contamination, he said, additional funds will be requested.

Glenn Marks, chief of reimbursable programs and project management at the Corps’ Savannah District, said about 70 to 80 feet of pipe was removed as part of the $525,000 project.

When asked by an attendee about who “the onus falls on” to remove from the beach the chunks of foundation and other remains of the Navy base, Sturgeon said that the FUDS regulation does not provide the authority or funding.

“If there is not environmental hazards out there, how are we as a collective group going to take care of this?” he responded. “The U.S. Corps of Engineers has never received direct funding for that. The (Corps) would have a hand in that if funding was provided by the landowners.”

According to the National Park Service, its permit issued to the Navy in 1956 required that all structures, including foundations, be removed and that the 50-acre site would be cleaned up when the Navy ceased operations in 1982. In addition, its 1991 agreement with the Coast Guard, the agency said, obligated the Coast Guard to remove structures, restore the landscape, conduct a hazardous materials survey and take responsibility for any necessary mitigation and/or cleanup. Coast Guard Group Cape Hatteras was operating in Buxton from 1984 through 2010, when the base relocated to Fort Macon.

But as far as current cleanup obligations and responsibilities, details about who, what and when have become a bureaucratic muddle. There are also the complications created by the remove of decades and quickly changing conditions from rising sea levels and increased coastal erosion.  

The Coast Guard and the Corps, however, have worked closely with Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials to resolve the issues and determine appropriate funding and authorization options, said Superintendent David Hallac.

“We are looking forward to a complete remediation of this site,” he told the community members. “I am proud we have good partners.”

Even though all three parties are part of the federal government, each bumps up against the other’s rigid regulatory strictures, tight budgets and staff shortages, and legal fuzziness. The old Navy base, for instance, is no longer part of the Navy, but its cleanup is still managed under the Department of Defense, and it is now the Corps’ FUDS baby.

The Coast Guard, however, while military-adjacent, is part of the Department of Homeland Security, not the Defense Department. And the National Park Service is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, a huge federal agency with management concerns centered on conservation of natural resources and recreational areas, such as Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

To complicate matters further, Hallac said some Coast Guard structures are actually on top of Navy building foundations.

“I think the most important thing is we’re not going to stop working till we get all this debris off the beach,” he said. “The take-home message is there’s a lot of debris under the sand and it all has to be removed.”

Related: Park Service urges public to avoid debris on Rodanthe beach

The Coast Guard had completed an environmental site assessment in 2008 and a soil assessment for the onsite wastewater facility in 2010, according to the National Park Service.

Although polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, metals, pesticides and other contaminants above acceptable Environmental Protection Agency standards were found in the soil, remediation through the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation, and Liabilities Act, or CERCLA, process was not done at the two affected drain fields, according to the Park Service said.

In 2021, Hallac reached out to the Coast Guard, which restarted the survey work, taking numerous water and soil samples across 32 acres at the site, said Joseph Lambert, an environmental engineer with the Coast Guard’s Cleveland Engineering Unit, during a brief interview after the meeting. A report on the findings is currently being reviewed and is expected to be finalized this summer.

Coast Guard Sector North Carolina Capt. Timothy List, who also participated in Tuesday’s information session, said that the scope of contamination is not yet clearly defined, but that the Coast Guard intends to do its part, while also working with its partners, to clean up the site.

“We’re here to continue for the long haul,” he told attendees.

It remains unclear why the cleanup and removal work required under the Navy and Coast Guard permits was not completed.

Marks said that his understanding is that the Navy permit is expired, although he didn’t explain what effect that would have on the conditions that had been stipulated.

“I cannot speak for what the Navy signed up for or did not sign up for,” he said.

Julie Youngman, senior attorney with Southern Environmental Law Center, noted during the public comment portion of the meeting that any similar pollution or debris sullying a more prominent national park such as Yellowstone “wouldn’t be there a week.”

Referring to a provision in the Department of Defense manual, “Defense Environmental Restoration Program (DERP) Management,” Youngman asked the Corps’ representatives whether they had asked their bosses about trying to qualify the unique Cape Hatteras situation for special consideration.

According to the “Petition for Eligibility” on page 18 of the manual, “… in exceptional cases, a DoD Component may petition the … Environmental Management Directorate … for clarification or approval to consider a specific activity as an eligible environmental restoration activity.”

Responded Marks: “I’ll commit to looking into it and having me and the lawyers look into it and see if that holds water.”

In an April 30 letter from Kyle Lewis, an environmental attorney for the Corps’ Savannah District, answering an inquiry from Youngman and North Carolina Coastal Federation Executive Director Braxton Davis said that the Corps’ authority to remove the “remnant” and unsafe structures is limited to what existed at the time the Navy left the site. 

“The infrastructure that is currently being exposed by erosion was sound when transferred out of DoD control in 1982; therefore such structures are not eligible to be addressed under the FUDS Program,” Lewis wrote.

The state Department of Environmental Quality and Dare County Department of Health and Human Services also have been working with the agency partners to urge action on the cleanup and to keep the public informed.

Meanwhile, as residents reminded the officials, whether because of regulatory or funding constraints, the public beach in their community — a favorite spot to surf and swim and stroll at Cape Hatteras National Seashore — is still littered with ugly and dangerous chunks of concrete and rebar and stinks of diesel, and it’s all because of the infrastructure and contaminants that the Navy and the Coast Guard left behind.

One man named Michael who owns a vacation house near the closed beach lamented that his rental income is now “nonexistent.”

“So we can’t rent the house, we can’t sell the house, we can’t live in the house,” he said.

Trip Forman, co-founder of REAL Watersports in Waves on Hatteras Island, said during the public comment period that the negative message about the situation has become a blight on tourism.

“Something needs to be done to resolve this,” Forman said “There’s a lot of cancellations. There’s a lot of negative press. It’s spinning out of control.”

The Corps will establish a restoration advisory board, a public forum for sharing information with the community, for the Buxton site within a year, Marks, with the Corps, said. 

Dare County officials also promised to stay involved and keep the public informed about the situation.

“We’re committed to see this through,” said Dare County Board of Commissioners Chair Bob Woodard.

It’s not hurricanes. It’s not tornadoes. It’s not floods.

Heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer in North Carolina, but also the most preventable, according to the state’s recently released Heat Action Plan Toolkit, designed to help communities adapt as climate change drives more frequent and intense heat events.

“Our days and nights are getting hotter as the planet warms,” State Climatologist Dr. Kathie Dello told Coastal Review recently.

“We’re seeing more instances of record daily maximum temperatures than daily minimum records. But we’re also seeing more relentless heat — days and nights that are consistently above the temperatures that we’re used to, but maybe not Earth-shattering. And we’re seeing the hot days and nights starting earlier,” Dello said, adding that the temperature in Raleigh hit 92 degrees May 2, “Our first day over 90, about a week and a half earlier than normal.”

Children, older adults, athletes, outdoor workers and those who are pregnant, with chronic health conditions or without access to air conditioning are most vulnerable to the effects of extreme heat, but everyone is at risk.

North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency Resilience Policy Analyst Andrea Webster said that deaths and heat-related illnesses from extreme heat are 100% preventable.

“While residents are used to hot temperatures, North Carolina’s coast has a high number of outside visitors in the summer months. If they come from a much cooler area, their bodies are likely less adapted to extreme heat. Messaging about symptoms, cooling and hydration strategies, and resources to stay cool can drastically reduce health impacts and emergency department visits,” Webster said.

This is where the toolkit comes in.

The 72-page document features a template with fill-in-the-blank language for local governments, health departments and other entities to write its own heat action plan, as well as about the causes and symptoms of heat-related illnesses, groups most at risk, and where to look for funding. Supplemental materials for getting the word out to the public such as sample graphics, factsheets, brochures, and scripts to warn of impending high heat are on the toolkit website.

“With the frequency and severity of extreme weather increasing, it’s more important than ever to build local resilience that will help protect people and save lives,” Gov. Roy Cooper said when the plan was announced in late April. “The new toolkit provides valuable resources that will help local governments prepare for and respond to these potentially life-threatening events. The project also underscores how state partnerships are critical to finding climate solutions that benefit all North Carolinians.”

About the toolkit

The Office of Recovery Resiliency led the effort in partnership with Dello’s State Climate Office of North Carolina, the N.C. Division of Public Health, Duke University Heat Policy Innovation Hub and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Carolina’s Climate Adaptation Partnership.

The idea for the toolkit came about as part of the Regions Innovating for Strong Economies & Environment, or RISE, program, according to the website. Participants from across the state said a heat action plan template was a priority resilience project.

Dr. Rebecca Ward, a postdoctoral research scholar, was lead developer of the toolkit and collaborated heavily with Webster. Ward is with North Carolina State University’s Coastal Resilience and Sustainability Initiative and the NOAA Carolina’s CAP.

Ward explained that developing the Heat Action Plan Toolkit took about a year, from initial idea to final product.

“Throughout the whole process, I’ve been continually delighted with how many different groups and individuals have shared their time and expertise to help create content and give feedback. We’ve done our best to make sure that this will be useful and usable — very ‘plug-n-play’ — for its target audiences of local governments, primarily health departments and emergency management,” Ward said.

Webster said that local and county governments, health departments and other leaders can use the toolkit to ensure there is a plan in place for when a heat wave is in the forecast, and to ensure that community partners are developing and pursuing resources that help residents and visitors cool down when it’s hot.

“We know that local government leaders are juggling so much — and the more invisible hazards, like heat, may not be top of mind for folks. We’re also just dealing with summers like we haven’t seen in our past,” Dello said. “What used to be a once in a generation hot summer is now happening more frequently. We designed it so it would be helpful and accessible for everyone.”

Webster said the meat of the toolkit is the template heat action plan.

“This word document is already designed with draft text. We want to encourage jurisdictions and community partners to work together to pick out the suggested heat resilience actions that work best for their community and start implementing the actions in the plan,” Webster said.

A list of resources is included for community leaders to contact for help filling in the template ahead of an extreme heat event, and provides instructions on how to identify census tracts with high concentrations of residents especially vulnerable to extreme heat, such as the elderly, she said.

Leaders can access region-specific heat thresholds to know when to send out heat awareness messaging, which is part of the toolkit. There is sample messaging, graphics, fact sheets, checklists, sample community surveys to understand how residents currently deal with extreme heat. Many of the toolkit’s supplemental materials are also available in Spanish.

“NCORR plans to offer workshops for communities to begin developing their heat action plans. Sign up for our e-newsletter to learn about upcoming offerings,” Webster said.

Ward said that the workshops are to take place over the next few months with target users to work through the toolkit.

“I think these will be great opportunities to advance our state’s resilience to extreme heat, and any feedback collected during these workshops will ultimately improve the Toolkit, making it more useful and usable — and we hope used — by local governments across the state,” Ward added.

Webster said that so far, the public health preparedness coordinators are particularly excited about the toolkit, and Chatham County used a draft of the Heat Action Plan Toolkit to publish the first Heat Action Plan in the state.

“Heat affects our residents’ health, and it’s often overlooked as a health concern. Having easy-to-use resources at their fingertips is helpful,” Webster said.

Heat illnesses in numbers

The state Department of Health and Human Services has been recording reported heat-related illnesses for some time.

Every year during the heat season May 1 to Sept. 30, the department’s climate and health program publishes heat-related illness surveillance reports. The first report of the year is expected to be on the website by Wednesday, May 15.

In past years, the reports provided statewide data on heat-related illness. This year, weekly reports will also include regional summaries and some county-level information, the department said.

Last year, North Carolina had more than 3,900 emergency department visits for heat-related illness between May 1-Sept. 30, with 497 of those in North Carolina’s 20 coastal counties. 

The department’s numbers show that between 2016 and 2023, these counties had around 4,300 total reported heat-related illness emergency department visits.

Department officials noted that the annual number of visits are based on the patient’s county of residence, not where they sought medical attention.

For example, a Wake County resident who seeks help at an emergency department for heat-related illness in Carteret County may not be included in Carteret’s count.

“Heat-related illness can affect anyone. People who are accustomed to this weather should still watch for the signs and symptoms of heat-related illness and take precautions to protect their health,” a health department spokesperson said. “Take the heat seriously and do not ignore danger signs like nausea, headache, dizziness or lightheadedness, confusion, and rapid or erratic pulse. They can all be signs of trouble. Get to a cool place, drink water slowly and seek medical help if conditions don’t improve.”

The long-term heat forecast

Webster said her office relies on predictions in the 2020 North Carolina Climate Science Report, which states that, for the coastal plain, “climate models project a substantial increase in the number of these very hot days and very warm nights by mid- to late century under both scenarios.”

By 2100, the number of very hot days is projected to increase by 11 to 49 under the lower scenario and 42 to 94 under the higher scenario, compared to the 1996–2015 average. The number of very warm nights is projected to increase by 14 to 45 under the lower scenario and 48 to 87 under the higher scenario, she sited from the report, adding that the State Climate Office regularly updates their projections, so it’s possible that they may have newer data that aren’t published as a report yet.

“We need to start preparing for more frequent heat waves and high nighttime temperatures. That continued stress on our bodies leads to health impacts such as heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat stroke and even mortality,” Webster said.

Resources

Webster said that residents can sign up to receive heat alerts when the weather is forecast to reach unhealthy temperatures.

The emails from the state health department’s Heat Health Alert System notify when the heat index is forecast to reach unhealthy levels in their county. The sign-up form is available in English and Spanish.

Other resources include the federally funded Crisis Intervention Program administered by the state Department of Social Services that assists those experiencing crises related to temperature, and Operation Fan Heat Relief for eligible adults to receive fans through their local Area Agency on Aging.

Warning signs and symptoms can be found on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s webpage on extreme heat symptoms as well as tips for preventing heat-related illness.

Webster said that visitors and everyone spending time outdoors or in unairconditioned spaces throughout the summer months should pay attention to how they feel in high temperatures.

“Stay hydrated, take breaks in the shade, and cool off in cold water. Watch out for dizziness, nausea, heavy sweating, heat cramps and painful muscle cramps in the abdomen, arms or legs following strenuous activity,” Webster said.

The health department recommends taking the following steps during heat season:

• Increase fluid intake.
• Wear sunscreen of 15 SPF or higher. Sunburn affects your body’s ability to cool down.
• Spend some time in a cool or air-conditioned environment.
• Reduce normal activity levels.
• Cool off by taking cool baths or showers, or placing ice bags or wet towels on the body.
• Stay out of direct sunlight, put shades over the windows, and use cross-ventilation and fans to cool rooms if air conditioning is not available.
• Wear lightweight, light-colored, loose-fitting clothing that permits sweat to evaporate.
• Drink plenty of liquids such as water and sports drinks to replace the fluids lost by sweating. As a person ages, thirst declines.
• Limit intake of alcoholic beverages or sugary drinks. If you are on a low-salt diet or have diabetes, high blood pressure, or other chronic conditions, talk to your doctor before drinking sports drinks.
• Check up on friends or neighbors who live alone.
• Never leave children or pets unattended in vehicles, even for a few minutes, as temperatures inside a car can reach a deadly level quickly.
• This can also be a good time to join your local senior center or take advantage of buildings made accessible to seniors during excessive heat. Your community’s public information office can be contacted for additional information.
• Residents are encouraged to speak with their healthcare provider about how to stay safe. Certain medications make you more vulnerable to heat-related illness.
• Keep your medicines in a cool, dry place.

The number of North Carolinians whose tap water comes from systems that contain at least one chemical compound exceeding new federal contamination limits is “coming down daily,” according to a state environmental official.

Rebecca Sadosky, N.C. Drinking Water Protection Program coordinator, told members of the state Environmental Management Commission Thursday that the numbers — an estimated 3.4 million people — will continue to slide as drinking water suppliers across the state upgrade their systems with technologies that remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

Thursday was the first time the commission has convened since North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser sent a letter to its members expressing her disappointment that the agency’s proposed groundwater standards for PFAS would not be put to a vote in July.

In the May 1 letter, Biser stated that the chair and vice chair of the commission’s groundwater and waste management committee were “refusing to hear the proposed groundwater standards for PFAS as an action item” at their Wednesday meeting.

Members of that committee denied that accusation, saying that the decision was made to push back a vote on the standards so members could first review at least a draft of the fiscal analysis that would explain anticipated costs associated with the proposal.

Commission Chair John Solomon kicked off Thursday’s meeting with a pep talk of sorts, telling fellow commissioners that they need to get to know one another, break barriers and “really, really support each other to make good deliberation and good decisions.”

“We have got some big decisions to continue make,” he said. “We’re going to regulated 1,4-dioxane. We’re going to regulate PFAS. I think we’re getting there. I think as a body y’all are coming together, but again, continue to work together as I’ve seen some of you doing in the past week.”

During the groundwater and waste management committee meeting, held the day before the commission’s meeting, committee Chair Joe Reardon and Vice Chair Tim Baumgartner defended the decision to wait for a fiscal analysis and hit back at Biser, saying DEQ chose to “grandstand” by issuing public statements that leveraged accusations at the committee instead of working through the issues with the committee.

DEQ showed commission members a “lack of respect,” Baumgartner said Wednesday. “This committee and commission deserved a right to review a full package before any consideration to move forward on these rules.”

He went on to say that agency officials had indicated last November that the Division of Waste Management was working on a fiscal note at that time. Yet, he said, the committee had not received a draft fiscal note to review. He cited Administrative Procedures Act requirement in his remarks.

“During all DEQ’s grandstanding DEQ did not provide this committee nor the EMC with a complete set of documents two weeks prior to the meeting, which is currently EMC policy,” Baumgartner said. “This persistent disregard for this committee stops today. All documents and any requests before this committee will be provided for this committee no later than two weeks prior to the scheduled meeting date or that item will be removed from the agenda. This public we serve deserves a solid rulemaking process that complies fully with APA, that is completely reviewed and conforms with the statutes and rules. This commission cannot do that if DEQ intends to work against us, withholding documents and grandstanding instead of engaging.”

Reardon said the committee’s decision to remove PFAS from its Wednesday agenda was to give the committee time to have access to “all the materials at one time.”

“The decision to remove this from the agenda was solely based on that all the materials required for rules to be adopted, including the fiscal note, was not provided to us in a timely manner,” he said.

Cape Fear River Watch Executive Director Dana Sargent, in a news release Thursday, thanked Biser for her letter to the committee.

“The environmental management commission’s mission is to adopt rules for the “protection, preservation, and enhancement of the state’s air and water resources,” Sargent wrote. “If the new EMC members don’t understand their mission, they should stand down.”

The spat comes a month after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it had set maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs, on several PFAS.

The new federal regulation means hundreds of water systems will have to routinely monitor for PFAS and report the results of that monitoring to their customers.

Utilities that have drinking water contaminated with PFAS exceeding the MCLs have five years to integrate technology that will bring them into compliance. More than 300 municipal and small water systems sampled in 2022 had PFAS detections above the newly established MCLs, according to DEQ.

Sadosky walked the EMC on Thursday through that timeline, one that requires systems to submit water samples to EPA-certified labs for testing beginning June 25.

North Carolina currently does not have any EPA-certified labs to test for PFAS. Sadosky said the state is waiting for guidance from the EPA on where samples may be sent this summer.

The new federal drinking water standard is expected to put a hefty price tag on utilities. The federal government is funneling billions to assist with costs associated with the measure.

The state needs surface water and groundwater standards because PFAS gets discharged into those sources and ultimately into drinking water intakes and public water supply wells, “driving up the costs for public water systems to come into compliance with the new federal drinking water standards, which has a direct impact on out-of-pocket costs for North Carolinians,” Biser said in her May 1 letter.

EPA does not establish surface water and groundwater standards.

The state’s top environmental official is urging action by the commission responsible for setting rules to protect the state’s air and water quality that would put in place stricter groundwater standards for PFAS contamination.

North Carolina’s leading business advocacy organization agrees with the Environmental Management Commission’s expected move this week to slow the rulemaking process.

In a letter from North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser dated May 1, Biser says she “was deeply disappointed to learn” that the Environmental Management Commission‘s groundwater and waste management committee chair and vice-chair, Joe Reardon and Tim Baumgartner, respectively, “are refusing to hear the proposed groundwater standards for PFAS as an action item” during the committee meeting this week. She noted that the committee was “asking for yet another informational presentation on this topic.”

The meeting is scheduled for 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, part of a full day of committee meetings. The entire commission is scheduled to meet Thursday. All meetings are to be held in the Archdale building in Raleigh. More information about how to join the meetings online, the full agenda and accompanying documents can be found on the commission website.

“As you know, on April 10, 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the final National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for six PFAS compounds. In our state, more than 300 public water systems serving more than 3 million North Carolinians have PFAS levels above the Maximum Contaminant Levels, or MCLs,” Biser wrote.

An NCDEQ representative told Coastal Review Thursday that the committee chair requested during a recent phone call to the staff to have the rulemaking standards be an informational presentation instead of an action item at the meeting.

Biser’s letter to the commission was announced Thursday along with her response to a letter from the North Carolina Chamber president dated April 22 and asking for more research on how the EPA’s rules intersect with proposed state rules, as well as an estimate of the costs to comply.

“Surface and groundwater standards ensure that industries that put PFAS into the environment do their fair share to reduce ongoing pollution so that residents don’t bear the entire costs of removing PFAS from their drinking water,” Biser told Coastal Review Monday.

The letters from Biser are to “dispel misinformation and urge action as DEQ works to address PFAS contamination and protect the public health and financial well-being of North Carolinians,” DEQ officials said.

NC Chamber Vice President of Communications Kate Payne said Friday in response to the letter that the organization “has a transparent and open process to engage government when advocating for certainty and predictability for North Carolina’s business community, particularly on the regulatory front.”

The business community is made up of the people who live in communities across the state. “These people, and these businesses, pay the bills and enjoy the clean air and water with their families,” Payne said.

“We all want a healthy environment that balances economic growth. Petitioning our government for that certainty and predictability and attempting to better understand the costs we will pay should never be categorized as misinformation,” Payne said.

Biser, in her letter to the commission, asks that the groundwater and waste management committee “reconsider and hear the action item in May and let us begin this rulemaking process that will protect the health and financial well-being of North Carolinians.”

Biser contends in her letter that the EPA regulates drinking water systems under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, but it’s the state’s responsibility to address the discharges to the surface water and groundwater that is used for drinking water, which is why NCDEQ is proposing the state groundwater and surface water standards.

“Source reduction is the most cost-effective way to help water systems meet the drinking water standards. The amount of PFAS in the drinking water supply directly impacts the operation and maintenance costs of water treatment. Absent groundwater and surface water standards for PFAS, ratepayers will foot the entire cost of removing PFAS from their drinking water,” she writes.

Biser continues that NCDEQ staff presented the proposed standards at the last three meetings of both the full commission and its committees.

“In November, Assistant Secretary Sushma Masemore walked through the data we have collected across the state and the need for these actions. In January, our staff again previewed the standards as well as the method of cost-benefit analysis we are using for the fiscal note. And in March, staff again updated you on the progress and the stakeholder meetings we’ve held on these proposed standards,” writes Biser.

Scheduling an action item at the committee level during the May meeting would include presentation of enough information for the members to understand the fiscal impact of the proposed groundwater rule as reviewed by the Office of State Budget and Management, Biser continues.

If the committee decided to vote on the standards at its May 8 meeting, it would go before the full commission as an action item during the July meeting. Another presentation would follow as part of the action item.

“When combined with the multiple presentations you have already heard, that is ample time to consider moving the proposed groundwater standards to the public comment and hearing process,” Biser wrote.

NC Chamber President and CEO Gary Salamido writes in his April 22 letter to NCDEQ that the organization is asking for more time to better understand how the proposed impacts will affect local governments and businesses.

“It is important that we do not hastily pass regulations without fully accounting for both the positive benefits and potential negative impacts proposed rules would have on the state and its business community,” Salamido writes. “On behalf of the business community, we urge NC DEQ and the NC Environmental Management Commission to delay any action until we receive appropriate studies and have greater clarity on the benefits and cost of regulation.”

Biser explains in her response that NCDEQ’s proposed rulemaking is necessary to reduce PFAS contamination in the state’s drinking water sources. Additionally, state surface and groundwater standards work in conjunction with the federal drinking water standards issued April 10 by the EPA.  

Biser writes that the EPA does not establish surface water and groundwater standards. Rather, but expects the states to address surface water and groundwater standards, especially once a federal drinking water standard is finalized. She provides a diagram to show how the EPA requirements and proposed state regulations intersect.

“Discharges into surface water and groundwater directly impact drinking water intakes and public water supply wells, driving up the costs for public water systems to come into compliance with the new federal drinking water standards, which has a direct impact on out-of-pocket costs for North Carolinians,” she writes.

Biser reiterates to the chamber that without having these rules in place, the cost to comply with the EPA’s drinking standards fall on the customer. More than 8,500 homes in eight counties have been provided alternate drinking water supplies as a direct result of the Chemours consent order.

“Additionally, the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) has spent $46 million, and Brunswick County has spent over $100 million to address Chemours-related PFAS in their systems,” Biser writes. “These costs, compounded by annual operating and maintenance costs, have had a direct impact on ratepayers — which include members of the business community — who are now having to pay more to treat contamination that they did not cause.”

While the damage to public health, the environment and the economy was caused by a single manufacturing facility, NCDEQ is aware of PFAS pollution throughout the state, according to the letter.

Without taking action on the proposed rulemaking, “the entire burden of complying with the new drinking water standards will fall to public water system customers,” Biser writes, adding that the cost to remove PFAS is much lower at the source than it is at the drinking water system level.

“The key question at hand is whether everyday North Carolinians should bear the entire burden of cleaning up PFAS contamination (while also dealing with the health impacts), or whether businesses releasing PFAS into the environment should also bear responsibility,” Biser writes.

WILMINGTON – President Joe Biden announced Thursday afternoon millions of federal dollars coming to North Carolina to replace lead drinking water service lines.

“These lead lines are tough, durable, and they don’t rust, but we’ve long since learned that they lead to poisonous toxins in our water. The science is clear, lead service lines pose severe health risks, damaging the brain and kidneys, to children especially, they stunt growth and learning and cause lasting brain damage. We know we can stop it. We know how to do it,” Biden said.

Biden’s remarks to an invitation-only crowd in the Wilmington Convention Center were met with applause, cheers and shouts of affirmation from audience members yelling “That’s right” and “Yes!”

Across the country, nine million lead service lines connect water mains to homes, schools, daycare centers and businesses, he said. There are some 300,000 of these lead pipes disbursing drinking water in North Carolina.

“The cost to replace them is consequential,” Biden said. “Too many families only learn the threat to their children after they get sick. You know, this is, for some time, why I’m determined to fix it. Until the United States of America, God love us, deals with this, how can we say we’re a leading nation of the world for God’s sake. There’s no safe level of lead exposure.”

The only way to connect all Americans to clean water is to replace every lead service line, he said.

Biden talked about his landmark Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, one where a record $15 billion has been dedicated to fund lead pipe replacement.

“Today we’re releasing a third installment of that funding, an additional $3 billion dollars nationwide, which will bring the total to $250 million to North Carolina so far,” he said.

The president said the issue is not only one of safety, but about basic fairness to communities across the country. Nearly half of the funding has been directed to disadvantaged communities that have “borne the brunt of lead poisoning,” he said, adding that tribal lands are also receiving funds.

“Studies show communities of color have been hardest hit,” Biden said. “We have to make things right. Clean water, healthier communities, peace of mind, and jobs befitting those communities, jobs of plumbers, pipe fitters, laborers, engineers. Good paying jobs you can make a serious living with without a college degree to raise a family on.”

Protecting people from lead contamination is just one of the nation’s most ambitious agendas, he said.

The federal government is funneling $9 billion to upgrade filtration systems of public water systems found to have elevated levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

“They’re very dangerous chemicals that shouldn’t be in our water supply,” Biden said.

Wilmington has become ground-zero for PFAS contamination after scientists discovered several years ago a number of these chemical compounds in the Cape Fear River, the drinking water source for tens of thousands in the region.

Biden touted his infrastructure law as the most significant investment in the nation’s roads, bridges, ports, airports and public transportation, including passenger rail from Raleigh to Richmond, Virginia.

More than 50,000 projects in more than 4,000 communities have been announced to receive funding.

“To date this has dedicated over $9 billion dollars to North Carolina alone,” Biden said.

As his roughly 20-minute address neared its end, Biden spoke more like an incumbent on a campaign trail, touching on everything from job growth and rising wages to lower prescription drug costs, and taking verbal shots at his Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.

Biden chastised the Republicans who voted against the infrastructure law, narrowing in on Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., whom the president said called the infrastructure law fatally flawed and “a liberal trojan horse for the socialist agenda.”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think ensuring kids can drink clean water to avoid brain damage is a socialist agenda,” Biden said. “You may recall that my predecessor promised infrastructure every single week for four years. Didn’t build a damn thing.”

Instead, he said, the Trump administration rolled back wetland protections, gave mining companies leeway to contaminate groundwater and slashed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s budget.

Biden promised to “be a president for all Americans, whether you vote for me or not.”

“I believe doing what’s always worked best for this country, investing in all Americans.” He said. “I’ve never been more optimistic about our nation’s future. Let’s get out and work together and get this done and may God bless you all and protect our troops.”

Wilmington was Biden’s second and final stop in North Carolina Thursday.

He opened his remarks in the Port City by naming the four law enforcement officers killed Monday in a shootout in a Charlotte neighborhood, asking for prayers for the victims’ loved ones.

Biden visited privately with families of the victims in Charlotte before boarding Air Force One and heading to the coast.

He was accompanied by EPA Administrator and former North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Michael Regan and Gov. Roy Cooper, both of whom took the podium before a standing-room only crowd anxious to see the president.

Seats for the invitation-only event were filled two hours before Biden’s arrival, prompting event volunteers to fill any open spaces with chairs inside a room of makeshift walls of blue fabric.

Erin Carey, acting director of the North Carolina chapter of Sierra Club, was among the crowd invited to attend the event.

“We are grateful to the Biden administration for their determination to bring about the bipartisan infrastructure bill, an effort that has brought significant advancements in water quality initiatives, giving communities hope that the fear of drinking water contamination might one day be in the past,” she said in an email following the event. “It is comforting to know that our leaders are prioritizing the health of children and families, as well as the environment, as they put our tax dollars to good use – removing lead pipes from our service lines and PFAS from our drinking water.”

A group of pro-Palestinian protestors were gathered about a block away from the convention center shouting, “Free, free, free Palestine” and waving Palestinian flags. Trump supporters also showed their support for the former president.

Biden’s remarks Thursday afternoon came on the heels of a number of new federal environmental regulatory rollouts announced in recent weeks, including enforceable limits on PFAS in public water systems, a ban on most uses of methylene chloride, and a suite of rules addressing pollution from fossil-fueled power plants.

The day before Biden’s visit, NCDEQ announced a new state-implemented human health risk assessment for 1,4-dioxane in drinking water.

The health risk assessment was directed by the North Carolina General Assembly last year to examine the risk of exposure to the chemical, which is used primarily as a solvent in manufacturing processes, in drinking water. There are currently no federal drinking water standards for 1,4-dioxane.

North Carolina has the third highest measured concentration of 1,4-dioxane in drinking water in the country, exposing residents in the state to concentrations of the chemical that may be more than double the national average in drinking water and as much as four times the average in surface and groundwater, according to DEQ.

The Cape Fear River Basin has been found to have the most detections of the chemical in the state.

The EPA, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and International Agency for Research on Cancer classify 1,4-dioxane as a likely carcinogen.

Earlier Thursday, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, or CFPUA announced it is close to wrapping up an inventory of its 70,000 water service lines. None of the lines checked so far are made of lead, according to the authority.

The utility will forward its inventory check to state regulators by mid-October.

DEQ recently tapped the utility to receive $4.16 million in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, money that will be used to replace about 300 galvanized service lines believed to have lead connectors.

These lines and connectors are coated to prevent lead from getting into drinking water.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it has set federally enforceable limits on nearly a half-dozen individual PFAS in public water systems.

The historic move also limits any combination of two or more of four per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and starts the countdown for thousands of public water suppliers throughout the country to monitor for those chemicals and report their findings to their customers.

An estimated 6 to 10% of 66,000 drinking water systems throughout the country have three years to comply. In North Carolina, a combined more than 300 municipal and small water systems sampled in 2022 had PFAS detections above the newly established maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs, according to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

Utilities that have drinking water contaminated with PFAS exceeding the MCLs will be given five years to integrate technology at their facilities to reduce the amounts of the chemical compounds flowing from their customers’ taps.

The EPA’s much-anticipated final rule was hailed as a first step by a host of North Carolina environmental and advocacy organizations that have been calling for federal and state regulators to ultimately clamp down on industries that release PFAS into the environment.

PFAS are a mixture of chemicals used in a host of consumer products from nonstick cookware and food packaging to stain resistant carpets, water repellant attire and makeup.

These chemicals have been found in a number of drinking water sources in North Carolina through contaminators including industrial manufacturers, landfills and firefighting facilities.

Cape Fear River Watch Executive Director Dana Sargent said in a statement that while the organization applauds the EPA’s decision, the federal government has for nearly 30 years known about the health hazards of PFAS.

“And even now, they refuse to regulate the corporations directly by requiring them to stop the pollution at the source, but instead put the burden on utilities to either filter this dangerous filth, or do the government’s job to pressure companies to stop discharging it. So, while we thank the EPA for this work, we implore them and our legislators and environmental regulators to recognize that decades of their entities’ negligence, and support of corporate greed, has caused the illnesses and deaths of thousands of Americans and the degradation to our ecosystems, including that of the Cape Fear River,” the statement reads.

The Cape Fear region has been ground zero for PFAS contamination in the state after researchers several years ago discovered a number of the chemical compounds in the river, a drinking water source for more than a half-million North Carolinians.

The revelation that the Chemours Co. Fayetteville Works facility, located more than 70 miles upstream of Wilmington, had been discharging PFAS into the river, air and ground for decades ignited a fury of lawsuits and state-supported investigative studies on everything from effective PFAS filtration methods and source detections to human health studies.

Chemours, which now operates under a consent order that resulted from a legal challenge by Cape Fear River Watch and DEQ has reduced the amount of PFAS it emits into the environment through various measures. These include the construction of a mile-long, underground barrier to keep PFAS-contaminated groundwater from seeping to the Cape Fear.

One of the EPA’s now regulated individual chemical compounds known commercially as GenX has been discharged specifically from the Chemours plant in Bladen County.

Shortly after the EPA in June 2022 revised the GenX health level advisory to 10 parts per trillion, Chemours sued, arguing the agency failed to use the best available science when making its determination.

The case was argued earlier this year in the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Chemours’ headquarters. A decision has not been rendered in that case.

The new federal regulatory limit on GenX is 10 parts per trillion, or ppt.

Other maximum limits on individual PFAS include the following:

• Perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, at 4 ppt.
• Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, at 4 ppt.
• Perfluorononoanoic acid, or PFNA, at 10 ppt.
• Perfluorohexane sulfonate, or PFHxS, at 10 ppt.

Any mixture of two or more of GenX, PFNA, PFHxS, and perfluorobutane sulfonate, or PFBS, may not exceed a hazard index of 1. The hazard index is made up of a sum of fractions used to calculate humans’ exposure to levels where health effects are not anticipated to occur.

PFOA and PFOS are two of the most widely studied PFAS.

Health studies on other PFAS, including GenX, are ongoing, though the number of compounds being studied pale in comparison to the number of PFAS identified in the EPA’s registry – 15,000.

Current studies suggest PFAS affect pregnant women and developing babies, immune systems, increase the risk of certain types of cancers, and may result in elevated cholesterol levels, which increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Government leaders in various states, including North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, on Wednesday lauded the EPA’s final rule.

Cooper thanked EPA Administrator Michael Regan, who headed DEQ before taking the helm at the federal agency, for “taking this action to protect drinking water in North Carolina and across the country.”

“We asked for this because we know science-based standards for PFAS and other compounds are desperately needed,” Cooper said in a release.

DEQ has sampled 50 municipal and county water systems and more than 530 small public water systems since 2022, according to the agency.

“DEQ has already worked with water systems to measure for PFAS in advance of this rule, so they are well prepared to utilize the funding available now to take action and protect the people of North Carolina,” DEQ Secretary Elizabeth Biser said in a release.

Biser was referring to funding through the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a bipartisan bill that President Joe Biden signed into law in late 2021. That measure set aside $9 billion to help communities upgrade drinking water systems with technologies that remove PFAS.

Currently though, there are no federal safeguards in place for private well owners.

DEQ has required Chemours to test thousands of private water wells in New Hanover, Brunswick, Columbus and Pender counties and identify residents who may be eligible for replacement drinking water at the cost of the company.

The agency more recently introduced a statewide program to aid residents whose well water is found to have PFAS at or above health advisory levels. The program targets PFAS contamination of private wells in areas where there is not a designated responsible part to provide alternative drinking water.

Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, said in a release she is grateful that the EPA “heard our pleas and kept its promise to the American people.”

“We will keep fighting until all exposures to PFAS end and the chemical companies responsible for business-related human rights abuses are held fully accountable,” she stated.

Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Jean Zhuang said the EPA’s new drinking water standards are “a welcome backstop” and called for federal, state and municipal leaders to stop PFAS pollution at the source.

“The Clean Water Act already provides the tools necessary for agencies to stop PFAS pollution through the permitting process before it gets into drinking water sources,” Zhaung said in a release. “If existing laws are enforced, as they should be, they will keep PFAS pollution out of our waterways and downstream drinking water.”   

N.C. Conservation Network Environmental Health Campaigns Manager Stephanie Schweikert expressed similar sentiments in a statement to the media.

“EPA’s historic and protective new drinking water standards for PFAS will go a long way toward protecting North Carolinians from the adverse health impacts of forever chemicals exposure – particularly when paired with existing federal investments available to upgrade water utilities,” she stated. “North Carolina leaders must now take steps to address industrial discharges and turn off the tape of PFAS pollution at the source.”

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its statutory authority when it ordered a Texas-based company to stop creating long-lasting toxic chemicals while manufacturing plastic containers.

The three judges for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans filed their unanimous decision Thursday, vacating the two orders the EPA had issued Dec. 1, 2023.

The orders under the authority of the Toxic Substances Control Act, Section 5, directed Inhance Technologies LLC in Houston not to create per-and-polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, as a byproduct during production of fluorinated high-density polyethylene, or HDPE, plastic containers. The containers are used to store products such as pesticides, fuel and automotive liquids.

The EPA argued that the PFAS in the plastic containers can seep into the liquid products and lead to potential exposure, like seeping into groundwater or through fish ingestion.

Inhance has been using the same fluorination process since 1983 to create “a barrier that keeps dangerous substances from leaching out of their containers, and keeps outside substances from permeating in,” the ruling states.

The EPA used its authority under Section 5, which allows the agency to determine and regulate new substances, rather than Section 6, which is broader and includes all chemicals but also has more requirements.

“Inhance argues that the EPA exceeded its statutory authority by issuing orders under Section 5 instead of Section 6 because Inhance’s forty-year-old fluorination process is not a ‘significant new use’ under TSCA. We agree,” Circuit Judge Cory Wilson writes in the ruling.

“I am exceedingly pleased with the ruling and grateful to our customers and employees for their resilience, dedication, and support,” Inhance Technologies President and CEO Andrew Thompson said in a release.

Jeff Landis in the EPA’s media office told Coastal Review Monday that the agency “is reviewing the decision.”

The EPA began looking into Inhance after being notified by an environmental group in September 2020 that PFAS contamination was present in a mosquitocide stored in one of the company’s fluorinated containers, the agency said.

The EPA determined that when Inhance products go through the fluorination process, numerous types of PFAS are manufactured. These chemicals leach into the product.

The agency argued that the “fluorination process was subject to a significant new use rule regarding long-chain perfluoroalkyls (PFAS),” and issued Inhance a notice of violation in March 2022 for failing to notify the agency before it began manufacturing PFAS.

“Inhance had five years from the proposal of EPA’s long-chain PFAS significant new use rule in 2015 to when it was finalized in 2020 to inform EPA that it was manufacturing long-chain PFAS as part of its process,” the EPA said. After the notice, the agency found that Inhance continued to manufacture the regulated PFAS and intended to continue with its fluorination process and the Department of Justice filed suit on behalf of EPA against Inhance in December 2022.

The notice directed Inhance to either change its fluorination process so it no longer manufactured PFAS, or to temporarily halt the fluorination of any products that resulted in the creation of PFAS, the ruling states. Instead, Inhance submitted significant new use notices for the nine PFAS it manufactures to EPA for review on Dec. 30, 2022.

The EPA requires significant new use notices under Section 5. If the EPA finds that there is not enough evidence to determine the effects of the substance or presents an unreasonable risk of injury, then the agency must issue an order prohibiting or limiting the manufacture of the substance.

The EPA announced Dec. 1, 2023, that after reviewing the significant new use notices from Inhance and consistent with the “Framework for Addressing new PFAS and New Uses of PFAS,” the agency had determined that three of the PFAS “are highly toxic and present unreasonable risks that cannot be prevented other than through prohibition of manufacture.”

The agency also determined that the other six of the nine PFAS chemicals manufactured by the company may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment, and under the Toxic Substances Control Act, “is requiring the company to cease manufacture of these chemicals, and to perform additional testing if it intends to restart production,” the Dec. 1, 2023, press release explains.

“PFAS should not be in the plastic containers people use every day, period,” Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Assistant Administrator Michal Freedhoff said in the Dec. 1, 2023, release. “EPA’s action today is one more way we are furthering the Biden-Harris Administration’s Strategic Roadmap to combat PFAS pollution.”

A week later, on Dec. 8, 2023, Inhance announced plans to seek review by the 5th Circuit, “to stop the one-sided orders” issued by the EPA.

“If allowed to take effect, the orders will force Inhance Technologies to shut down its 11 barrier technology facilities across the U.S., disrupting downstream industries and related supply chains that rely on the company’s environmentally critical technology,” the company said.

As a result of the EPA learning about PFAS in mosquitocide through this type of container in September 2020, the agency announced Feb. 15 a new method to serve as an additional tool for its staff and for industries that use HDPE containers to identify PFAS contamination.

Inhance has fluorinated up to 200 million containers annually, “which is more containers than there are households in America. The release of 2.2 Kg (kilograms or 4.85 pounds) of these 9 PFAS could cause significant contamination of drinking water supplies leading to risks of adverse health effects in millions of people,” according to the EPA.

“For example, EPA recently proposed a Maximum Contaminant Level of 4 parts per trillion for PFOA in drinking water. Additionally, EPA has also proposed that there is no level of PFOA in drinking water that is without risk of adverse health effects. If 2.2 Kg of PFOA were released to drinking water sources, it would contaminate more than 145 billion gallons of water to levels that would exceed this proposed enforceable level. This corresponds to almost three years’ worth of water use in the City of New Orleans,” the EPA continued.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, and the Center for Environmental Health, or CEH, responded Friday, announcing jointly that the organizations were “deeply disappointed and alarmed” by the 5th Circuit’s “flawed decision.”

The groups said Inhance Technologies’ fluorination process “results in hundreds of millions of plastic containers leaching toxic PFAS chemicals into food, cosmetics, cleaning supplies, fuels, and other household products.” The public health danger must be addressed, they said.

“Significantly, Inhance’s customers are now unquestionably on notice that their products contain several PFAS that EPA has determined are harmful to health. They should consider alternatives to fluorination that are PFAS-free,” PEER said.

The two organizations and the EPA are plaintiffs in a December 2023 suit in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to enforce Toxic Substances Control Act requirements against Inhance.

“PEER and CEH will now pursue that case in addition to any other remedies that are available to abate this significant and unreasonable danger to public health, and will urge the government to do so as well,” they said.

A manufacturing plant in Duplin County would have to monitor, but not limit, chemical compounds it discharges from its wastewater treatment system into the Northeast Cape Fear River under the terms of a draft permit being reviewed by state and federal agencies.

Automotive textile and technology manufacturer Lear Corp.’s draft National Pollutant Discharge Eliminations System, or NPDES, permit renewal includes a special condition that the company monitor for per- and polyfluoroalkyl, or PFAS, emitted from its treated industrial wastewater into the river quarterly.

The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources also would require the company to monitor its outtake of 1,4-dioxane, which is primarily used in as a solvent in manufacturing.

The state’s proposal to let the company monitor, and not curb, man-made chemicals the plant discharges is a slap in the face of residents already living in and downstream of an area where water quality is affected by a heavy concentration of large hog and poultry operations, opponents say.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to the water resources division’s water quality permitting section chief on March 5, one month after the draft permit was received by the agency, notifying the state it was invoking a 60-day extension to review the permit.

“The EPA will complete the review of this permit as expeditiously as possible prior to the end of the 90-day period on May 6, 2024,” the letter from EPA Region 4’s Water Quality Branch Acting Manager Christopher Thomas states.

DEQ had received by early March more than 400 emails calling for the state to require Lears cap the amount of PFAS it releases into the river, Cape Fear River Watch Executive Director Dana Sargent said.

The state agency has since pushed back its public comment period deadline on the draft permit to March 28.

Lear declined to answer specific questions about its draft permit application, instead offering an emailed statement, saying in part that the company is working with DEQ on a permit renewal “that adheres strictly to state regulatory guidelines and standards governing the use and disposal of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).”

“We conduct rigorous monitoring of our wastewater discharge to ensure compliance with the NCDEQ regulatory requirements and have reformulated the majority of our products to eliminate the use of PFAS,” the statement continues. “We are working to transition our remaining products to a PFAS-free solution as soon as reasonably practical. We are committed to continuing to work with NCDEQ and to take appropriate environmental stewardship actions. Our highest priorities are the health and safety of people, local communities, and the environment.”

The state issued Lear’s current permit in 2018, about a year after news broke that the Cape Fear River, the drinking water source for tens of thousands of people, had been the dumping site of a host of PFAS emitted from the Chemours Co.’s Fayetteville Works facility for decades.

Under a 2019 consent order, the company had to add to its Bladen County plant various controllers, including a thermal oxidizer to trap PFAS from being released into the air and an underground retainer wall to prevent PFAS-contaminated groundwater from getting into the river.

There are well over 10,000 different PFAS being used in the manufacturing of a wide-range of consumer goods. PFAS are used in the making of everything from stain-resistant carpets and waterproof gear to nonstick cookware and disposable food containers.

Potential health effects from exposure to PFAS include changes in cholesterol, low birth weight in newborns, changes in human immune response, increased risk of high blood pressure in pregnant women and increased risk of certain cancers such as kidney and testicular cancer.

The technology Chemours is using to reduce the amount of PFAS it discharges to near non-detectable levels prove that other manufacturers can and should do the same, Sargent said.

“The DEQ is required to enforce these on these other industrial polluters and they’re not,” she said. “This is a federal law. This is the Clean Water Act. DEQ has the full authority to regulate this facility and limit their PFAS dischargers. It’s pretty clear from where we sit it’s obviously ridiculous that DEQ would be allowing any known PFAS dischargers to continue to discharge after all we’ve learned over the last seven years. They should be sticking to their mission, protecting human health and the environment.”

Under the draft permit, Lear would be required to implement the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s guidelines on PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, which the agency has classified as a likely human carcinogen.

The EPA’s final rule in a proposal to set limits on six PFAS is expected to be released any day now. The proposed rule limits the maximum allowable amount of a combination of four chemical compounds, including GenX, a PFAS specific to Chemours’ plant in Bladen County.

EPA also proposes to set maximum contaminant levels on what have been two of the most used PFAS compounds – perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS – at 4 parts per trillion.

Public comments may be emailed with the subject line “Lear Corp.” to publiccomments@deq.nc.gov.

Once the public comment period ends, Division of Water Resources Director Richard Rogers will decide whether to hold a public hearing. A hearing would be held following a 30-day public notice.

In 2021, a bacterial disease outbreak in Rhode Island was linked to people eating raw oysters grown and harvested in floating cages.

It was that state’s first such outbreak of Campylobacteriosis from shellfish, one that an environmental investigation later traced to birds as the likely source of contamination.

North Carolina hasn’t had any such case, but the possibility is a concern as the numbers of floating shellfish farms, which can be attractive roosting spots for birds, increase in the state’s coastal waters.

Shellfish growers who use floating equipment, including cages and bags, are required to have action plans to deter birds from perching on gear protruding up from the water surface.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Marine Fisheries, which oversees shellfish lease permits, is required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to inspect lease operations at least once a year.

But, as with a number of state agencies, the division is shortchanged on personnel, leaving fewer than 60 officers to cover hundreds of miles of the state’s coastline spanning 20 counties and 2.5 million acres of water.

“We are patrolling the waters every day for all types of violations,” said N.C. Marine Patrol Col. Carter Witten, the division’s top law enforcement officer. “We need people and we need officers.”

The division has been given the green light to create a new aquaculture position, someone who will help inspect leases and make sure lease holders are in compliance.

It’s a step in the right direction, but more leases, paired with the continuing coastal population boom — more residents, more boaters, more recreational fishermen — only further tip a scale where circumstances outweigh staff.

There is the potential to fund additional division enforcement positions through the Commercial Fishing Resources Fund, but such a decision lies solely with the Marine Fisheries Commission and the Funding Committee.

The first water column lease issued in North Carolina was in 1991.

Today, there are more than 150 water column shellfish leases covering a little more than 500 acres along the coast.

The number of existing leases pales in comparison to the number of applications submitted to the state over the past decade – nearly 270 since 2014.

Proposed water column leases spanning a total of just under a dozen acres in Pender County were met early last month with a flurry of local opposition during a public hearing hosted by the division.

The majority of speakers said that while they supported local shellfish farming efforts, the addition of leases in the waters near Topsail Island will infringe upon popular fishing spots, impede boating and kayaking access, affect the viewsheds of waterfront properties near the farms, and may affect water quality from roosting birds.

Those lease applications from two area oyster farming companies are awaiting final determination, according to the division’s website.

Water column leases, where aquaculture equipment is placed in the water body rather than on the water bottom, are appealing to growers for a few reasons, explained the division’s Shellfish Sanitation and Recreational Water Quality Section Chief Shannon Jenkins.

“With floating gear being so prevalent here in North Carolina and other coastal states, it has a lot of advantages as far as air drying and not getting as many barnacles and things like that,” Jenkins said. “It has faster grow rates in many cases that the farmers find beneficial. But along with that, it can attract birds.”

To try and keep birds from perching on rows of cages within a lease, shellfish growers use repellents such as zip ties, their pointy ends jutting upward to deter birds from landing, or spinning whirligigs.

“We don’t say whether their plan will work or won’t work,” Witten said. “All we can do is evaluate it and see whether it’s working or not. If it’s not working we can advise you that you need to come up with something else. Something might work today and next month it doesn’t work and you have to change it. You can have zip ties all over it and I’ve seen birds land on it.”

A lease holder is required to use the bird deterrent method specified in a permit application.

“If we go out there and they haven’t done that then we can do a notice of violation on their permit because they didn’t follow their plan,” Witten said.

But there is a major incentive to growers to try and keep birds from congregating on floating gear and, let’s be blunt, pooping on their cash crop.

“First and foremost, the lease holders, they’re smart business people and they don’t want to get anybody sick. It would not be good for business,” Jenkins said. “Right now, North Carolina shellfish industry has a really great track record and great reputation. It’s obviously rare for this to cause a health issue, but it is certainly a potential. It’s also not a good visual to have bird waste on people’s cages. It’s, again, in their interest perception-wise and health-wise and reputation industry-wise to remain diligent on that.”

He said it is possible that more staff positions like the one the legislature approved during the North Carolina General Assembly’s last session will be needed if shellfish leases continue to grow at the rate they have in recent years.

“We’re supposed to inspect shellfish lease operations at least once per year according to the National Shellfish Sanitation Program, so to remain in compliance with that we would need that ability to do that,” Jenkins said. “It could be problematic if we got to a point where we were not able to do that.”

With a sizable cargo ship docked Wednesday at the N.C. Port at Wilmington on the Cape Fear River in the background, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan announced the launch of a federal program to improve air quality at U.S. ports.

Regan was joined by Gov. Roy Cooper, Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo and North Carolina State Ports Authority Board of Directors Chair Susan Rabon at the morning press conference to announce the $3 billion Clean Ports program.

“Ports like this one right here in Wilmington are essential for commerce and are vital to our nation’s economic growth and supply chain infrastructure,” Regan said, adding that at the same time, many people residing near and around the nation’s ports are exposed to unhealthy air.

“So today, we’re proving once again,” Regan continued, that environmental protection and economic prosperity can go hand in hand. “And that’s why I’m excited to announce that EPA is launching our $3 billion Clean Ports Program.”

The funding through the Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022, “will advance environmental justice by reducing diesel pollution from U.S. ports in surrounding communities, while creating good-paying jobs,” according to the EPA.

Regan said the money will go to purchase zero-emissions port equipment and infrastructure upgrades, while supporting both climate and air pollution-reduction strategies at all U.S. Ports.

“This program will lay the groundwork for transformational change by encouraging a transition to zero-emissions operations and reducing diesel pollution in and around our poor communities,” he said.

Regan said the EPA is releasing two notices of funding opportunities. The first pot of money includes $2.8 billion to facilitate the transition to zero-emissions equipment and infrastructure to reduce emissions nationwide. The second is close to $150 million for climate and air quality planning activities at ports to help build capacity for the ongoing transition to zero-emission port operations.

The announcement is more than just an investment in the economy, Regan said, “it’s an investment in President Biden’s pledge and commitment to environmental justice.”

Through the president’s investments “we are ensuring that those who live near ports can finally breath cleaner, healthier air. We are reimagining clean technology, and revolutionizing our nation’s port infrastructure, while addressing climate and environmental justice concerns.”

Before Regan spoke, Rabon of the ports authority board said the facility in Wilmington, the deep-water port in Morehead City and the inland operation in Charlotte, combined to support more than 88,000 direct and indirect jobs, and the work at the authority contributes $660 million annually to local and state tax revenues.

“Businesses need access to the global markets where their products are sold, and where their resources are found,” she said. “The authority provides that access making North Carolina ports are a key factor in our state’s phenomenal economic growth.”

Rabon added that while the ports authority is focused on growing business, “we’re committed to doing so in an environmentally conscious manner that preserves this area we are fortunate enough to call home.”

Gov. Cooper, during his remarks, described the Biden administration’s infrastructure policies as “generational.”

“We’ve been waiting for them for decades and now they’re finally here,” he said of the federal funding for roads, bridges, airports, rail and public transportation, high-speed internet, clean water systems and clean energy jobs. “And of course, our ports, will improve our state for decades and generations to come.”

The funding announced Wednesday means a cleaner work environment for those working at ports, will help make the communities around the ports cleaner and “will help us further our goals of environmental justice,” Cooper said.

Regan said after the announcement that the administration wants to get the money out as quickly as possible. “I feel very strongly that one $3 billion is a lot of money. There’s enough to go around. We’re going to see strong applications all across the country.”

EPA officials said the Clean Ports Program will help advance the Justice40 Initiative, which has a goal for “40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments in climate, clean energy, and other areas flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.”

The agency said it has strived to ensure that near-port community engagement and equity considerations are program priorities. That focus has included evaluating applications on the extent and quality of community engagement efforts.

The nearly $2.8 billion Zero-Emission Technology Deployment Competition will directly fund zero-emission port equipment and infrastructure to reduce mobile source emissions at U.S. ports, according to the EPA.

Eligible uses of the funding include human-operated and maintained zero-emission cargo handling equipment, harbor craft and other vessels, electric charging and hydrogen fueling infrastructure, and a number of other technology investments. Applications are to be evaluated under multiple tiers in order to ensure that funds are distributed across ports of different sizes and types, and to ensure funding for ports serving Tribal communities, officials said.

The approximately $150 million Climate and Air Quality Planning Competition will fund climate and air quality planning activities at U.S. ports, including emissions inventories, strategy analysis, community engagement, and resiliency measure identification.

“Together, these opportunities will advance next-generation, clean technologies that will more safely and efficiently drive the movement of goods and passengers at our nation’s ports, a critical part of America’s supply chain infrastructure while reducing pollution and advancing environmental justice,” the EPA said in its announcement.

According to the Sierra Club, research has shown that diesel pollution contains more than 40 cancer-causing substances, including benzene and formaldehyde. The group cited links to asthma, heart disease and premature death. 

“We continue to see vast clean transportation benefits moving out of the Inflation Reduction Act. Ports are a lesser talked about topic within the transportation sector – cleaning them up is crucial work,” Katherine García, director of Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign, said in a statement. “This EPA program builds on the Department of Transportation’s ports program with necessary zero-emission investments that will bring significant health and air quality benefits.”

It’s been more than six years since the first blood samples were collected from residents in the Cape Fear region participating in a study to measure their exposure to synthetic chemicals being discharged into their drinking water source.

That study, known as the GenX Exposure Study, has since then transitioned to one that will allow researchers to examine potential long-term health effects in hundreds of North Carolinians who for years unknowingly drank water containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

Today, a little more than 1,000 residents from a town in the state’s Piedmont and east to the southeastern coast of North Carolina are part of the health study examining how past exposure to PFAS may affect human health.

“We’ve been measuring cholesterol and thyroid and comprehensive metabolic panels and height and weight and (body mass index) and so we can now look at how things change over time,” said Jane Hoppin, principal investigator of the GenX Exposure Study and professor at North Carolina State University.

Blood samples were first collected from a few hundred residents in the Cape Fear region in late 2017, just months after the public was first made aware that the Cape Fear River, the drinking water source for tens of thousands of people, had for decades been a dumping ground for a chemical manufacturing plant roughly 80 miles upstream of Wilmington.

GenX, one of more than 10,000 PFAS in existence today, is a chemical compound specific to the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant, which is under a court order to vastly reduce the amount of PFAS it discharges into the river, emits into the air and spills onto the ground.

About 500 residents in the lower Cape Fear region are taking part in the health study. Another 300 or so participants live in Fayetteville and a little more than 200 reside in Pittsboro, a town roughly 100 miles upstream of Chemours. Pittsboro’s drinking water source, the Haw River, has some of the highest levels of PFAS in the state, according research conducted through the North Carolina PFAS Testing Network.

What researchers call legacy PFAS — perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS — found in the Haw River have been traced to textile and furniture manufacturing operations.

“Having this wide range and different mixtures in different places is helpful in understanding” human health effects from exposure to PFAS, Hoppin said.

Results from a GenX Exposure Study published in 2022 showed a correlation between people found to have elevated levels of PFAS in their blood with higher total cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, the latter of which puts people at a higher risk of hardening of the arteries, heart disease, chest pain, heart attack and stroke.

That study included blood samples collected in November 2017 and again in May 2018 from nearly 350 Wilmington residents, including 55 children. Blood was analyzed to measure levels of PFOA and PFOS, fluoroethers such as GenX, and lipids.

GenX was ultimately not detected because the chemical has been found to last in blood for about three days.

Moving forward, Hoppin said, researchers overseeing the health study will collect new blood samples to look at various markers, including how PFAS may influence weight gain and changes in weight.

“We have people who are ages 6 to 90 and so we want to focus on health outcomes that impact all of us,” she said. “We’ve looked at response to COVID vaccines and, for example, there’s growing interest in how these chemicals may influence bone growth and developments.”

Ideally, those participating in the study will have their blood drawn, urine collected, weight and height measured and fill out health surveys every two to three years for the next 20 years, Hoppin said.

“It’s a very complex situation and even just trying to start to understand exposure, like why do the people on private drinking wells have similar levels of legacy PFAS as other communities that drink municipal water? How do we think about inhalation for the people who live around the plant? We’re trying to understand exposure and then move forward and have large enough sample sizes to really describe health outcomes. We want to be sure that we have sufficient statistical power to answer those questions.”

As research continues to unveil potential health impacts of PFAS in humans, public water systems including the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, have taken steps to reduce the amount of PFAS exposure in drinking water.

The Cape Fear authority and Brunswick County Public Utilities have spent millions to install treatment systems to remove PFAS from their raw water.

Nationwide, chemical manufacturers including 3M and DuPont have faced a barrage of lawsuits asking courts to hold such companies responsible for the release of PFAS into the environment.

Earlier this month, New Hanover County commissioners filed a lawsuit in that county’s superior court against more than a dozen makers and vendors of products made with PFAS.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to set limits on six PFAS in public water systems. The EPA would limit a combination of GenX and three other compounds — perfluoronanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS).

The agency also proposes to set maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs, on PFOA and PFOS each at 4 parts per trillion.

EPA estimates that between 3,400 and more than 6,000 public water systems across the country contain at least one of these compounds that exceeds the proposed limits.

Researchers are working on how to improve environmental health literacy among medical clinicians to help doctors better understand how to use health studies like the GenX study to care for their patients.

Hoppin said the hope is that the samples currently being collected in this study will be used to further research PFAS exposure and potential health effects in people.

Results of the latest round of blood samples are expected to be shared with participants sometime this spring.

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

Christie Woolard, manager of what will soon be arguably the most remote pharmacy in North Carolina, joked that she has a “terrible commute to work each day.”

In reality, Woolard more or less works from home. She lives with her dog in an apartment above Ocracoke Health Center Pharmacy on Ocracoke Island.

Accessible only by ferry or private plane, the island is about 26 miles from the mainland coast. It was purportedly a favorite hideout of the pirate Blackbeard, who was killed there by British mercenaries in 1718. 

While Ocracoke’s isolation might have been advantageous for bygone buccaneers, it presents a challenge for contemporary islanders in need of prescription drugs. 

The unincorporated community has for years relied on Beach Pharmacy, a drugstore on neighboring Hatteras Island, for next-day deliveries. But those deliveries can be delayed if choppy waters or high winds — or both — prevent the shop’s couriers from safely crossing the Pamlico Sound on the state ferry system. That leaves residents at risk of running out of medicine, or lacking if they need emergency medications.

That shouldn’t be an issue once Woolard’s pharmacy — the first ever pharmacy on Ocracoke Island — opens. The facility is within walking distance of most homes in the small village that occupies the southern end of the island, which had a population of 797 permanent residents at the 2020 Census. 

Woolard moved to Ocracoke in July. A 1992 graduate of Campbell University, she spent most of her career as a pharmacist in North Carolina before taking a break to travel the U.S. in 2019.

“I decided it was time to pull up my roots,” she said. “I had been all over the country — New Mexico, South Dakota, Washington — and I just got homesick. When I saw the ad for this, I was like, ‘It’s time to get back closer to home.’”

Surprisingly complex launch

On a recent November afternoon, Woolard was working to secure stock for the empty metal shelves lining the pharmacy’s walls. It has been difficult to find a wholesaler that will deliver to the island, she said. 

Various other challenges have delayed the opening of the pharmacy, which was first announced by Ocracoke Health Center, the community’s nonprofit medical clinic, in June 2022. The center’s leadership originally expected the facility to be up and running by spring or summer of this year.

“I’ve been a pharmacist for a long time, but I didn’t know how complex getting a pharmacy open was,” Woolard said. “I figured it would take me a month of work and we’d be done. I had no idea it would be this complex.”

She hopes to finally begin filling prescriptions by January, giving the pharmacy a few months to prepare for the island’s busy summer season. Tens of thousands of travelers flock to Ocracoke to fish, surf and sightsee from June to August, swelling the population.

The Ocracoke Health Center Pharmacy will be open to anyone visiting the island, making it the first public pharmacy in Hyde County. The county’s only other pharmacy is restricted to patients of Engelhard Medical Center, the health center’s sister clinic on the mainland.

“From a moral and ethical standpoint, I can’t say, ‘You can’t come here. Go to the Walmart up the street,’” Woolard said. “There is no Walmart up the street.”

Even when it comes to over-the-counter drugs, the options are limited. The local Variety Store is the only establishment that sells common items such as allergy medications and pain relievers.

Woolard said the pharmacy will offer a selection of antihistamines, vitamins and other over-the-counter drugs when it opens. They will not be sold at the high “resort prices” that are commonly charged in other tourism-centric locations, she said.  

‘More convenient’

The pharmacy can’t open soon enough for Jim Ogden, who has lived on the island for more than a decade.

Ogden has brain cancer and takes multiple medications a day. His prescriptions are currently filled at Beach Pharmacy in Hatteras and then dropped off at Ocracoke Health Center for pickup.

But there were several instances this past summer when his drugs arrived late because the ferry wasn’t running.  

“If there’s high winds or high tides, they can’t deliver,” he said. “And if I can’t get my medication, I’m in trouble.”

Assuming the Ocracoke pharmacy had Ogden’s medications in stock, he’d be able to get them the way most people on the mainland get their prescription drugs — by picking them up the same day at their local pharmacy.

Ogden said he plans to have his prescriptions sent to Ocracoke Health Center Pharmacy when it opens. He predicts that many fellow islanders will do the same.

“It’s going to be much more convenient,” he said.

This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. Coastal Review partners with North Carolina Health News to help bring our readers relevant news of the coast.

Native Americans in North Carolina face a disproportionately higher risk for preterm birth because of exposure to mixtures of toxic metals in their private drinking water wells, according to a recent study.

Women whose private wells have tested for higher levels of lead or cadmium, as opposed to those whose wells with lower levels of those metals, have an increased risk of giving birth prematurely, or before 37 weeks, the study found.

Researchers also found that people exposed to a mixture of lead, cadmium and chromium are at higher risk of preterm birth, said Dr. Lauren Eaves, research scientist and adjunct assistant professor with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Gillings School of Public Health and co-author of the study.

“We also found that the effect was strong among American Indian individuals, and I think it’s important to both highlight this but (to also) put it in the correct context that this isn’t any unique genetic susceptibility,” she said.

University researchers and others at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences combined 20 years of well water test records and more than 1 million birth certificates from 2003 to 2015 and found that 9.4%, or 124,000, were preterm.

North Carolina has the largest population — more than an estimated 2 million people — of people in the country who get their drinking water from private wells.

Unlike water provided by public systems, private well water is not protected by the Safe Water Drinking Act, which sets limits on the levels of certain contaminants in drinking water.

The effect of this, nationwide, equates to higher levels of metals, particularly arsenic and lead, in the bodies of people who rely on private well water as opposed to those on public water systems, Eaves said.

This places low-income and nonwhite families in rural areas at particular risk because they often lack the financial means to upgrade their wells with filtration systems or drill new wells.

According to information provided by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, private well owners are, in most cases, responsible for getting their water sampled.

PFAS contamination

Hundreds of private wells in the Cape Fear River Basin have either been tested or are waiting to be tested for GenX and other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, contamination linked to Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant in Bladen County.

Under the terms of a consent order, Chemours is responsible for paying to either install filtration systems in homes with wells that test for high levels of those contaminants or tap fees for households where access to public water systems are available.

The state has also established a pilot program that provides some financial assistance to low-income households to buy treatment systems or pay for public water system connection fees in areas where PFAS contamination cannot be attributed to any one particular source polluter. The pilot program is only for private well water users in New Hanover, Pender, Columbus, Brunswick and Guilford counties.

The spotlight PFAS contamination in the Cape Fear region is shining on water quality issues within the state is likely to aid at least some Native Americans living in North Carolina, but not all.

Systemic environmental injustice

Eaves said that what is most likely happening in Indigenous communities is that they’re experiencing forms of environmental injustice, such as municipal underbounding.

Municipal underbounding occurs when cities and towns keep communities of color outside of municipal boundaries.

Research is limited on whether this type of environmental injustice is occurring in Native American communities in the state, Eaves said.

However, municipal underbounding is “very well documented” for Black communities in North Carolina, she said.

“So, we hypothesize that this might be also happening for American Indian communities and we’re currently working on trying to actually scope out the evidence for that,” she said.

The study does not identify which tribes in the state face the greatest risk for preterm birth.

“What we do know is that larger communities of American Indian folks in Robeson County, Scotland County, and these areas where there are huge environmental injustice problems for our Lumbee community, for our Cherokee community out in the west, but particularly in that southeast region — Lumbee, Coharie — face a lot of environmental injustices and this lack of resources around private well water is compounding that,” Eaves said. “I think there’s limited resources for folks to test and treat that water and I think that’s what that finding is really demonstrating is that we need to pay particular attention to more vulnerable communities.”

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, more than 130,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives live in North Carolina.

There are eight state-recognized tribes: Coharie, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, which are also fully recognized by the federal government, Haliwa-Saponi, Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, which also has partial federal recognition, Meherrin, Sappony, Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation and Waccamaw Siouan.

Representatives for the Coharie in Sampson County and the Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina in Robeson County did not respond to questions and requests for comment.

In the United States, the rate of preterm births is highest for Black infants at 14.4%, followed by Native Americans and Alaska Natives at 11.8%, according to March of Dimes.

Preterm babies can suffer from a myriad of physical and mental impairments. The first-year average medical costs for premature babies in the U.S. was about four times greater than that of full-term babies in 2016.

That same year, the annual societal economic cost, including medical, educational and lost productivity, associated with preterm births was no less than $25.2 billion.

It can be incredibly stressful for communities experiencing higher rates of preterm births as members of that community seek answers to uncover why early births are occurring and how to protect not only pregnant women, but everyone in that community, Eaves said.

“And, I think it can be really distressing to know that there are contaminants in your water,” she said. “Everyone deserves clean water and so I think it can have a huge emotional effect on communities. I think that thinking about environmental health and exposures during pregnancy is under-researched and not considered as often as I think it should. I hope that as a state we continue to raise awareness around this and provide resources for pregnant folks to be able to protect themselves in the context of metals. We need to work to reduce these exposures that our communities are facing.”

Almost a third of drinking water systems sourced from rivers, streams and lakes in North Carolina will not meet proposed federal drinking water standards.

Those 1,500 water providers would have three years to come into compliance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulation expected to be finalized by year’s end.

Whatever treatment method those water providers use to meet the proposed federal rules, they’re facing substantial costs — costs that will most likely be passed down to customers.

North Carolina’s environmental regulators are forging a path to create state-enforceable rules on industries that release per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, into the environment.

Last week, the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission was presented a timeline of the state Department of Environmental Quality’s pursuit to reduce the amount of PFAS coming directly from polluters into surface and below-ground drinking water sources.

NCDEQ Assistant Secretary for Environment Sushma Masemore said regulators will provide the commission in March with a certified fiscal note, which is an estimate of the proposed regulations’ financial impact on the state budget, and ask the board to consider greenlighting the department to open a public comment period on proposed rules next summer.

It’s an “aggressive” timeline, she said during the commission’s meeting Nov. 9 in Raleigh, but one the department is working to meet.

Masemore emphasized that the state needs to protect its drinking water sources, and make sure the water that people drink is below the primary drinking water standards.

“We need to do what we must do,” she continued, to make sure surface water discharges and groundwater systems are as clean as possible. “We need to reduce the treatment costs burden of these drinking water systems by addressing those upstream discharges.”

As the EPA is looking at primary drinking water standards, it’s up to states to determine surface water standards by looking at upstream PFAS discharge sources, she said.

“As a result, the cost impact for those ratepayers will be reduced and so it is not a cost that’s borne by one group of people that are usually downstream of such sources, but that it is borne across all contributors,” Masemore said.

The EPA announced earlier this year its proposal to set limits on six PFAS in public water systems. The agency is expected to finalize limits on a combination of four chemical compounds: GenX, perfluorononanoic acid, or PFNA, perfluorohexane sulfonic acid, or PFHxS, and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid, or PFBS; and set maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs, of 4 parts per trillion each of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, two of the most widely studied PFAS.

Under the proposed rules, public water providers would have to monitor for those PFAS and report the results of sampling to the public if any level of PFAS exceed the proposed regulatory standards.

Masemore explained that DEQ wants to go beyond what EPA is doing and address additional PFAS specifically found in drinking water sources in North Carolina and identified in DEQ’s PFAS Priority List.

North Carolina is joining other states that are developing their own regulations or addressing PFAS within their own programs because they either have manufacturing facilities that are large-scale contributors of PFAS in surface and ground waters, air and soil. PFAS do not occur naturally in the environment.

Those states are at the forefront of analyzing current and ongoing studies on the human health and environmental effects of various PFAS, of which there are thousands, Masemore said.

“As a result, those states are also proposing similar regulations that are in effect and many people are actually going back and readjusting those regulations because of the new science being brought to everyone’s attention,” she said.

DEQ is taking a two-pronged approach to addressing PFAS: stopping future PFAS contaminants known to have adverse human health effects from getting into the environment, and cleaning up sites the state knows exist today.

Public water supply systems provide drinking water to more than 9 million North Carolinians. There currently are 380 municipal drinking water systems in 97 of the state’s 100 counties.

NCDEQ has identified 50 drinking water systems that contain elevated levels of various PFAS. Testing of those systems in 2022 revealed that 43 of those systems had concentrations of PFAS above the EPA’s proposed limits.

About 1,500 or so drinking water systems that rely on groundwater sources in the state serve 500 or fewer residents. Of those, 17% contain PFAS above proposed federal limits.

Extensive private well water testing is ongoing throughout multiple counties affected by PFAS contamination.

Masemore said the state must not forget about private well water users. The department’s Division of Waste Management has developed a variety of programs to support sampling and testing private wells. The state has also initiated a pilot program to assist low-income residents in covering costs to install filtration systems for wells that contain elevated levels of PFAS.

When asked whether the state has received feedback from industries known to be discharging PFAS into the environment about the prospect of state regulatory standards, Masemore said the response has thus far been “cautious and worried.”

“But also many sources realize that this is part of their future. They’re going to have to address it either through the state or federal government,” she said.

Residents of the Cape Fear region and environmental advocates balked at the EPA’s recent decision to allow the company responsible for discharging PFAS into the Cape Fear River for decades to import GenX into the state.

As first reported in NC Newsline, the agency last month notified Chemours the company could resume exportations of up to more than 4 million pounds of the chemical from its plant in The Netherlands to its Fayetteville Works facility in Bladen County to recycle or reuse the chemical.

But the EPA last week request the company pause imports, according to WRAL.

In a statement to the television station, an EPA spokesperson said that the agency “takes these concerns seriously and will review the notices that the company has provided to ensure the public remains safe.”

That statement came shortly after Gov. Roy Cooper sent a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan earlier this month urging the agency to reconsider and reverse its decision. Brunswick County commissioner Chairman Randy Thompson also wrote Regan, asking the agency to guarantee Chemours significantly reduces the amount of PFAS going into the Cape Fear River before allowing the company to allow more PFAS into the state.

Chemours has not imported shipments of GenX into the state this year and none are en route, according to the EPA.

In a statement to Coastal Review, a Chemours spokesperson last month explained that the plant recycles GenX to reuse it in manufacturing processes “for use in applications like semiconductor and electric vehicle production.”

“Reclaiming and recycling HFPO-DA (GenX) is an important circularity activity that helps reduce the need to manufacture larger volumes of new, virgin HFPO-DA,” the spokesperson stated.

Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan said in an interview last month with CRO that North Carolinians cannot trust a company that knowingly discharged PFAS into the environment for years, news that first came to light in June 2017 in a story published in the Wilmington Star News.

“This is what really bothers me for our community is that this is not a company that has a track record of proactively taking a precautionary stance with this dangerous chemical that they’re making and they want to shift the burden to us, which they have been, while they made record profits for decades,” she said. “I just don’t have patience anymore for this company and for the loopholes that are allowed to exist. We knew six years ago that the only way a company of this size was able to get away with doing what they did for so long was because they had successfully managed to break the system to create the loopholes that benefited them.”

State environmental officials are mulling a request from Wilmington’s predominate drinking water supplier to add another chemical compound to the list of PFAS the state is studying to understand potential health effects in people.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Kenneth Waldroup met with members of the N.C. Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board Wednesday to talk about the challenge of removing perfluoropropionic acid, or PFPrA, from the utility’s raw drinking water source. The board advises the Department of Environmental Quality and the state Department of Health and Human Services in identifying contaminants of concern and determining which contaminants should be studied for public health risks.

More than one month has passed since the utility sent a letter to the board’s chair and DEQ, asking that PFPrA get added to the state’s priority per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, list.

PFPrA is an ultra-short-chain PFAS. Ultra-short-chain chemical compounds are the smallest and hardest to remove during drinking water treatment.

In the year since the utility began operating its multi-million-dollar granular activated carbon system built specifically to remove PFAS from its raw water source, the Cape Fear River, smaller compounds, including perfluoro-2-methoxyacetic acid, or PFMOAA, have broken through the water treatment plant’s filtration, Waldroup said.

“We elected in an abundance of caution to increase our filter exchange,” he said.

Replacing filters more frequently ups the plant’s operating costs to an estimated $1 million annually.

The cost to replace one filter ranges between $600,000 to $700,000, Waldroup said.

CFPUA set a goal to prevent no more than 10 parts-per-trillion of PFMOAA from getting into treated drinking water going to 200,000 customers.

There are no federal or state limits on ultra-short-chain PFAS, so the utility chose the target of no more than 10 PPT to comply with proposed federal limits on six PFAS.

PFMOAA is not one of the compounds the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposes to regulate.

The agency is expected to finalize limits on a combination of four chemical compounds: GenX, perfluoronanoic acid, or PFNA, perfluorohexane sulfonic acid, or PFHxS, and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid, or PFBS; and set maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs, of 4 PPT each on perfluooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perflurooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, two of the most widely studied PFAS.

PFMOAA is, however, on the state’s priority study list of PFAS.

During an online meeting Wednesday, Waldroup told members of the advisory board that PFPrA is breaking through the filtration system at “similar and even higher levels” than PFMOAA. The utility has set the same treatment target of no more than 10 PPT for PFPrA.

PFMOAA and PFPrA are among a number of chemical compounds specific to Chemours Fayetteville Works facility, which is more than 70 miles upstream of Wilmington.

The DuPont spinoff for decades discharged PFAS, including GenX, into the Cape Fear River, the air, and the ground.

Under a 2019 Consent Order between Chemours, DEQ and Cape Fear River Watch, the company has had to install technology, including a thermal oxidizer and underground barrier wall, to drastically reduce the amount of PFAS it discharges into the air and river.

A little more than a year ago, DEQ issued Chemours a discharge permit that ultimately limits the amount of PFMOAA that may be released from the plant to less than 20 parts-per-trillion, or PPT.

Waldroup told the board the utility is seeking state guidance in determining maximum limits for ultra-short-chain PFAS.

Utility officials are investigating the potential of new treatments that, when paired with the CAG, may help bolster PFAS removal.

Human health effects of PFMOAA and PFPrA are unknown.

A pilot study of the National Resource Defense Council across 16 states found PFPrA in 24 out of 30 samples. Half of the samples contained higher concentrations of PFPrA than any other PFAS detected those samples.

Amy Delinsky, an environmental chemist with DEQ, explained that PFPrA is used to replace now-banned chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which were primarily used as refrigerants.

“The amount of PFPrA is actually expected to increase with time as a result of the use of these replacement refrigerants,” Delinsky said. “PFPrA also can be found in the environment as the result of the breakdown of longer-chain PFAS. Certain manufacturing facilities can produce PFPrA associated with some of the process that’s happening at the facility, whether it’s direct manufacturing or as a byproduct.”

PFPrA is found throughout the world.

Chemours “does appear to be the main source of PFPrA in the southeast part of the state,” Delinksy said.

The state Division of Water Resources has multiple testing stations through the state, including one at Lock and Dam Three in the Cape Fear River near Chemours.

PFPrA was detected between 1,000 and 1,500 PPT from water samples taken at that site in May and June of 2022, Delinksy said.

Seven out of 286 public water supply wells DWR sampled this year contained PFPrA above 20 PPT.

Those systems are in five counties in the Cape Fear, White Oak, and Tar-Pamlico river basins. Those counties include: Carteret, Cumberland, Franklin, New Hanover, and Pender.

Delinksy said the state will continue to gather additional data and work with the advisory board to develop specific questions related to CFPUA’s request to discuss at the board’s Dec. 6 meeting.

In a steamy hot summer of freak storms and horrific wildfires, recent cases of infections from vicious, flesh-eating bacteria that can kill within 48 hours of exposure in warm, brackish water has only added to a sense of foreboding.

It’s not that our sounds and marshes are dirty or disease-ridden, says a veteran microbiologist; it’s that warm estuarine waters can be dangerous to people with vulnerable immune systems who have fresh wounds or who have eaten raw oysters. 

“The last thing I want to do is scare people away from the beach, when it’s a very rare, rare situation,” James D. Oliver, professor emeritus at University of North Carolina Charlotte, Department of Biological Sciences, said in a recent interview. “But if you’re a susceptible person, you’re at risk.”

Although Vibrio vulnificus, a genus that’s one of the fastest growing bacteria known, has long been present in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic coastal estuarine waters, infections from the pathogen have been becoming more prevalent in northern waters as the climate becomes increasingly warmer.

Of the 100 or so Vibrio bacteria, including one that causes cholera, vulnificus can be the most lethal.

State health officials reported that three people from North Carolina — including one case in Nags Head — died in July from Vibrio infections.

Three people in the New York City metropolitan area also have died since July 1 of Vibrio infections, and another person was hospitalized and released, the New York governor’s office reported. 

But Vibrio vulnificus, unlike the familiar water-borne contaminants from animal feces or septic spills, are naturally occurring in marine waters.

“They’re there all the time,” Oliver explained. “But when the water is cold, they go into a dormant stage and you won’t get infections in the winter. So all the infections are from like May until October.”

Typically, people who get infected are those who have liver diseases, including hepatitis, are older than age 60, or have suppressed immune system diseases such as diabetes, Oliver said. And for reasons scientists don’t completely understand, 85% to 90% of infection cases are in men over age 40.

Oliver, who began researching Vibrio vulnificus about 45 years ago, said the reason for the gender differences may be related to protective factors of estrogen in females, or because nearly all cases of liver cirrhosis are in males, he said. Unfortunately, he added, a large percentage of those with cirrhosis, which is not a young man’s disease, are unaware of it until it has progressed.

“And that is the No. 1 risk factor for coming down with it after eating raw oysters, or after getting a cut, for that matter,” Oliver said.

The bacteria activates when the water temperature reaches about 68 to 70 degrees, and does fine at hotter temperatures. Once they start dividing, their numbers can increase rapidly. It’s a matter of having the right combination of salinity and temperature, Oliver said. The higher the saltiness, the less the bacteria thrives. 

“They like relatively low salinity water,” Oliver said. “You won’t find this out in the open ocean.”

Salinity levels in estuarine waters typically range between 2 to 25 parts per 1,000, he said. The ocean is about 35 parts per 1,000. In severe droughts, brackish waterways sometimes become too salty for the bacteria’s liking, he said, but that has been unusual. 

Warming coastal waters from climate change impacts have resulted in a northerly spread along the U.S. East Coast of Vibrio wound infections, according to a March 2023 article in Scientific Reports, “Climate warming and increasing Vibrio vulnificus infections in North America,” authored by Oliver and eight other scientists.

Between 1998 and 2018, the report said, the number of cases increased eightfold, from 10 to 80 a year, and shifted northward about 30 miles.

By 2041 to 2060, the range for infections would be expected to encompass the New York City region and double in numbers, the report said. By the end of the century, unless carbon emissions are reduced, it could be found in every state.

Currently, Vibrio wound infections are about 20% fatal, Oliver said. Those with cuts who don’t have underlying health conditions could still get an infection, but it wouldn’t be life-threatening. People also can get infected by ingesting raw oysters, and that is extremely dangerous to people with the risk factors. Of those cases, 100% result in hospitalization and 50% are fatal.

“So it is the by far the most fatal foodborne disease in the world,” Oliver said.

In fact, 95% of all seafood-related deaths in the U.S. are due to eating raw or undercooked oysters, the report said. Ingestion also accounts for 93% of Vibrio infections from raw or undercooked seafood consumption. The pathogen is not a risk to pets or other animals, Oliver said.

“While the concentration of V. vulnificus in estuarine waters is typically quite low,” the report said, “it becomes concentrated in such molluscan shellfish as oysters and clams due to their efficient use of filter-feeding to obtain food.”

Most ingestion cases — about 100 to 200 cases a year in the U.S — are from Gulf oysters because of their habitat’s warmer waters and lower salinity, Oliver said, adding that he is not aware of any cases from North Carolina oysters.

“Ours are very safe, actually,” he said.

Since 2019, eight of 47 reported Vibrio cases among North Carolina residents have been fatal, according to a July 28 press release from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Of the three most recent fatalities in July 2023, the release said, all were exposed to brackish waters. Two of the victims had scratches and the third had consumed personally caught seafood that was not shared or distributed.

In an email responding to an inquiry from Coastal Review about two recent local cases, the Dare County health department said that one case, which was a fatality, was reported on July 20 in Buzzard Bay in Albemarle Sound south of Colington Island on the Outer Banks, and another confirmed case was reported on July 25 to have been acquired in the ocean in Nags Head. That person was a visitor, and there are no updates on a condition.

A third case was confirmed from a person who ate raw oysters on July 19 from a facility in Dare, the email said. The oysters were from Virginia, according to the New Jersey Department of Health. As of the last update on July 25, the person was reported to be recovering at home. 

There have been a total of nine confirmed and two probable cases of Vibrio in Dare County since 2018, the health department said.

An infection is diagnosed when tests find the bacteria in the stool, wound or blood of a patient, the email said.

Privacy regulations limit health officials from providing certain details and names, but numerous reports on social media and news outlets identified a recent fatality as a 71-year-old man from Nags Head, who died on July 21 after being cut by a crab pot in Buzzard’s Bay.

Hospitalizations related to Vibrio can require intensive treatment, especially for ingestion cases, and can be very costly, Oliver said.

As its apt “flesh-eating” epithet describes, the bacteria can inflict gruesome damage on the human body with stunning speed. Victims can suffer sepsis and horrific oozing wounds, sometimes requiring amputations to save their lives.

Major symptoms of wound infections include fever, with edema and cellulitis at the site. The incubation period is rapid, averaging only 16 hours.

The bacterium, which can start dividing in less than 15 minutes, is very sensitive to antibiotics, Oliver said, but effective treatment is a matter of timing. Dabbing a cut with peroxide is unlikely to prevent it from getting into the bloodstream, so those with health risks should be vigilant about seeing a doctor.

“By the time it gets in, it’s almost too late,” Oliver said. “And people dying within hours of admission to a hospital is not uncommon.”

In a paper Oliver wrote with a colleague, it detailed the progression of a Gulf Coast fisherman admitted to the hospital with a small wound that looked like a swollen spider bite, and within four hours it became a large lesion, and then it spread to multiple fluid-filled lesions on his body. Despite treatment with several antibiotics, he died 28 hours after he was admitted. 

In cases of infections from raw oyster ingestion, symptoms are fever, chills, nausea, abdominal pain, hypotension and development of secondary lesions, according to a paper Oliver wrote. The incubation period averages only 26 hours after ingestion. Again, time is of the essence for antibiotic treatment. Those who wait three days have a 100% fatality rate.

The “flesh-eating” quality of the bacteria is caused by very powerful enzymes that begin to degrade human tissue, Oliver said. In ingestion, it goes through the stomach down to the intestines, and then goes through the intestinal wall into the blood. It then begins to spread throughout the body and come out at the skin in multiple lesions.

But wound infections are typically more contained to the site of the cut or bite, which explains why they’re less lethal.

Oliver recommended that people with any health risks who were in brackish water and have any cuts, scratches, recent tattoos or unhealed bug bites need to be proactive and act as soon as a cut shows any sign of infection. Or if they recently ate raw oysters and start feeling unwell, they need to see a doctor as soon as possible. What is important is telling the health care provider of the exposure or ingestion, and any immune system issues. 

As the climate warming report emphasizes, the challenge to pubic health is likely to increase with warming seas, and more public awareness programs are called for.

“The northward V. vulnificus infection expansion stresses the need for increased individual and public health V. vulnificus awareness in these areas,” it said. “This is crucial as prompt action when symptoms occur is necessary to prevent major health outcomes.”

More fish advisories, this time for saltwater species, could be announced for the Cape Fear River pending the results of fish tissue samples being analyzed for dozens of human-made chemicals polluting the river.

Frannie Nilsen, a toxicologist with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, said during a presentation Tuesday to the Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board that she’s hopeful the state will not need to add more fish from the river to the list of species found to have high concentrations of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS.

“We don’t know what this data will say so hopefully you don’t need to create an advisory,” Nilsen said during the presentation. “One thing I will say is that many saltwater species do have lower PFAS and PFOS concentrations because they have a wider home range and a more diverse diet so they’re not as concentrated for some of these compounds, at least based on the studies that exist in the literature.”

Results of the saltwater fish tissue currently being studied will be presented to the advisory board in the late fall or early winter, she said.

Those results will wrap up a study of multiple species of fish collected from the Cape Fear River, just south of Fayetteville to the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s been less than one month since the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services released an advisory recommending people limit the amount of freshwater fish they consume from the middle and lower Cape Fear River after several species were found to contain PFOS.

PFOS is a group of related chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are synthetic chemical compounds used in a host of consumer goods, including state and water-resistant products.

Nearly 280 fish from across 14 different species were collected and tested for 56 different PFAS, including GenX, a human-made chemical specific to Chemours Fayetteville Works Facility more than 70 miles upriver of Wilmington.

Under court order, Chemours has been chipping away at reducing the amount of PFAS the plant had been releasing into the river, air and groundwater.

Communities along the river had been pushing the state for fish studies since the public was made aware in 2017 that the plant had been discharging PFAS into the river for decades.

The species that were tested were specifically targeted because they are the most frequently fished and eaten from the river.

Fish were collected from one of 11 different sites along the river. Each site spanned just under 12.5 miles in length.

While PFAS were found in all of the freshwater fish tissue samples collected, PFOS concentrations were highest in bluegill, flathead catfish, largemouth bass, striped bass and redear sunfish.

PFOS was also found in American shad, blue catfish and channel catfish, but at lower concentrations.

“This is not entirely what was expected, but this is not uncommon or irregular in terms of freshwater fish samples,” Nilsen said. “If you look at just the PFOS concentrations at each site for each species, they are variable, but they’re not significantly different. They’re variable between species, but within the species they’re not so different. So, while the PFOS concentrations did look much higher than all the others, they don’t vary so much between the sites in the river. This is really providing a very comprehensive data set to inform additional fish studies in the future and looking retrospectively at ones that exist in literature.”

Analysis of 67 saltwater fish across nine species taken from three sites between Wilmington and the mouth of the river at Southport are starting to come in to the state, she said.

Those fish include black and red drum, Atlantic croaker, sheepshead and southern flounder. Tissue samples from speckled trout, flathead catfish and striped bass were also taken from those sites.

Virginia Guidry, DHHS Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology branch head, explained that the fish advisories do not create legal or regulatory restrictions on fish consumption, but rather health recommendations.

And while other states have PFAS-related fish advisories, she said it is difficult to make direct comparisons with those issued for the Cape Fear River.

Guidry said that, to her knowledge, North Carolina is the first state to issue advisories based on the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest reference doses on PFOS, which were released in March.

“We did this so that we could base our advisories on the most current scientific data and be as health protective as we can,” she said. “This uses the same science as the proposed maximum contaminant levels for drinking water supplies. The concentrations of PFOS that we found in North Carolina are similar to levels that are found nationally, but our advisory is more restrictive because we are using that new EPA reference. These advisories are important information that we want to share with the public so they can reduce their exposure to PFAS.”

She emphasized the delicate balance of warning people against eating too much of the fish listed under the advisory while acknowledging that fish are an important source of nutrition and that fish are culturally significant to Native American tribes and other communities.

Guidry noted that neighboring states, including South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia, do not have PFAS-related fish advisories.

The state is hosting community meetings later this month about the advisories. The schedule is as follows:

• Aug. 17 at Bladen Community College from 6-8 p.m.
• Aug. 22 at Navassa Community Center from 6-8 p.m.
• Aug. 24 virtual meeting from 6-8 p.m.

Additional information will be provided on the DHHS website.

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit that would have forced Chemours to pay for health studies on dozens of chemical compounds manufactured at its Fayetteville plant.

Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Myers II on Friday released his decision to dismiss the suit, ruling that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted a petition to the organizations requesting testing on 54 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

The core question before Myers was whether the organizations filed under Section 21 of the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, a single petition for all 54 substances or individual petitions for each substance within a single document.

Myers ruled that the court lacked the authority to review the EPA’s decision to grant the petition.

The EPA initially denied the Oct. 14, 2020, request from the Center for Environmental Health, Clean Cape Fear, Cape Fear River Watch, Democracy Green, NC Black Alliance and Toxic Free NC to require Chemours fund comprehensive health and environmental effects testing on PFAS.

The organizations in March 2021 asked EPA to reconsider its decision and grant the petition. The EPA received letters of support for the petition request from 120 nonprofit groups, nearly 50 scientists, the city of Wilmington, New Hanover County and Cape Fear Public Utility Authority. Several members of the North Carolina congressional delegation also wrote EPA Administrator Michael Regan supporting the petition.

The agency overturned its decision in late December 2021 and granted a petition to study the PFAS largely as a category of substances.

The organizations said the petition was effectively a denial because it refused to require testing for 47 of the 54 PFAS.

The groups argue the 54 PFAS meet TSCA testing criteria because little to no information about their health effects currently exist and that people and wildlife in the Cape Fear watershed are at higher risk because they are exposed to a combination of these chemicals through drinking water and air.

The Cape Fear River, a raw drinking water sources for tens of thousands of people, has been contaminated for decades by PFAS discharged from Chemours Fayetteville Works plant nestled off the river’s bank in Bladen County.

Researchers continue to scratch the surface of potential health effects these chemical compounds may pose to people and the environment. Studies on some of the substances – there are more than 10,000 PFAS – indicate effects on immune systems and increased risks for everything from certain types of cancer to low birth weight to heart attack and stroke.

In his ruling, Myers wrote the EPA, “reasonably construed the Plaintiffs’ petition as a single petition asking EPA to initiate proceedings to test 54 PFAS. EPA granted the petition to test those 54 substances as a category — PFAS — and has initiated testing on that category of substances.

“EPA has initiated proceedings to determine the rules and orders it will issue to test PFAS. The Plaintiffs cannot dictate the testing program, rules, or orders EPA must issue,” the judge ruled. “As such, their petition was granted, and EPA has initiated proceedings for the category of substances requested in the petition. Section 21 of the TSCA does not empower this court to review EPA’s grant of a petition. This court lacks jurisdiction.”

Clean Cape Fear released a statement after the ruling was released last week, saying that the dismissal “has created a dangerous precedent for future EPA administrations to publicly grant citizen TSCA petitions while internally failing to do the work requested. We are considering an appeal to this disappointing decision that serves no one but the chemical companies who continue to hold hostage our regulatory institutions at the expense of our health and wellbeing.”

On Monday, Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan in a telephone interview said the EPA could have let the case play out in the courts rather than ask for a dismissal.

“That is really upsetting,” she said. “We haven’t been able to sit together and talk through this. One of the things we are considering is an appeal. I don’t know the time frame. It would have to be something that we decide on quickly.”

Cape Fear River Watch Executive Director Dana Sargent said she would “definitely like” for the organizations to appeal because there needs to be an epidemiological study in the Cape Fear region.

“Health studies are necessary,” she said. “This is one of the biggest questions we get. What is this stuff doing to us? There’s no way to answer it. We have to fight it. There’s nothing else we can do but fight it. I really wish the EPA would turn around and go, you know what, let’s stop this. For me, we’re wasting our time and our money on lawyers as is the EPA to fight for something that I think the EPA at its core knows is the right thing to do.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that between 3,400 to more than 6,000 public water systems across the country contain at least one toxic chemical compound that exceeds newly announced proposed limits in drinking water.

“Safe drinking water is fundamental to healthy people and thriving communities. We all rely on water from the moment that we wake up to make a cup of coffee to when we brush our teeth at night. Every person should have access to clean and safe drinking,” said Jennifer McLain, director of the EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water.

In what has been called an unprecedented move, the agency last week announced a plan to set limits on six per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in public water systems.

Under the proposed rules, public water providers would have to monitor for those PFAS and report the results of sampling to the public if any level of PFAS exceed the proposed regulatory standards.

Water utilities found to have one or more of the chemicals above the proposed limits would have to reduce the levels of PFAS, a requirement that EPA officials acknowledged in a public webinar last week will equate to substantial costs, but one that would spare the expense to human health.

“We understand that reducing PFAS in drinking water will likely require investments in water infrastructure and we recognize that that could be a concern for many,” McLain said during the March 16 online meeting. “At the federal level, we’ve been making unprecedented investments in infrastructure and, specifically, for emerging compounds.”

Billions of dollars are available through the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a bipartisan bill that President Joe Biden signed into law Nov. 21, 2021.

McLain said $9 billion is available to help communities upgrade drinking water systems with technologies that remove PFAS.

Public water systems would have three years to comply with the new regulation after it is finalized.

Water bills of Cape Fear Public Utility Authority customers have increased as a result of a multi-million-dollar filtration system upgrade at the authority’s Sweeney plant in downtown Wilmington.

The authority last year installed a granular activated carbon, or GAC, system designed to filter out on average 90% of PFAS from its raw water source, the Cape Fear River. Brunswick County Public Utilities is also spending millions in upgrades to install a low-pressure reverse-osmosis system to remove PFAS.

Nearly six years have passed since the news broke that the Chemours Co.’s Fayetteville Works plant had for decades discharged PFAS directly into the river, the drinking water source for more than a quarter-million people.

Among the chemical compounds released into the river, ground and air from the plant some 75 miles upriver from Wilmington, is GenX, the common name for hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid, or HFPO-DA.

GenX is one of four chemical compounds the EPA is proposing to limit in combination with perfluoronanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS).

Alex Lan of the EPA’s Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water and technical lead for the rulemaking effort explained that the agency is looking at the combined toxicity of those four chemical compounds through something called a hazard index.

The hazard index is made up of a sum of fractions used to calculate humans’ exposure to levels where health effects are not anticipated to occur.

“To assist in the calculation of these values, the agency is developing a calculator tool to easily determine your hazard index results,” Lan said.

Nationally, the anticipated benefits to establishing contamination limits on PFAS would lead to reduced cases of kidney cancer, strokes and heart attacks, and developmental effects in children, including low birth weight.

The EPA proposes to set maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs, on perfluooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, two of the most widely studied PFAS.

The agency proposed to set MCLs for each of those PFAS at 4 parts-per-trillion, or ppt.

Current scientific and available evidence shows PFAS affect pregnant women and developing babies, immune systems, increase the risk of certain types of cancers, and may result in elevated cholesterol levels, which increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

“The science is clear,” McLain said. “Long-term exposure to certain PFAS is linked to significant health risks. If finalized this new rule will significantly result in less PFAS in drinking water across the United States.”

The EPA last year set a final health advisory for GenX at 10 ppt and PFBS at 2,000 ppt.

PFBS has not been found in significant concentrations in samples collected in North Carolina, but high levels of GenX have been found in the Cape Fear River.

Chemours, a spinoff of DuPont, is pushing back on the EPA’s GenX health advisory. The company has sued the agency, arguing that the EPA failed to use the best available science when making its determination.

Last week’s webinar was the first of two the EPA is hosting.

A March 29 webinar will be held to directly address water utilities and water professionals, Lan said.

An online public hearing will be held May 4. You must register by April 28 to make a comment during the public hearing.

A 60-day public comment period will open after the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register.

The proposed regulation is expected to be finalized by the end of this year.

ROCKY POINT – Nearly 1,000 households that rely on private drinking wells downstream of Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant qualify for in-home filtration systems or a public water utility connection.

Almost 900 wells that have been tested so far in Brunswick, Columbus, Pender and New Hanover counties had at least one type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl, of PFAS, at or above the federal government’s lifetime health advisory for a single compound or combined levels of multiple compounds.

These numbers are likely to rise as testing continues on private wells in the lower Cape Fear region, an area whose residents were rocked nearly six years ago by news that Chemours, a DuPont spinoff, had for decades been discharging chemical compounds from its plant in Bladen County into the river, air and ground.

In Pender County, 2,200 properties are eligible for testing, according to Michael Scott, director of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Waste Management.

“This isn’t a small amount,” he said.

Scott addressed Tuesday night the more than 100 people that were gathered in a high school auditorium in Rocky Point, an unincorporated area of Pender County, to hear the latest updates on well testing in that county.

During the informational meeting hosted by the state’s environmental agency, residents were given the opportunity to ask a panel of state officials questions, including Scott.

Questions and comments broached in the question-and-answer portion of the meeting shed light on the complexities residents with private drinking water wells face.

Some wanted to know why their requests to get their wells tested by Parsons Environment and Infrastructure, the company contracted by Chemours to conduct sampling, have been declined.

One resident asked why wells that irrigate gardens and are the drinking supply for farm animals are not eligible for testing.

Others pointed out that their wells tested for PFAS, but not above the health advisory, while neighbors’ wells tested higher for at least one chemical compound, making them eligible to receive either in-home filtration systems or the option to tap into a public water utility.

Sharon Mathis said samples from her well contained 6.9 parts per trillion, or ppt, of GenX, a compound specific to the Chemours facility dozens of miles up the Cape Fear River.

That’s below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s health advisory for GenX at 10 ppt, which means Mathis does not qualify for alternate drinking water.

“Why would I even want to drink it?” she said. “It’s there. That guideline still doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Under the terms of a 2019 consent order with DEQ and Cape Fear River Watch, Chemours has to cover the costs of installing a whole-house granular activated carbon filtration system in residences with private drinking wells found to contain more than 10 ppt of GenX.

Households with wells that exceed that amount also have the option to tap into a public water line if the home is close enough to a public utility pipe.

Testing is limited to 12 compounds. Wells that test for an individual compound above 10 ppt and those with any combination of the 12 compounds registering above 70 ppt are eligible to receive up to three under-the-sink reverse osmosis filters.

Chemours must pay for the initial installation of the filtration systems and maintain the systems for the next 20 years.

These offerings to residences with PFAS-tainted wells are a far cry from a cut-and-dry resolution.

Some who’ve qualify for reverse osmosis, or RO, filters prefer to take on the out-of-pocket cost and pay the difference to upgrade to whole-house granular activated carbon, or GAC, filtration systems.

That’s not an option under the consent order.

Residents who qualify and elect to tap into Pender County Utilities, which oversees that county’s six water and sewer districts, have been told they’ll have to wait months, even years before they can access the public water supply.

The continuing clogged global and national supply chains have drastically slowed shipments of everything from brass fittings to smart meters used to connect homes to public utilities.

A county official attending Tuesday’s meeting explained to the crowd that he placed an order for meters in May 2022. He received those meters last month. Normally, he would receive an order within 30 days.

“The supply chain issue is really worse than anybody realizes,” he said. “It is compounded with Pender County, Brunswick County, Onslow County, your counties that are seeing growth.”

Some questioned why residents with the option to connect to Pender’s water lines would even want to since in some cases chemical compounds in municipal utilities are higher than those found in private drinking wells.

Scott reminded the crowd that no one is forced to tap into municipal water.

“I would say the utilities never took in this water knowing the compounds were in it,” he said.

Much remains unknown about the effects of PFAS to human health, but studies, including those conducted by researchers at some of North Carolina’s universities, indicate high levels of PFAS have impacts on thyroid and immune system functions, some growth and development in children and increased risk in some cancers, including testicular and kidney.

Under court order, Chemours has taken steps to reduce the amount of PFAS it’s Fayetteville plant releases into the environment. More than 99% of PFAS is now prevented from being emitted into the air and water discharged from the plant is being captured, stored and shipped to a hazardous waste site in Texas.

A more than a mile long, 70-foot-deep wall is currently being built on the plant site to stop PFAS in the groundwater from flowing into the Cape Fear River. Water stopped at the wall will be filtered into a groundwater extraction system and treated before it is discharged.

Julie Grzyb, deputy director of the state’s Division of Water Resources, said that, until the barrier wall is completed and all the wells behind it are pumping, residents will continue to have PFAS in their water.

Grzyb said the wall is estimated to be completed by April.

“They’re drilling,” she said. “They’re hitting a lot of clay. Some days they’re going faster than expected. Some days they’re going slower than expected.”

The state will continue testing the Cape Fear River at different sites downstream of the plant to determine the effectiveness of the wall, she said.

The results of those tests will be made available to the public, one that appears to have little faith in a company that knowingly discharged dozens upon dozens of compounds into the river for more than 30 years.

Residents in the Cape Fear Region are predominately gobsmacked at the company’s intentions to expand the Fayetteville plant, growth company officials say will not result in an increase in PFAS.

Chemours is in the process of seeking permits for the proposed expansion.

Shortly after the EPA announced last June its health advisory for GenX, Chemours sued, arguing the agency failed to use best available science when making its determination.

Last year, a federal appeals court judge allowed several North Carolina environmental and health groups to intervene in that lawsuit.

Some of those same groups, including Cape Fear River Watch, are suing the EPA for failing to require Chemours to conduct critical health studies on 54 compounds discharged from the Fayetteville plant. Last month, a federal judge heard arguments in the EPA’s case to dismiss that lawsuit. A decision has not been made.

MAYSVILLE — Nearly $62 million in federal funds will go to address drinking water quality in rural and disadvantaged communities in the state, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael S. Regan announced Monday during a visit to the town’s water tower.

That $62 million, he told the town officials, residents, Department of Environmental Quality staff and the media, is coming from a total of $2 billion that has been allocated from the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that passed in 2021 to address emerging contaminants, like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in drinking water across the country.

Maysville is one of the small, rural communities affected by PFAS contamination in the state.

Regan said that in the almost two years since becoming EPA administrator, he has had the opportunity to travel across the country, visiting big cities and rural communities like Maysville, and everything in between.

“I’ve had countless conversations with people from all different backgrounds and I’ve heard time and time again about how our nation’s aging water infrastructure has directly impacted people’s lives,” he said. “Let’s be clear, clean water is essential for all life on Earth. It’s fundamental for healthy people, thriving communities and productive agriculture. Yet too many people in this country lack access to safe, affordable and reliable drinking water systems. Too many communities are grappling with the impacts of pollution and other emerging contaminants. And too many communities have been left to face these challenges alone.”

Regan said that the administration was leading the investment in America’s infrastructure like never before, including the single largest investment in water infrastructure in history. He said the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides more than $50 billion to replace lead pipes, address PFAS and other contaminants and build drinking water and wastewater systems that are sustainable and reliable.

Regan announced that the EPA is allocating $2 billion that will go to address contaminants including PFAS in drinking water through the agency’s Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities Grant program.

“In total, EPA will provide $5 billion between now and 2026 through this grant program. This one year alone, North Carolina will receive nearly $62 million for projects that specifically address PFAS and emerging contaminants in drinking water in our small and rural communities,” Regan said.

The grant program prioritizes investments in small communities dealing with PFAS contamination with few financial options. The grants do not require a state match, ensuring that the money gets to the communities that need it most, Regan said.

“Small communities have always been the backbone of our nation,” he said.

Regan called the funding a significant milestone that will help communities tackle pervasive challenges like PFAS, a challenge he said he understood from his time as DEQ secretary.

In 2019, the NC PFAS Testing Network, a statewide research collaboration, tested the well in the Maysville drinking water system for 55 chemicals. Researchers found levels above the EPA recommendation for two chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, and similar levels of Perfluorohexane sulfonate, or PFHxS. To protect the community, town officials began to source water from Jones County. The town is currently installing a filtration system for its own well.

Maysville Town Manager Schumata Brown said during the press conference that he often refers to water as important to the quality of life. “I believe that if we are providing that to our citizens, they deserve that quality.”

Brown added that when the new PFAS filtration system is finished, it will be one of the most advanced.

Current DEQ Secretary Elizabeth Biser told attendees that in the last six years since PFAS was discovered in drinking water in the Cape Fear region, the state had been working aggressively to address PFAS contamination.

“We have become a national leader by necessity. In 2017 When GenX was discovered and a Cape Fear River, DEQ under then Secretary Reagan took decisive action to stop Chemours from releasing GenX into the environment. Chemours contamination forced our state to learn a lot quickly about PFAS, its effects and protecting our residents. But we all know that the issue of PFAS goes beyond one chemical or one company. These forever chemicals are pervasive throughout our environment,” Biser said.

“In 2019, Maysville learned that lesson firsthand. They also learned a lot about the impacts of PFAS that they are linked to health effects with that there are no federal drinking water standards yet, although we’re hoping that will change soon, and while we’re looking forward anxiously awaiting those federal standards,” she said.

Biser said the state is working to address PFAS “in a comprehensive way with a comprehensive plan.”

DEQ in June 2022 announced its plan for dealing with PFAS throughout the state through research, regulation and remediation.

“In order to protect drinking water, we know that we need to address regulations for PFAS. DEQ committed to proposing standards for groundwater, surface water and drinking water for the PFAS that are most prevalent in North Carolina’s environment. We want to prevent more harm from being done. And we have to address forever chemicals that are already present in our environment for remediation efforts and continue to hold polluters accountable,” Biser said.

Biser also commended the “decisive action” Maysville officials took to protect its residents.

“They did the right thing. They acted on the science to protect their community from the harmful effects of these compounds,” she said. “They also took the initiative to do additional testing and since 2019 have been working with experts and legislators to find solutions.”

After the press conference and round table discussion with state and local leaders, Biser said that the state will need to work with rural and disadvantaged communities to identify the projects that can be funded. She said the need was great and the problem was large.

“Having filtration technology available to small communities like Maysville is phenomenal,” she said.

WILMINGTON – Many people living in the Cape Fear River basin who volunteered to take part in the most recent GenX exposure study had higher levels of four highly fluorinated compounds in their blood than the average American.

While GenX was not found in the blood samples of 1,020 residents in Wilmington, Fayetteville and Pittsboro, three per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, unique to the Chemours Fayetteville Works facility were in the blood of almost everyone who participated in the 2020-2021 study.

The results of this latest GenX exposure study were discussed Wednesday evening during a public meeting hosted by Cape Fear River Watch in Cape Fear Community College’s Union Station.

Researchers with the North Carolina State University Center for Human Health and the Environment were quick to point out that while GenX was not found in blood samples, that does not mean people were not exposed to the chemical compound. That merely suggests GenX does not last in the blood for a long time.

PFAS found in blood samples from Wilmington-area residents were the same as those found in samples taken from residents who participated in the initial 2017-18 study.

Nearly everyone who participated in the study had perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, perfluorohexanesulfonic acid, or PFHxS, and perfluoronanoic acid, or PFNA.

Those synthetic chemicals get into the Cape Fear River from several different sources, including textile and furniture manufacturers, sludge from wastewater treatment plants used as fertilizer, and firefighting foams used at airports, according to researchers who conducted the study.

Chemical compounds unique to Chemours – Nafion byproduct 2, and perfluoroalkyl ether carboxylic acids PFO4DA and PFO5DoA – were found in the blood of almost everyone from the Wilmington-area region who participated in the first GenX exposure study in 2017-18.

Nadine Kotlarz, a research scholar at N.C. State, said Nafion byproduct 2 was found in 422 out of 514 Wilmington-area residents who participated in the 2020-21 study.

Blood samples of 433 of those residents also contained PFO5DoA.

Kotlarz explained that researchers went back and reanalyzed the original blood samples collected in the 2017-18 study after new commercial testing standards were established. The results revealed the people found to have PFO5DoA in their blood had higher concentrations than originally detected.

“To date there’s little known about the toxicity of this PFAS,” Kotlarz said.

Jamie DeWitt, a professor at East Carolina University, studies the immunotoxicological and developmental immunotoxicological effects of PFAS.

Next month, she and her team will redo a study of the effects of PFO5DoA in lab mice after discovering in a first go-round of testing that mice dosed at the highest level, 50 milligrams per kilograms of weight, simply could not handle that much in their systems.

“In mice this compound appears to be quite toxic,” DeWitt said Wednesday. “We don’t know if it will affect people in the same way. From my perspective, it’s a problem if it’s a problem in mice we need to study whether it’s also a problem in people.”

Potential health effects of an overwhelming majority of PFAS – there are upwards of 10,000 individual PFAS – have not been studied.

Health studies on legacy PFAS, such as PFOS, PFOA and PFHxS, show those chemicals can decrease antibody response to vaccines; lead to dyslipidemia, or elevated cholesterol, which can lead to cardiovascular disease; decrease infant and fetal growth; and increase the risk of kidney cancer.

Commercial production of PFAS began in the 1940s. They are resistant to heat, water and grease and they are used in a host of consumer products, including carpets, carpet cleaning products, food packaging, furnishings, cosmetics, outdoor gear, clothing, adhesives and sealants, firefighting foam and nonstick cookware.

During a question-and-answer session Wednesday, Jane Hoppin, principal investigator of the GenX exposure study and professor at N.C. State, said there is no good way individuals can reduce all of the ways humans are exposed to PFAS.

“There’s many PFAS in our everyday lives,” she said.

The most effective way to reduce exposure is by removing PFAS from manufacturing.

Chemours Fayetteville Works facility, some 75 miles upstream of the Cape Fear River from Wilmington, uses GenX as a replacement for PFOA for manufacturing fluoropolymers such as Teflon. PFOA was voluntarily phased out of production more than 10 years ago in the U.S.

In 2017, a then-freelance journalist in Wilmington broke the news that Chemours had been discharging PFAS into the Cape Fear since 1980.

Since then, Chemours has been required, as part of a 2019 consent order with the state and Cape Fear River Watch, to drastically reduce its emissions of PFAS into the river, the ground and the air.

Chemours, a DuPont spinoff, has plans to build a massive underground retaining wall to stop the flow of PFAS in ground water at the plant from entering the river.

As part of the consent agreement, Chemours has been testing private water wells, including those in the lower Cape Fear region, for contamination. The company must provide a means of uncontaminated drinking water to households with private wells that contain higher levels of PFAS.

Six North Carolina community and environmental justice groups, including Cape Fear River Watch, are suing the Environmental Protection Agency to require Chemours to pay for health studies on 54 PFAS.

The state has put on hold final action on a controversial draft air quality permit for Enviva’s Ahoskie Plant to increase its wood pellet production by more than 30%.

Enviva submitted the request to increase its output from 481,800 oven dried tons to 630,000 oven dried tons per year in August 2020. The draft permit went before the public in July of this year.

The deadline for action on the air quality permit was Nov. 28, but after hearing concerns, particularly about air pollutants from the plant and its location in the economically distressed Hertford County, from the public and the DEQ Secretary’s Environmental Justice and Equity Board, Division of Air Quality officials said the deadline no longer applies. 

No final action had been taken as of Monday, Dec. 5, Shawn Taylor, public information officer for the division, told Coastal Review.

“In response to questions raised by the board, DAQ determined that our rules did not require final action by Nov. 28, as we had earlier stated,” Taylor explained. He continued that the division is considering the concerns raised during the specially called environmental justice board meeting held Nov. 17 in Raleigh before taking final action.

“DEQ appreciates the Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board’s attention to this issue and the board providing an additional forum where community voices can be heard,” he continued. “Through its permitting and compliance programs, the Division of Air Quality has required significant reductions of dust and other air pollution emissions from all the Enviva Pellets facilities in North Carolina. The Division will continue to use permitting and non-permitting methods to address concerns raised by residents in Ahoskie and other communities near these facilities.”

The division first permitted Enviva Pellets, LLC – Ahoskie Plant in 2010 and it began manufacturing in November 2011. The plant in Hertford County is one of four Enviva plants in the state with the others in Sampson, Richmond and Northampton counties. 

All four are designated Tier 1 counties, or economically distressed, by the N.C. Department of Commerce, the board explains in a letter dated Sept. 27 to the Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser about the proposed permit.

“Every North Carolina biomass facility is in a community that is at least 25% non-white with slow growing or declining populations and high poverty rates,” the letter continues. Hertford County is home of the Meherrin Tribe and is 60% African American. The census area the facility will be located in is 69% African American. Hertford County has a poverty rate of almost 22%, ranking in the bottom 25% of counties for health outcomes determined by the commerce department, and has a death rate that exceeds the statewide death rate.

Enviva in North Carolina

The state Division of Air Quality received on Aug. 28, 2020, a permit modification request from Enviva to increase production from 481,800 oven dried tons to 630,000 oven dried tons per year at the Ahoskie plant. 

The division requested more information on the Title V renewal with modifications. Enviva submitted an addendum in December 2020. In December 2021, the company submitted a new Title V renewal and modification application to replace the first draft permit with additional proposed changes, Air Quality Division Director Mike Abraczinskas, said during the special meeting.

Abraczinskas explained that each Enviva plant in the state holds Title V permits, required by the Clean Air Act. The permits are legal documents that include pollution control requirements from federal or state regulations that apply to a source, according to the EPA. The federal agency’s regional offices oversee the state programs that issue these permits.

Air pollutants from wood pellet manufacturing include particulate matter emitted from multiple parts of the manufacturing process, as well as volatile organic compounds, toxic air pollutants and hazardous air pollutants, primarily emitted from drying and milling operations. Carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are released from drying operations, and greenhouse gasses are emitted by pollution controls such as thermal oxidizers that burn other pollutants to destroy them, according to the division.

Abraczinskas said some of the original permits under Title V, or major source, for the facilities were developed in 2010 and began production in 2011. Once facilities began operating and executed some testing required in the initial permits, the division saw that the emissions in some cases were higher than what was anticipated, and were major sources for prevention of significant deterioration and hazardous air pollutants.

“Those emissions being higher caused a problem from our perspective. In some cases, they were not in the right permit. In some cases, they were in direct violation of the permit that we had issued,” he said. Staff pursued a variety of enforcement actions for the four facilities to get the right permit and install proper controls to reduce air pollution at the sites. 

After a settlement with Enviva in 2019, facilities were required to apply for and install equipment to control emissions. After the new controls are installed as scheduled in their permits, each facility will be minor sources under the state prevention of significant deterioration permitting program or below major sources for hazardous air pollutants thresholds.

Because the division required Enviva to install more stringent controls to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds, hazardous air pollutants and particulate matter, emissions have declined even as production increased, Abraczinskas said. The facilities requested production increases in most cases. 

Most recently, the division drafted a modified air quality permit for Enviva Ahoskie, the last plant of the four undergoing adjustments necessary to address compliance, Abraczinskas explained. The draft permit would require the facility to install the same pollution control devices already required at the other three Enviva facilities in the state.

Abraczinskas said when the draft permit went to public comment July 13, the division began an outreach effort in collaboration with the DEQ’s environmental justice team, including the public hearing in Ahoskie Aug. 16, public notices, and community outreach.

As a result of the public input process, Abraczinskas said the division made some changes to the draft permits, including a requirement to update the fugitive dust plan to develop strategies to control fugitive dust emissions from all new sources. The division also added hydrogen chloride stack testing requirements for hazardous air pollutant emissions and conditions to limit hazardous air pollutant emissions. Also, the plant will be required to test during the construction phase of the project.

These changes were made to the draft permit before the start of EPA’s 45-day review period Sept. 29. EPA had no further comments in its Nov. 9 response, Abraczinskas said.

“I’ll emphasize no final action has been taken at this time. But after updating the draft permit based on the recommendations from both the hearing officers report and all the comments received during the comment period, and after EPA’s 45-day review, which just concluded with a response of no further comments or concerns with the draft permit,” he said.

The division’s engagement with facilities like Enviva don’t end when the permit is issued, but is the beginning, he explained. The division makes unannounced inspections of these types of facilities every year, which he said is more frequent than what EPA requires. The permit also requires the facilities submit reports for staff to make sure data is in line with monitoring parameters and metrics in the permit. 

Abraczinskas explained that for noise complaints, the division does not have the authority to put anything in the air quality permit for those but they do see what ordinances exist in the area to include in the response. 

Community voices 

Dr. Ruby Bell, a Sampson County resident, presented to the board on behalf of The Impacted Communities Against Wood Pellets Coalition.

The coalition is a group of residents impacted by the pollution, dust, noise and forest destruction of the biomass wood pellet industry, and the forest protection and environmental justice organization, Dogwood Alliance, she said. Coalition members have been studying the impacts of the wood pellet industry since the first plant opened in Ahoskie in 2011.

The wood pellets industry does not advance North Carolina’s clean energy economy, “Yet NCDEQ has continued to approve permits to expand wood pellet production in North Carolina. Enviva has received nearly $10 million dollars in subsidies in North Carolina,” Bell said.

The current Enviva permit application under consideration for the Ahoskie plant requires the installation of air pollution controls, but is also allowing the plant to greatly expand production, “resulting in more dust pollution, foot traffic, forest destruction and the increase of some harmful toxins.”

Enviva should install these air controls at Ahoskie, but their request for expansion warrants further consideration, Bell explained before sharing with the board the coalition’s eight recommendations, beginning with denying Enviva’s permit to expand production at the Ahoskie plant, and require them to install pollution controls.

Other recommendations include requiring Enviva to install fugitive dust plans at all facilities and strengthen their existing fugitive dust plan in Ahoskie, install air quality monitoring within a quarter-mile of the facility, install continuous emissions monitoring to capture fluctuations in emissions, and acknowledge and measure the greenhouse gas emissions of industrial logging and the wood pellet industry in the state. 

Additionally, the coalition recommends addressing noise pollution through limiting Enviva’s nighttime operations and/or coordinating with local towns to address noise ordinance violations. 

DEQ should recognize their obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to consider disproportionate impacts, and deny permits such as this one that adversely impact communities of color and require Enviva to consult with the Meherrin Tribe prior to any issuance of a permit for expansion, Bell said.

La’Meshia Whittington, a member of the advisory board and the North Carolina Black Alliance deputy director of programs, said, “We have to understand that Tier 1 counties have been the target communities by which these corporations.”

The counties are chosen for the natural resources that many community leaders work to maintain and protect, “but also because it’s economically distressed, meaning that that community and its local leaders are going to choose a corporation because it’s the promise of jobs, even though, unfortunately, it comes with health disparities that our community members don’t deserve,” she continued. 

The Department of Commerce ranks health impacts and health factors annually in addition to economic distress. The two different ranking systems provide the measure of overall current health and health outcomes of each county. The 2022 health factors and health outcomes have the four counties where Enviva plants are ranked in the bottom 50 for both systems.

“We have to understand when assessing environmental justice communities, cumulative impact means that if your environment is contaminated, it leads to diseases and cancers you wouldn’t have had,” she said.

An extensive body of scientific evidence shows that long- and short-term exposure to fine particulate pollution, also known as fine particulate matter, can cause premature death, harmful effects in the cardiovascular system, including increased hospital admissions and emergency department visits for heart attacks and strokes, and links to respiratory effects like asthma attacks, Whittington explained.

Major pollutants in Hertford County include nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide exposure can lead to serious tissue damage, nitrogen oxide exposure can lead to respiratory infections and asthma, and sulfur dioxide is causing an increased risk of hospital admissions or emergency room visits.

She said she acknowledges that the reality is there are policies and red tape that prevent state departments from being able to engage with the permitting process beyond what they’re doing. 

She recommends engaging with local elected leaders and asking how long the industry is committed to staying in the area and providing jobs, because wood pellets are not a long-term industry. Rather it’s a short-term industry subject to international market demand. 

Enviva response

Enviva provided the following email response Monday to a request for comment:

“At Enviva, we understand being a successful business includes more than providing well-paid jobs and creating a positive economic impact; it entails being an integral part of the communities we call home and demonstrating environmental leadership, including in the way we operate our facilities and engage with our communities. We invest in our plants and make them the most environmentally controlled facilities in the industry, with best-in-class emissions control technology to minimize any impact from our operations on neighbors and communities.

“We test our facilities regularly with a third-party expert and those test results are made available to the public by the state regulatory agencies, in addition to air monitoring performed in the vicinity of our plants, which all confirm that the air quality in our communities is in compliance with strict environmental laws and regulations, including the U.S. Clean Air Act.   

“As part of our community relations efforts, we engage with our communities in advance of any of plan for new plant construction or expansions as well as in the course of our continued operations, to answer questions and address any concerns from our neighbors while also providing our support to the communities’ needs. We also work closely with state regulatory agencies throughout the entire permitting process to involve broad public participation and educate our communities about our plans, permitting process and operations.

“Specific to Ahoskie: We are currently waiting to receive the Air Quality Permit for our Ahoskie plant following a thorough review by North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality (NC DEQ) and the EPA. This permit would authorize us to begin installing and operating additional state-of-the-art emission control equipment—including a regenerative thermal oxidizer (RTO), and a regenerative thermal or catalytic oxidizer (RTO/RCO)—to support the expansion of our plant.”

LELAND – Inside, employees of the Fayetteville-based chemical plant that discharged contaminants into the Cape Fear River for decades touted the company as an environmental steward, community supporter and that their products are critical to the country’s security and the future of clean energy.

Outside, dozens of protestors listened Wednesday as, one-by-one, people took turns speaking into a microphone and expressing their anger and frustration, their remarks met by cheers and applause like a church congregation affirming its pastor’s preaching.

It was a juxtaposition of two meetings separated by an exterior wall of the Leland Cultural Arts Center where Chemours officials hosted an open house to discuss expansion plans to its Fayetteville Works plant more than 70 miles upstream.

Inside, plant officials offered assurances expanding operations will not increase emissions into the river, the air and/or the ground.

Outside, residents of the lower Cape Fear region collectively balked at the idea of the plant that discharged a host of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, into their drinking water source expanding its manufacturing operations.

“The absolute gall of this company that has been contaminating our drinking water for more than 30 years to say that they’re good neighbors when they are anything but,” said New Hanover County resident Kayne Darrell. “Look at what they’re doing right now. All of these people who care about their community, we’re having to stand out here. Is that a good neighbor? I don’t think so.”

Attendees of the open house were admitted inside the building 10 people at a time by a Chemours security guard. Those carrying homemade protest signs had to leave them at the door.

Private guards and local law enforcement stood post outside and inside of the center’s performing arts space, where tables were set up as stations, each with its own subject matter expert or two.

After a group of attendees was allowed to file in, they had to wait behind a red velvet rope barrier as a plant employee gave the rundown of the setup.

A Chemours official explained that the open house was designed to allow a more intimate setting, one where people were free to ask questions after they heard from subject matter experts about the plant, the products manufactured at the plant, emissions reduction initiatives, expansion plans and how the plant will grow its manufacturing operations without increasing emissions.

That’s not how residents in attendance interpreted the open house. Waiting outside under a scorching sun in 90-degree heat was not their idea of a hospitable meeting, even with the offering of free snow cones and smoothies from a truck vendor paid for by Chemours.

“It just seems they wanted to manage everybody,” said area resident Ivy Croake shortly after the group she and her husband made their round through the open house. “It’s not a very satisfying thing.”

About 100 people filed through the two-hour open house. The company hosted a similar event the night before in Dublin, a small town a little more than 15 miles southeast of the Fayetteville plant. About 70 people attended the open house in the Bladen County town.

Chemours, a spinoff of DuPont, has more than 60 manufacturing labs and offices around the world. The company employs roughly 6,400 people worldwide and its customers are spread across 120 countries.

“We are a leader in environmental stewardship space so we want to continue to use responsible chemistry with responsible manufacturing in all that we do,” said Seth Bailey, a technology manager at Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility.

Bailey talked about the company’s 2018 “bold emissions goals” targeting greenhouse gas emissions reductions, its contributions to science and technology education programs at nearby schools through scholarships, and support of local volunteer fire departments.

“Leading by example, the (United Nations) developed sustainable development goals a number of years ago and we’re committed to having 50% of our revenue actually coming from products that contribute positively to those United Nations goals and we’re very proud of that,” he said. “We are setting a new standard for essential manufacturing in North Carolina. We’re raising the bar on environmental stewardship. We have already achieved significant reductions in air emissions. And we’re not finished. We’re continuing to advance that technology.”

Chemours installed a thermal oxidizer to capture and destroy PFAS from emitting into the air to meet the terms of a 2019 consent order with Cape Fear River Watch and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

Under the terms of the court-enforceable order, Chemours must reduce air emissions facility-wide by 99.9%, cut PFAS emissions into the Cape Fear River by more than 90%, and sample private wells for PFAS and provide drinking water to residents whose wells are contaminated.

To prevent contaminated ground water on the plant site from getting into the river, Chemours plans to build a barrier wall stretching more than a mile long and six stories deep off the riverbank. Groundwater will be diverted to about 70 wells, conveyed to an onsite treatment facility and treated before it is discharged into the river.

“Any of our expansion plans will be based on the foundation of responsible manufacturing and as we have shared we just want to reiterate that we have achieved greater than 99% reduction in air emissions, greater than 97% reduction in water emissions and Chemours is the leader in deploying the best available technology to reduce emissions,” plant manager Dawn Hughes said to a group of media. “Those technologies will be important as we expand the facility.”

Chemours plans to expand its monomers and Nafion production facilities, processes the company has run for many years, according to Sean Uhl, sustainability director.

“So, these expansions aren’t building a new asset and new raw materials and products. These are expansions within the assets that we have. In each of those plants we’re touching about 10% of equipment that we have today.”

Plant officials would not disclose further details, saying those were a proprietary matter.

Uhl said there a number of internal recycle streams at the company’s plants and that the company is continuously researching technologies in abatement.

When asked the timeframe in which Chemours initiated plans to reduce its emissions, Uhl said, “I would say we were working on this technology before the consent order was even in place. To build something like what we are building takes years. Did the consent order work influence us? Certainly, it did as we went through there and we learned from that process and what was needed to incorporate that design.”

Chemours is in the process of obtaining a state Division of Air Quality permit with plans to submit a permit application next month. The state permit review process will include a 30-day public comment period.

“There’ll be no net increase in the volatile organic compounds from what is in our permit today,” said Christel Compton, environmental manager of the Fayetteville plant. “There will be no increase in fluorinated compounds either as a result of these.”

GenX, one of the chemical compounds emitted into the river, air and ground, will remain under the facility’s current annual limit of 23 pounds, or about two tablespoons a day, Compton said.

Related: Discharge permit requires Chemours remove 99.9% of PFAS

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not regulate fluorinated compounds as individual compounds.

DEQ, however, has set a requirement for GenX.

“Will they ask for other compounds to be included? We’ll find out in our next meeting,” Compton said, noting that company and state officials were meeting the following day.

In June, Chemours filed a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s review of the agency’s health advisory for GenX, arguing the agency failed to use best available science when making its determination.

The EPA announced earlier that month its final health advisory for GenX at 10 parts per trillion, or ppt.

The company argues the chemical compound does not post human health or environmental risks “when used for its intended purpose.”

But the EPA’s toxicity assessment of GenX in health studies of animals that ingested the compound show health effects in the kidneys, blood, immune system, live and developing fetuses.

On Wednesday, protestors loudly chanted “No more Chemours” as they held signs that read “A good neighbor doesn’t poison their neighbors drinking water,” “The only GREEN Chemours cares about is $ $ $ $,” “Kill-mours ‘We’re Already In You,’” and “Get your PFAS out of our BLOOD THEN talk to us about expansion.”

Young children, teens and young adults, and the elderly spoke passionately about their futures, their fears, and their health after years of ingesting PFAS.

In late June, a coalition of community and environmental justice groups filed a lawsuit against the EPA for not requiring Chemours to fund studies examining the effects of 54 PFAS the Fayetteville plant has released into the Cape Fear.

Emily Donovan is a co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, one of the six groups involved in the lawsuit.

“They should know exactly what their chemistry does to the human body and until they can answer that question they have not earned the right to expand around here,” she said.

MOREHEAD CITY — The COVID-19 virus has been showing up in eastern North Carolina’s wastewater during the past two weeks at levels not seen since the peak this past winter — a troubling early warning sign for community spread and illness.

The latest wastewater sampling data on the state’s COVID-19 dashboard, which shows trends among people who use toilets connected to selected sewage treatment sites and is updated every Wednesday, indicate that the prevalence of the virus has significantly increased over the past 15 days and particularly in the coastal region. And the detection rate is at or above that of early 2022, when more than 200,000 new cases were being reported each week in North Carolina and more than 4,000 people were being admitted weekly to hospitals with confirmed cases.

Dr. Rachel Noble is a researcher at the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City. Her lab analyzes wastewater samples for pathogens and works with other academics, the state Department of Health and Human Services, wastewater utilities and public health departments to provide the data driving the dashboard. She told Coastal Review Friday that the trends mean we are still in the upswing of the pandemic.

“The numbers that we’re seeing now are either equal to or similar to the very highest numbers that we’ve seen since we started monitoring,” Noble said.

The wastewater samples are screened for the genetic material in the virus that causes COVID-19. Researchers can detect the viral RNA using a polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, test.

The dashboard’s latest 15-day rate of change shows detection increases of more than 100% in wastewater in Wilmington, New Hanover County, Beaufort and Roanoke Rapids. The latest percentile data show that most of the above sites are at or nearly at the peak levels seen in January, as indicated on the dashboard map by red or orange dots. But Noble said that because of recent heavy rains on the coast, the data may not fully reflect the extent of the virus’ spread in the communities where sampling is done. She said it’s likely a conservative estimate because of stormwater infiltration of sewer lines, a common problem with aging infrastructure.

“One of the reasons why I would interpret those numbers a little bit cautiously is that we know that — definitely in the eastern part of the state, if not in the majority of the state — our wastewater in the summer months here has been diluted more by rainwater. And so those concentrations are still reading as being high, but if we were accounting for the dilution from rainwater, they would look even higher to us,” she said. 

“Our sewer systems are not closed systems. They were actually engineered to be closed systems, but the sewage systems in North Carolina, they suffer from a lot of inflow that comes from rain.”

Also flowing into coastal areas are throngs of tourists each week. The influx of summer vacationers means a lot more people are contributing to the wastewater systems here. And in coastal communities where there is wastewater monitoring, there are more and more viruses detected in the systems, Noble said.

“We are getting this constant influx of new community members and a portion of those are infected. They might be asymptomatic. They might do what a lot of people are doing and say, ‘Oh, I have just a little cold,’ and keep going through their vacation, but they’re still contributing viruses to the system,” Noble said.

The more people who are exposed to the virus, the more opportunities the virus has to evolve and become more easily transmissible or cause more severe symptoms.

Viruses constantly mutate and these changes sometimes result in a new variant. According to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the omicron virus spreads more easily than other variants but has generally less severe symptoms. And while omicron is still a variant of concern, it has evolved with numerous sublineages. These are still referred to as being in the omicron family, “But we’ve gone all the way from BA.1 to BA.2 and now we’re at BA.4 and BA.5,” Noble said. 

“When we do our analysis in the laboratory, we’re trying to basically figure out what the most dominant current lineage is or what the most dominant current variant is in any given location, and what we’re seeing in North Carolina right now is BA.4 and BA.5. They’re still an omicron-type virus, but they’re not the original omicron that we saw in December and January,” she said.

And while the BA.5 variant is highly contagious, the trade-off is that for most people, symptoms have been milder, especially those who have had a previous coronavirus infection or were vaccinated.

The CDC has labeled 41 of North Carolina’s counties as high COVID-19 community levels because of BA.5. The number is up from 18 the previous week. These counties have a high risk of illnesses that could strain the healthcare system. Many of these counties are on the coast, especially in the northeastern part of the state. The BA.5 variant is causing repeat infections, including in people who have recent past infections from other variants or were vaccinated. 

Meanwhile, many — all of us — are suffering from pandemic fatigue and some may be letting down their guard. Others may be resigned to the fact that everybody will at some point get the virus. Noble said she understands the mindset.

“I think everybody is going to get it,” she said. But, she added, there’s still the problem that if people think, “Well, everybody’s going to get it, put away the masks, go to concerts, do what you’re going to do — normal life,” the virus spreads and mutates even more.

“We keep on giving the virus opportunity to mutate in a way that actually sends us right back to those really dangerous variants like delta and like alpha, which caused a lot of hospitalizations and a lot of deaths and a lot of very, very serious illness and long-term illness for people that were either obese or had diabetes or some in some cases, just genetic diseases,” Noble said.

A premature return to pre-pandemic life comes with the risk that new variants will mean hospital beds are unavailable and elective surgeries must be postponed, she said.

“I feel like we’re playing exactly into the virus’ hands by allowing that circulation,” Noble said.

Officials say vaccines remain highly effective in preventing severe outcomes including hospitalization and death from COVID-19.

“While Covid variants continue to infect people, we have the tools to protect ourselves from the most serious effects of this virus,” Gov. Roy Cooper said last week. “Get vaccinated and boosted, wear a mask indoors in crowds if you believe you need better protection and if you become infected, talk with a health professional quickly about effective treatments like Paxlovid. Cases are on the rise with this latest BA.5 variant so I encourage all North Carolinians to know their risk and take steps to protect themselves.”

The CDC and FDA announced last week that the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, a different type of coronavirus vaccine, may be used by adults ages 18 and older when it becomes available in the coming weeks. 

“Today, we have expanded the options available to adults in the U.S. by recommending another safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. If you have been waiting for a COVID-19 vaccine built on a different technology than those previously available, now is the time to join the millions of Americans who have been vaccinated. With COVID-19 cases on the rise again across parts of the country, vaccination is critical to help protect against the complications of severe COVID-19 disease,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement Tuesday.

The Chemours Company is suing the Environmental Protection Agency for its recent health advisory for GenX, one of the contaminants discharged for years into the Cape Fear River from the company’s plant in Fayetteville.

Chemours is challenging the EPA’s review of the agency’s health advisory for hexafluoropropylene oxide dime acid, or HFPO-DA (GenX), arguing the agency failed to use the best available science when making its determination.

“Nationally recognized toxicologists and other leading scientific experts across a range of disciplines have evaluated the EPA’s underlying analysis and concluded that it is fundamentally flawed,” according to a Chemours release. “EPA’s own peer reviewer called aspects of EPA’s toxicity assessment (which serves as the basis for the health advisory) ‘extreme’ and ‘excessive.’ The agency disregarded relevant data and incorporated grossly incorrect and overstated exposure assumptions in devising the health advisory. The EPA’s failure to use the best-available-science and follow its own standards are contrary to this administration’s commitment to scientific integrity, and we believe unlawful.”

The suit filed Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia specifically names EPA Administrator Michael Regan, who is also former secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

Chemours warned it might take legal action against the EPA after the agency’s assistant administrator for water, Radhika Fox, announced the final health advisory June 15.

Fox made the announcement at the third National PFAS Conference held in downtown Wilmington, a city and surrounding region thrust into the national spotlight five years ago when the news broke that Chemours’ Fayetteville Works Facility had for decades been discharging per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances into the Cape Fear River, air and ground.

Related: Health advisories for GenX, PFAS announced at conference

The EPA’s final health advisory for GenX is 10 parts per trillion, or ppt and, for perfluorobutane sulfonic acid, or PFBS, at 2,000 ppt. PFBS has not been found in significant concentrations in samples in North Carolina, according to DEQ.

The agency also issued updated interim health advisories for perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS.

GenX was created to replace PFOA, which was voluntarily phased out of production more than 10 years ago in the U.S.

Chemours states in its news release that HFPO-DA is not a commercial product and does not pose human health or environmental risks “when used for its intended purpose.”

Health studies of animals that ingested GenX show health effects in the kidneys, blood, immune system, liver and developing fetuses, according to the EPA’s toxicity assessment.

Chemours argues that the GenX toxicity assessment issued October 2021 was “materially different” from a draft assessment published in November 2018 and that the EPA did not provide public notice or allow for public comment on the new assessment.

“Upon review of the October 2021 Toxicity Assessment, Chemours and external experts identified numerous material scientific flaws, including its failure to incorporate available, highly relevant peer-reviewed studies and that it significantly overstates the potential for risk associated with HFPO-DA,” according to the release.

The EPA did not respond to an email request for comment Wednesday.

EPA Deputy Assistant Administrator Benita Best-Wong defended the GenX toxicity assessment in a letter to a law firm representing six North Carolina health and environmental groups, stating the assessment “was subject to two rigorous independent peer reviews by scientists who were screened for conflicts of interest in 2018 and 2021.”

Best-Wong went on to write that the agency asked the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences National Toxicology Program to conduct an independent review of the liver histopathology slides from two studies.

The agency published detailed responses to comments from both peer reviews and the assessment was put out for public review and comment for 60 days, she wrote.

That letter was in response to the groups’ call for the EPA to order Chemours to conduct health studies on 54 PFAS. Those groups, including Cape Fear River Watch, Center for Environmental Health, Clean Cape Fear, Democracy Green, the NC Black Alliance and Toxic Free NC, filed a lawsuit against the EPA for failing to require Chemours to conduct the studies.

The EPA’s health advisory for GenX replaces the state’s 2018 provisional drinking water health goal of 140 ppt.

A consent order between DEQ, Cape Fear River Watch and Chemours requires the company to provide whole house filtration for households that rely on private water wells where GenX concentrations are above the health advisory.

“We expect Chemours to meet their obligations under the Consent Order and to the communities impacted by the PFAS contamination,” Sharon Martin, DEQ deputy secretary for public affairs, said in an email Wednesday.

Cape Fear River Watch Executive Director Dana Sargent said in a telephone interview she was “shaken” by the lawsuit.

“This is going to be seriously infuriating for the community to hear this news and to still be looking at commercials and this nonsense saying (Chemours) are good neighbors,” she said. “I think Chemours needs to recognize that they can’t continue to claim that they’re good neighbors while suing the nation’s regulatory agency based on their assessment of the GenX toxicity level, which was done under strict calculations based on available science on the health impacts of GenX. The science is science.”

WILMINGTON – New and updated federal drinking water health advisories have been issued for four chemical compounds, including GenX, a contaminant that for years has been discharged into the Cape Fear River.

Shortly after the announcement was made Wednesday morning at the third National PFAS Conference, the company responsible for releasing chemical contaminants into the river for decades pushed back on the new advisory for GenX, hinting it might fight the matter in court.

Radhika Fox, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s assistant administrator for water, told the more than 100 at the conference that the agency is setting final health advisories for GenX at 10 parts per trillion, or ppt, and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid, or PFBS, at 2,000 ppt.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality stated in a press release Wednesday that PFBS has, to date, not been found in significant concentrations in samples taken in the state.

EPA is also issuing updated interim health advisories for perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS. The 2016 federal health advisories for PFOA and PFOS were set at 70 ppts.

“The updated advisory levels are based on new science including more than 400 recent studies which indicate that negative health effects may occur at extremely low levels, much lower than previously understood for both PFOA and PFOS. Based on that peer-reviewed science we are setting interim health advisory levels for PFOA at 0.04 parts per trillion and for PFOS 0.02 parts per trillion, so near zero,” Fox said, her statement followed by applause.

These synthetic compounds are a tiny fraction of the thousands of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, that exist today.

The Cape Fear region has been cast in the national spotlight since the public was first made aware that the Chemours Co.’s Fayetteville Works Facility had been discharging PFAS directly into the Cape Fear River, the raw drinking water source for more than a quarter-million people, for decades.

PFAS are also being released into the air and groundwater around the plant some 75 miles upriver from Wilmington.

“Our new interim health advisories are important milestones to help protect the public while EPA works to finalize our drinking water standards,” Fox said. “I hope you see that these four health advisories demonstrate EPA’s commitment to following the science to protect public health.”

A short time after Fox concluded her comments at the conference, Chemours released a statement saying that it supports government regulation, “based on the best available science” and that the EPA did not use that science to establish its health advisory on GenX.

“Nationally recognized toxicologists and other leading scientific experts across a range of disciplines have evaluated the EPA’s underlying analysis and concluded that it is fundamentally flawed,” the company stated. “The agency disregarded relevant data and issued a health advisory contrary to the agency’s own standards and this administration’s commitment to scientific integrity.”

The statement goes on to explain the company GenX, or hexafluoropropylene oxide-dimer acid, HFPO-DA, is not a commercial product and that the company uses it and its ammonium in manufacturing processes for four fluoropolymers, which are used to produce semiconductors, cellular phones, hospital ventilators and other products.

“It is not broadly used like older generations of PFAS, such as PFOA,” according to Chemours. “HFPO-DA does not break down to form PFOA or any other PFAS in the environment.”

“We are already using state-of-the-art technologies at our sites to abate emissions and remediate historical releases. We are evaluating our next steps, including potential legal action, to address the EPA’s scientifically unsound action,” the company stated.

GenX was created to replace PFOA, which was voluntarily phased out of production more than 10 years ago in the U.S.

Health studies of animals that ingested GenX show health effects in the kidneys, blood, immune system, liver and developing fetuses, according to the EPA’s toxicity assessment.

Studies on PFBS show health effects in the thyroid, reproductive organs and tissues, kidneys and developing fetuses.

“We are moving with all haste in the development of a national drinking water standard for PFOA, PFOS and I will say that we are developing the options for this rulemaking to see if we can include other PFAS, not just those two,” Fox said.

DEQ and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services “are moving quickly to evaluate the state’s drinking water supplies based on these health advisories and determine appropriate next steps to assess and reduce exposure risks,” according to the DEQ news release.

The EPA’s health advisory for GenX will replace the state’s provisional drinking water health goal of 140 ppt developed in 2018.

Under a consent order among DEQ, Cape Fear River Watch and Chemours, the company is required to provide whole house filtration for households that rely on private water wells where GenX concentrations are above the health advisory.

DEQ estimates that more than 1,700 additional private well users will be eligible for whole house filtration or connection to a public water supply based on EPA’s new health advisory.

“DEQ is directing Chemours to proceed with the implementation of the health advisory and additional information will be provided to residents about their options and next steps as soon as possible,” according to the release.

North Carolina stands to receive additional federal funding to address PFAS in the state.

Fox also announced Wednesday that $1 billion in grant funding through President Joe Biden’s $108 billion bipartisan infrastructure law will help small and disadvantaged communities to address PFAS and other emerging contaminants. The funds will be the first installment in monies dedicated to addressing PFAS.

“Because of this investment for the first time ever we have $10 billion available to support cleanup, testing, monitoring for PFAS and other emerging contaminants,” Fox said to a group of reporters following a tour of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority’s Sweeney Water Treatment Plant.

DEQ Secretary Elizabeth Biser said the state anticipates receiving about $28 million a year.

“This additional billion for small and disadvantaged communities will be on top of that. That is great,” she said.

The state will need to continue working with federal partners to identify additional funds for addressing PFAS-related issues.

Fox and Biser were given a tour Wednesday of the $43 million addition currently under construction at the Sweeney plant in downtown Wilmington after Fox spoke at the PFAS National Conference.

The plant is being upgraded with the addition of a granular activated carbon, or GAC, system expected to filter out on average 90% of PFAS from its raw water source, the Cape Fear River.

Following the tour, Brunswick County Public Utilities Director John Nichols made a presentation to Fox and Biser about what that utility’s multi-million-dollar upgrade to a low-pressure reverse-osmosis system to remove PFAS.

Both utilities have had to pass down the costs of removing PFAS from drinking water to their water customers.

Proposed legislation would require companies responsible for releasing PFAS above health thresholds to pay costs public utilities incur to remove chemicals from their raw drinking water sources.

House Bill 1095 would authorize the Environmental Management Commission to adopt maximum contaminant levels for chemical compounds.

DEQ is in the process of establishing maximum contaminant levels for 10 to 15 compounds specific to North Carolina. The department will implement drinking water standards through its permitting program.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials announced last week three steps they say will better protect communities from pollutants that are often called “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down easily in the environment or in our bodies.

The federal agency detailed plans to improve methods to detect per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in water, reduce PFAS discharges into the country’s waterways, and protect fish and aquatic ecosystems from PFAS. 

PFAS are a large group of man-made chemicals resistant to heat, oils, stains, grease and water that have been used in consumer products and industrial processes since the 1940s. Research shows that exposure to some PFAS may be linked to harmful health effects in humans and animals.

Many in the state have been keeping close tabs on action being taken to stop PFAS pollution since news broke five years ago that the chemicals were detected in the Cape Fear River, a source of drinking water for many in the Wilmington area.

The Wilmington StarNews first reported in June 2017 that a North Carolina State University-led study had detected a compound called GenX and other PFAS in the Cape Fear River. Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility was found to be the source of the chemicals in the waterway.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch, litigated a 2019 consent order requiring Chemours to stop at least 99% of PFAS pollution. During all this, EPA Administrator Michael Regan was secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

Regan put out a statement Thursday on the latest actions, which follow the administration’s plan announced last fall to combat PFAS pollution and complement the $10 billion in spending to address PFAS and emerging contaminants in the $1 trillion infrastructure legislation passed last year.

“EPA is using all available tools to address PFAS contamination as part of a broader, whole of government effort to protect communities across the country from these chemicals,” Regan said. “This is why we put a Strategic Roadmap in place, and why President Biden fought for billions in funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to tackle this challenge. Today’s actions help protect the health of all Americans as we deliver on our commitment to research, restrict, and remediate PFAS.”

New testing method

PFAS and non-PFAS fluorinated compounds such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals are a common source of organofluorines, or molecules with a carbon-fluorine bond, found in wastewater, according to the EPA.

EPA’s Draft Method 1621 announced Thursday detects organofluorines, which do not often occur naturally. When used in conjunction with methods that target individual PFAS, the new method can broadly screen for the presence of PFAS at the parts-per-billion level in wastewater. It’s still in testing and officials intend to publish an updated version later this year. 

Dana Sargent, executive director with Cape Fear River Watch, responded to Coastal Review in an email Friday, saying that the new method would add to, but should not replace, the current method, mass spectrometry using targeted analysis. She said current the method alone only provides insight on a tiny subset of the PFAS known to be out there. 

“The nontargeted analysis the consent order required Chemours conduct showed 257 ‘unknown’ PFAS being discharged from this one facility, yet regular sampling by the state, utilities and others only provides concentrations for about 20-30 PFAS,” she said. “Neither the public nor our decision makers are getting an accurate view of the extent of the issue when relying solely on testing for specific PFAS. This new method will not provide specifics on which types of PFAS or how much of each is in a given sample, but will give us that big picture view to inform more detailed sampling.”

New permitting direction

The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permitting program, created in 1972 by the Clean Water Act, helps address water pollution by regulating point sources that discharge pollutants to waters of the United States.

EPA officials propose to use existing NPDES authorities to reduce discharges at the source and obtain more comprehensive information through monitoring on sources of PFAS.

The agency on Thursday issued the memo, Addressing PFAS Discharges in EPA-Issued NPDES Permits and Expectations Where EPA is the Pretreatment Control Authority, which provides instructions for monitoring provisions, analytical methods, the use of pollution prevention, and best management practices to address discharges of PFAS. 

EPA also plans to issue new guidance to state permitting authorities to address PFAS in NPDES permits in a future action.

Sargent noted that the instructions for federally issued NPDES permits would not apply to permits issued by states, “So we look forward to even stronger recommendations from EPA to the states.”

Protecting aquatic life

EPA officials are also proposing the first Clean Water Act aquatic life criteria for perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, to protect aquatic life from short-term and long-term toxic effects of these chemicals, which are two of the most studied PFAS.

The agency published Monday in the Federal Register the “Draft Recommended Aquatic Life Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)” and “Draft Recommended Aquatic Life Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFOS)” for a 30-day public comment period ending June 2. 

Following the comment period, the EPA intends to issue final PFOA and PFOS recommended criteria. States and Tribes may consider adopting the final criteria into their water quality standards or can adopt other scientifically defensible criteria that are based on local or site-specific conditions. 

In the Cape Fear area, advocates say many depend on subsistence fishing. They say standards for aquatic life are important for those who consume it.

Veronica Carter is a member of DEQ’s 16-member Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board, Leland town council member and longtime board member with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review. She is among those who have called for safeguards for people who consume fish they catch in the river. She said the potential exposure to contaminants is an environmental justice issue. 

It’s a source of protein for those who can’t afford to buy food, Carter says in a video made last summer for the Stop, Check, and Enjoy! campaign, a collaborative effort that encourages eating and preparing fish in ways to limit exposure to chemical contaminants found in those caught in the Cape Fear River. 

“It’s an environmental justice issue because it is not their fault that the river is impaired. We have polluted the environment, our Cape Fear River,” Carter says in the video. 

Carter said it’s great that there’s a new way to detect PFAS levels, but “what are we doing about getting rid of PFAS?”

“I don’t want to reduce, I want to eliminate,” she said.

‘Well past time’

Sargent said in an interview that there needs to be requirements and reminders by the EPA that state regulators adhere to the Clean Water Act and include technology-based effluent limits within their permits, rather than rely on best management practices after the fact. 

States should not be permitted to wait for a permit to expire, but should have the authority to revise current permits to stop the ongoing contamination by PFAS polluters across this country now, she said.

“Polluters have been given carte blanche to dump their toxic chemicals into our environment and our bodies for decades; it is well past time for our regulators to protect people and the environment instead of the corporate polluters,” she added.

The Southern Environmental Law Center’s Geoff Gisler, senior attorney who represented Cape Fear River Watch against Chemours in North Carolina, said in a statement Thursday that the EPA’s action is the beginning of a significant step forward in protecting communities from PFAS. 

The groups’ lawsuit resulted in a consent order with DEQ, Riverwatch and Chemours to stop the GenX and other PFAS pollution at its source.

Related: Chemours asks to build barrier wall to slow PFAS

“The agency recognizes that existing law requires all sources to disclose their pollution and that EPA has the responsibility to reduce or eliminate those discharges through the permitting process,” he said. “Now, the agency must put monitoring requirements and pollution controls into action. We encourage EPA to use its full authority under the Clean Water Act to eliminate PFAS contamination by modifying its permits as fast as possible.”  

Carter said one of her concerns is that low-income families downriver are paying for water they can’t drink and can’t afford to buy bottled water. Particularly school-aged children who are receiving free breakfast and lunch, “what do they do about water? The water fountains are closed off and they can’t afford to buy bottled water for the kids.”

“At least the EPA is talking about PFAS, and I give Regan credit for that. One of the things I said to him when he left DEQ was not to forget us, and he hasn’t,” Carter said. “It is going to take state law and permit changes to protect us better from pollution.”

She said action needs to come from the federal government as well.

“Pollution doesn’t recognize state boundaries.”

A study of fish routinely caught in the Cape Fear and Brunswick rivers as a source of food for people in low-income communities has prompted the state to update its fish consumption advisories.

The North Carolina Department of Human Health and Services in October issued updates advising consumers against eating certain species of fish from areas of both rivers after a Duke University-led study found elevated levels of chemicals known to cause cancer and affect neurological systems in humans.

In the Cape Fear River between Riegelwood Landing and the river’s confluence with Livingston Creek, bluegill, bowfin and channel catfish caught by researchers contained elevated levels of arsenic, hexavalent chromium and mercury, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services advisory.

“People should not eat bowfin and channel catfish due to elevated levels of hexavalent chromium and mercury,” the advisory states. “People should eat no more than 1 meal per week of bluegill due to elevated hexavalent chromium.”

That area of the river includes Columbus, Pender and Brunswick counites.

Red drum caught in the Brunswick River near the U.S. 74/U.S. 17 bridge in Brunswick County also contained elevated levels of the same pollutants.

The state is advising people not to eat red drum due to the higher levels of hexavalent chromium found in that species in the Brunswick River.

The updates were made as a result of research ultimately borne out of a collaborative effort going back a few years ago at the pinnacle of a locally charged fight against a cement-production company from building a plant on the banks of the Northeast Cape Fear River in New Hanover County.

Activists and environmentalists giving federal and state agency officials a tour to show how the river would be impacted if the cement plant were to be built there noticed people, sometimes whole families, fishing off the river banks.

“They knew those folks were taking that fish home to eat and they were very concerned about it,” said Elizabeth Shapiro-Garza, director of Duke Superfund Research Center Community Engagement Core.

The movement to stifle Titan America LLC’s plans to build a cement plant on more than 1,000 acres on the Northeast Cape Fear River ended in 2016 with the company pulling the plug on its plan.

The group that led the tour of officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality won the fight, but they had not forgotten the people, those families, who fish the river for sustenance.

Around the same year Titan backed out of its plans for a Castle Hayne plant, a coalition that included the New Hanover County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Cape Fear River Watch and the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, applied for funding from the EPA’s Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement Program.

Under the program, financial assistance is given to organizations that work or plan to work on local environmental and/or public health issues projects within their communities.

“The idea behind that grant was to do research to do a household survey in low-income neighborhoods along the Cape Fear to find out what kind of fish people were eating, how much they were eating, who was doing the eating and how they’re preparing the fish,” Shapiro-Garza said.

What they found is that people are eating fish from the river. They’re sharing it with their families, their children, and their neighbors, she said.

“People are eating portion sizes and quantities that are likely to be detrimental to their health, especially children,” Shapiro-Garza said.

That’s a fact many of the people included in the survey were unaware, according to the research.

The state does issue fish consumption advisories, but the study revealed that there are a couple of issues with those advisories.

Signs are posted in some areas by the river containing information about the advisories, but they include a lot of text and can be hard to understand.

The second issue is that the state’s information tends to be out of date and, in some cases, based on sampling of fish people are not eating.

Mozhgon Rajaee, an assistant professor of public health with Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, was teaching environmental justice at Duke as a visiting professor, a spot she got through a fellowship in 2018-2019.

During her time there, she met Shapiro-Garza and the two soon found they had common interest in environmental justice issues.

“They’d already done some work on how people were consuming fish in the Cape Fear River, particularly the lower Cape Fear,” Rajaee said.

Their discussions of environmental justice evolved into how they could look further into sustenance fishing in the Cape Fear River.

Once they secured funding for research, Rajaee took a year off from teaching up north and headed back to North Carolina in 2020 to start collecting species of fish popular among people who fish the Cape Fear for food.

Rajaee and field technicians caught fish at five different sites along the river. They tested seven species in all — blue, channel and flathead catfish; bowfin; bluegill; red drum; and blue crab.

They caught a little more than 130 fish and crab.

“We measured mercury, arsenic and chromium in almost all of the fish that we analyzed,” Rajaee said. “Part of the research was to try to figure out how to fill in the gaps on data. Fish weren’t sampled in the lower Cape Fear frequently.”

Frankly, they were expecting to find contamination in the fish they caught.

The Cape Fear River, which is the drinking water source of tens of thousands of people in Wilmington and surrounding areas, has been plagued by pollutants.

Sources of pollution come from everything like industrial facilities to hog farms and other agriculture operations, powerplants, wastewater treatment plants and landfills, and unregulated, nonpoint source runoff.

There’s been a growing awareness of chemical contaminants in the river in recent years since researchers revealed the Chemours Fayetteville Works Facility has for decades been discharging “forever chemicals” known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, into the lower Cape Fear.

“I think because of that people are probably more receptive to thinking about, OK what does that mean for the fish I’m catching out of the river and should I be eating it,” Shapiro-Garza said.

To help get the word out about the impacts these pollutants are having on fish in the Cape Fear River, Duke’s Community Engagement Core, in partnership with Cape Fear River Watch, community health educators in New Hanover County and the NAACP, launched in 2018 a campaign entitled “Stop, Check, Enjoy!”

Through community outreach events, health educators have been sharing the campaign message: vulnerable populations including pregnant women and children should Stop eating fish high in mercury; Check fish consumption advisories on fish from the Northeast Cape Fear River to stay in the know; and Enjoy locally caught fish by choosing fish that are not under advisory, are lower on the food chain and not bottom eaters, filleting fish first to remove fatty tissues where many contaminants except mercury can be found, and grilling or baking fish, which can reduce fat build-up and contaminant loads in fish.

Shapiro-Garza said in a statement that the release of the updated fish consumption advisories by the state is the result of endless hours of work by organizations within the partnership and “represents the power of their determination and persistence.”

“However, while it is a triumph, it’s not the end point,” she said. “With these further advisories for the lower Cape Fear and Brunswick Rivers our group now has a lot more information about what kind of wild caught fish and how much is safe to eat from where and a mandate, especially in the case of the county health departments, for making sure that word gets out to the people whose health is at risk.”

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday an approach to address pollution nationwide from the types of toxic “forever chemicals” that have been plaguing southeastern North Carolina for decades, a plan that includes listing certain of these substances as hazardous under the Superfund Act.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced the three-year “PFAS Strategic Roadmap: EPA’s Commitments to Action 2021-2024” Monday to a handful gathered at North Carolina State University’s Lake Raleigh Fishing Pier in Raleigh. Gov. Roy Cooper, North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser and Congresswoman Deborah Ross, D-North Carolina, joined Regan for the announcement. The event was streamed live on YouTube, but technical issues frequently interrupted the program for viewers.

The strategic roadmap, the result of work by the EPA Council on PFAS that Regan put in place in April, focuses on three strategies: increase investments in research, leverage authorities to act now to restrict PFAS chemicals from being released into the environment, and accelerate the cleanup of PFAS contamination, EPA officials said.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, including GenX, are a group of man-made chemicals used in industry and consumer products since the 1940s. Research suggests that PFAS breaks down slowly and can accumulate in people, animals and the environment, which can lead to adverse health outcomes, according to the EPA.

Regan has long been entrenched in managing PFAS. He was serving as the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality secretary when news broke June 7, 2017, that the Chemours Fayetteville Works facility had for years released PFAS into the Cape Fear River, the drinking water source for the Wilmington area. President Joe Biden selected Regan earlier this year to serve as the EPA administrator.

Regan said that moving to designate certain PFAS as hazardous substances under the Superfund program would allow the agency to clean up contaminated sites and hold the responsible parties accountable by either having them perform cleanups or reimburse the government for EPA-led cleanup work.

“The Superfund program has successfully protected American communities by requiring polluters to pay to clean up the hazardous waste and pollution that they themselves have released in our environment,” he explained. “This strategy will leverage EPA existing authority to take bold action to restrict chemicals from entering the land, the air, the water, and land at all levels that are harmful to public health and the environment.”

Regan said that the EPA will immediately broaden and accelerate the cleanup of PFAS contamination. When the agency becomes aware of a situation where PFAS poses a serious threat to the health of a community, “we will not hesitate to take swift action, strong enforcement to address the threat and hold polluters accountable, all across the country.”

This strategy means EPA will work with other agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Defense Department to identify facilities where PFAS have been used and are known to be a source of contamination.

Other actions include a final toxicity assessment of the substance known as GenX, “which will ensure that no other community has to go through what the Cape Fear River communities had to endure,” Regan said.

Biden has called for more than $10 billion in funding to help address PFAS contamination through the Build Back Better Agenda. “These critical resources will enable EPA and other federal agencies to scale up the research and work, so that they’re commiserate with the scale of the challenges that we all face together,” Regan said.

Regan highlighted work taking place in North Carolina, noting that Biser, the DEQ secretary, had recently issued a $300,000 fine to Chemours for failing to meet its obligation to protect state residents.

“Secretary Biser is setting the standard, this is the kind of accountability that we want to see all over the country, and that we will work with states to achieve,” Regan said.

He noted that across the country, lessons have been learned that can be shared and that every level of government will need to step up to protect the public. He also highlighted the need for continued partnerships with advocacy groups and community activists.

Regan said that some may question trust in the EPA because “so many communities have been let down before, time and time again,” adding that the public needs to see action. “I believe that the national strategy that we’re laying out shows and demonstrates strong and forceful action from EPA, a willingness to use all of our authority, all of our tools, all of our talent to tackle PFAS.”

He said the EPA pledges to “hold the polluters accountable for the decades of unchecked devastation that they’ve caused.”

According to the EPA, the roadmap also includes the following:

• Aggressive timelines to set enforceable drinking water limits under the Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure water is safe to drink in every community.
• A hazardous substance designation under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, also known as Superfund, to strengthen the ability to hold polluters financially accountable.
• Timelines for action, whether it is data collection or rulemaking, on Effluent Guideline Limitations under the Clean Water Act for nine industrial categories.
• A review of past actions on PFAS taken under the Toxic Substances Control Act to address those that are insufficiently protective.
• Increased monitoring, data collection and research so that the agency can identify what actions are needed and when to take them.
• A final toxicity assessment for GenX, which can be used to develop health advisories that will help communities make informed decisions to better protect human health and ecological wellness.
• Continued efforts to build the technical foundation needed on PFAS air emissions to inform future actions under the Clean Air Act. 

Cooper introduced Regan Monday afternoon, highlighting North Carolina’s and the nation’s need for the plan.

“This roadmap commits the EPA to quickly setting enforceable drinking water limits for these chemicals, as well as giving us stronger tools, and giving them to communities, to protect people’s health and our environment. As we continue partnering with EPA on this and other important efforts. It’s critical that Congress pass the bipartisan infrastructure deal, and the larger budget resolution that includes funding to tackle PFAS contamination,” Cooper said.

Biser pledged state cooperation.

“We all have a lot of work ahead but with coordination at all levels of government, with our elected officials and our public servants, we can protect the communities and the residents throughout North Carolina, and across the nation,” she said.

Advocates react

The Southern Environmental Law Center has been at the forefront of litigation on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch against Chemours in North Carolina to stop GenX and other PFAS pollution.

“SELC’s litigation under existing laws led to a consent order among Cape Fear River Watch, the state and Chemours to stop at least 99% of PFAS pollution that contaminated drinking water supplies for about 300,000 people in communities along the Cape Fear River,” the law center said in a statement.

Geoff Gisler, a senior attorney with the law center and leader of its Clean Water Program, said in a statement that the roadmap charts a course to important new protections while using existing authority to protect families and communities plagued by PFAS pollution.

“We have seen in North Carolina that when permitting agencies require industrial polluters to comply with existing laws, PFAS water pollution can be stopped at the source. EPA’s Roadmap pairs a plan for the future with the tools it currently has to stop ongoing contamination as the agency develops new standards,” Gisler said. “This roadmap, when fully implemented, could change the landscape in our efforts to protect communities from PFAS pollution. On this anniversary of the Clean Water Act, we’re a step closer to achieving its goals. While the roads to standards identified by EPA are necessarily long; the route to stopping ongoing pollution of our streams and rivers can and should be short.” 

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del, issued a statement that he was encouraged by the EPA’s urgency in dealing with a public health threat.

“This is truly a soup-to-nuts plan — one that commits to cleaning up PFAS in our environment while also putting protections in place to prevent more of these forever chemicals from finding their way into our lives. After the previous administration failed to follow through on its plan to address PFAS contamination, EPA’s new leadership promised action. I look forward to working with them on living up to this commitment.”

Ken Cook, president of the national nonprofit Environmental Working Group, said that communities contaminated by PFAS had waited decades for action.

“So, it’s good news that Administrator Regan will fulfill President Biden’s pledge to take quick action to reduce PFOA and PFOS in tap water, to restrict industrial releases of PFAS into the air and water, and to designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances to hold polluters accountable,” Cook said in a statement. “It’s been more than 20 years since EPA and EWG first learned that these toxic forever chemicals were building up in our blood and increasing our likelihood of cancer and other health harms. It’s time for action, not more plans, and that’s what this Administrator will deliver. As significant as these actions are, they are just the first of many actions needed to protect us from PFAS, as the Administrator has said.”

Environmental Working Group Senior Vice President for Government Affairs Scott Faber said that no one should have to worry about toxic chemicals in their tap water. “We’re grateful that Administrator Regan will fulfill President Biden’s pledge to address PFOA and PFOS in our tap water and will begin to turn off the tap of industrial PFAS pollution.”

The Environmental Protection Network is an organization composed of nearly 550 former EPA career staff and political appointees from across the country. The organization’s Betsy Southerland, former director of the Office of Science and Technology in EPA’s Office of Water, called EPA’s approach to restrict or ban current PFAS uses a critical piece of the plan.

“The actions detailed in the roadmap are essential first steps in reducing people’s exposure to these extremely dangerous chemicals, especially in communities already disproportionately impacted by pollution,” Southerland said. “While EPA will identify initial PFAS classes in the National Testing Strategy, the agency set tight deadlines for regulating individual PFAS chemicals in air, water, and waste, which will begin to drive stringent treatment requirements. EPA’s success in turning the roadmap into action will require the swift passage of a robust budget to give the agency adequate funding and staffing to get the job done.”

MOREHEAD CITY – Researchers here participating in a newly expanded program now have the capability through sampling and analysis of public wastewater to quickly see the emergence of COVID-19 variants of concern in specific municipalities, a potentially valuable early warning system for outbreaks as people return to schools and work settings.

“What this means is that as new variants emerge that are really dangerous — and these will happen — that might cause more severe disease or more severe numbers of hospitalizations. We’re working with a company that develops these tests as these variants circulate around the world. They’re developing the tests in real time,” said Dr. Rachel Noble, an environmental molecular microbiologist at the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City.

Noble studies pathogens in wastewater and stormwater, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in samples taken from public treatment facilities across the state. She said the analysists working on the wastewater monitoring project are among the top global beta testers for the new assays used to detect these emerging variants, “and we’re working very tightly with that company to do that.”

The company, Bio-Rad of Hercules, California, says that to better understand and respond to the U.K., South Africa, Brazil, California, New York or other variants, researchers need to reliably identify where they are, when they appear, and how prevalent they become over time. Each variant can be identified by the known mutations in its genomic sequence, the company says. These changes can make the virus more transmissible or difficult to treat.

The project for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services that began earlier this year expanded from testing 11 wastewater treatment plants in the state to 19. The department’s COVID-19 dashboard was updated Thursday with the latest results that include the new wastewater-monitoring sampling sites.

“And of those, we can see that we’ve returned to some blips, indications in the wastewater, that COVID has returned, as seen also by cases or hospitalizations in North Carolina,” Noble said.

The lab was sampling 11 sites since the inception of the program but the state was only reporting 10 on its dashboard. Now all sites are being reported on the dashboard. Other sites are expected to be added in the coming weeks.

Also included in the program’s expansion are new quality controls.

Earlier this summer, many of the sites being monitored had dropped to either low concentrations or nondetectable levels of the COVID-19 virus in the wastewater.

“We are definitely not in that situation currently,” she said. “We’re seeing some, what I would call blips on the radar screen in the wastewater.”

She explained that while that expansion only has been going for about four weeks now, in terms of trends where these blips on the radar screen appear in wastewater, they are generally closely followed by increases in clinical cases in those areas.

The lab in Morehead City is receiving samples from North Carolina sites twice a week for analysis. “That’s 38 total samples right now that we received, and we’re able to report that data back out to the CDC very quickly. We have a really nice turnaround on our surveillance program.”

The lab has completed variant analyses for the U.K. variant, the Delta variant and the Brazilian variant. And as variants emerge and continue to evolve, the surveillance program will serve as a warning system for those that could pose serious concern.

“It’s not perfect, but wastewater has shown itself to be a good predictor of what’s coming,” Noble said. “When someone becomes infected, just the same as with the flu or with other types of viruses, you actually start shedding the virus quite early in the infection, but you might not feel full-blown symptoms for several days.

“When a person becomes infected, they begin to contribute to the virus signal in the wastewater before they would pursue any sort of a clinical tests. Regardless of whether they’re asymptomatic, the wastewater is still picking up that virus signal.

“We are likely to see that as especially younger individuals, and by that I mean 40 and younger, that we’re likely to see numbers of individuals that are asymptomatic, that are carrying the virus but they either are completely devoid of symptoms or they have very mild symptoms and think that they just have a cold. So, that would allow the wastewater to contain the viruses that we are seeing. And those people have the capability to still shed the virus and give it to someone else, but they themselves are not seriously ill.”

This poses risks for older parents, or siblings that have not been vaccinated, she said.

Collaborative monitoring

The state announced Thursday the expansion of the sampling program to better identify areas where virus is spreading. The project is a collaboration between the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, University of North Carolina system researchers, wastewater utilities and public health departments.

“As the Delta variant emerges in North Carolina, it’s more important than ever for us to use all available tools to track the spread of COVID-19 so health officials and members of the public can take action if trends are increasing,” said State Epidemiologist Dr. Zack Moore said in a statement. “The recent increases we’ve seen are an important reminder that COVID-19 is still here and still a risk for people who are not fully vaccinated. If you haven’t gotten your shot, don’t wait to vaccinate.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are collaborating with various other federal agencies on the National Wastewater Surveillance System in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The data is being used to help public health officials better understand the extent of coronavirus infections in their communities.

“I think we’re seeing that the wastewater is going to prove itself to be important as we return back to school and many people return back to the workplace,” Noble said.

The CDC says that sewage testing has been successfully used for early detection of other diseases, such as polio. But the initial sampling sites in North Carolina didn’t provide a complete picture.

“When we first designed the surveillance program, we designed it necessarily where we had partners that could do some of the sampling for us. So originally, that was Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Charlotte, Wilmington, and there were very few rural areas represented in our selection. Now that wasn’t because we were trying to ignore rural areas, it was because we were just trying to build the program,” Noble said. “Since then, we’ve added primarily rural towns, knowing that there are differences in vaccination rates between metropolitan cities and rural towns, and we are seeing trends of these emerging concentrations in wastewater in the rural towns, which is concerning.”

Trends in rural areas where sampling occurs are currently showing increases or sustained increases, as classified by the North Carolnia Wastewater Monitoring Network dashboard map updated Thursday.

With the latest data from Carteret County and New Hanover County wastewater sampling sites, levels of the virus have plateaued.

In late June, Beaufort officials announced higher levels had been detected in samples from the town’s wastewater plant. The increase appeared to correlate to an especially busy period for tourism in the county, during an already busy season.

Noble noted that the increase was not followed by an uptick in the number of clinical cases reported by the Carteret County Health Department.

“What this means for wastewater is that if you have large numbers of people in any particular city or town who are asymptomatic, they’re not getting captured in the clinical case data that’s being reported at the county level. They’re not seeking an urgent care test or an ER test because they feel fine,” she said.

There are a couple of reasons that detection trends in wastewater may not be reflected in the numbers of cases in a county.

“One is that if a tourist does have symptoms, and even if they get tested at an urgent care here, the test result is reported at their home address by DHHS,” Noble said. “The second reason is that we all know that people come to the coast to be outdoors. So even if they are carrying COVID and they’re asymptomatic, they may be unlikely to share it with other people and cause measured cases in the community because they’re out at the beach, they’re out on a boat, they’re out fishing, and they’re largely staying within their own kind of groups of friends.”

Noble said trendline peaks and valleys for communities where wastewater sampling is done is to be expected, not just here in eastern North Carolina but broadly. And as the public returns this fall to more indoor life, indications could change, possibly for the worse.

“And one way to protect yourself from that is to seek the vaccine,” she said. “A lot of people have said that they’re busy or they don’t have time.”

North Carolinians can go to MySpot.nc.gov to find a vaccine location near them.

The other way, Noble said, is that, if people are concerned about getting the vaccine, then simply wear a face mask while out in public.

“It’s not a bad thing, just wear a face mask if you’re in the grocery store,” she said.

After more than two years and a multitude of tests, North Carolina researchers are chipping away at getting answers to questions about a host of chemical compounds in drinking water sources, food and air.

The teams of researchers, collectively referred to as the North Carolina Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Testing Network, or PFAST Network, submitted to the North Carolina General Assembly on April 15 their report, the results of which were discussed in an online forum held Tuesday evening.

The report is part of a legislative mandate to address the public’s concerns about PFAS contaminants in the state and the potential health effects the chemical compounds have on people, wildlife and the environment. It includes recommendations for more monitoring, research studies and regulations.

One of the studies focused on drinking water sources across the state.

Over two and a half years, researchers sampled all municipal and county water systems – 376 sites in all – for PFAS in raw drinking water.

Researchers specifically looked for 48 individual PFAS and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in those samples and found that 20 of those sources contained concentrations of PFAS at or above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s health advisory limit for PFOA and perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS.

Of the top half of those with the highest total PFAS concentrations, nine were in the Cape Fear River basin.

PFAS concentrations in drinking water sources from the lower Cape Fear region were “considerably higher” than concentrations of the chemical compounds in drinking water sources nationwide, according to the report.

The Cape Fear River basin is the largest watershed in the state. It is the drinking water source to about 1.5 million North Carolinians, about 1 million of whom are affected by water with the higher PFAS concentrations, said Detlef Knappe, a North Carolina State University professor and researcher.

PFAS levels are higher in that area because the compounds have been discharged from the Chemours Fayetteville Works facility into the Cape Fear River since the 1980s.

PFAS are synthetic chemicals that are resistant to heat and are water, grease and stain repellent used in a host of consumer products, including carpets, carpet cleaning products, food packaging, furnishings, cosmetics, outdoor gear, clothing, adhesives and sealants, firefighting foam, protective coatings and nonstick cookware.

There are nearly 10,000 individual PFAS.

Levels of these chemical compounds varied in drinking water sources throughout the state.

“We see a trend of relatively low concentrations in most ground water drinking water sources in eastern North Carolina and western North Carolina,” said Lee Ferguson, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University.

Studies show that there is an overall trend in the Piedmont and central part of the state for higher concentrations of PFAS in drinking water sources because the water supply in those areas comes from surface waters.

Higher concentrations of PFAS were also found in the Haw River and Neuse River.

Ferguson noted that a single groundwater well that was once the drinking water source for Maysville, a small town in Jones County, contained relatively high concentrations of PFAS.

That well was subsequently shut down by town officials after they were notified of the high levels of PFAS. The town has since switched to the county’s water service.

More than 4,000 of the more than 5,000 private well samples collected were found to have PFAS contaminants, Knappe said.

There are regulated contaminants and unregulated contaminants, the latter of which there is no national standard so water utilities cannot say whether water containing these chemicals is safe to drink.

Jamie DeWitt, an associate professor at East Carolina University, and her team have been studying the immunotoxicological and developmental immunotoxicological effects of PFAS.

Her research team examined the effects of PFAS in mice.

DeWitt explained Tuesday that their research thus far has shown that short chain compounds appear to rapidly excrete from the body. That was the case with perfluoro-2-methoxyacetic acid, or PFMOAA, one of two compounds the team introduced to lab mice.

The other, Nafion byproduct 2, a longer compound, stayed in the body. Side effects of the compound included liver weight gain.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” DeWitt said, adding that it takes time to look at each individual compound.

In her March 24 testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, DeWitt discussed the health effects of PFAS.

“A comprehensive evaluation of the toxicological data for 14 PFAS compiled by the Agency for the Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reported a wide variety of undesirable health effects in people exposed because they work with PFAS, live in areas with high levels of PFAS in the environment, or even from everyday activities,” she said. “These health effects include effects on the liver, the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, and reproductive systems, and on development. Some populations have seen increases in kidney and testicular cancer. These undesirable health effects also have been observed in experimental animals exposed to individual PFAS through food, water, or skin, which are supportive of these findings of undesirable health effects in humans.”

Such health effects are being observed at levels below the EPA’s health advisory limit of 70 parts per trillion, she said.

Another study examining of the effects of PFAS in aquatic life reveals that PFAS bioaccumulate in fish and reptiles, in this case American alligators.

Scott Belcher, an associate professor at N.C. State University, told the audience of about 100 who tuned in to the virtual forum Tuesday that elevated levels of nearly a dozen PFAS were found in the blood of striped bass in the lower Cape Fear River.

Blood samples were collected from fish and alligators below Lock and Dam No. 1. They ranged in age between 2 and 7 years old.

Most of the PFAS detected in the blood samples was PFOS.

When compared with striped bass and alligators in other, area waters, including the Lumber River basin and Lake Waccamaw, abnormal blood cells were observed only in the animals sampled in the Cape Fear River.

Belcher said researchers found lupus-like characteristics in alligators, such as poorly healing lesions.

“We’re really building this case in the evidence pointing toward differences in the animals that may be resulting in autoimmune-like diseases,” he said.

The testing network has made 60 recommendations in its report to legislators, including testing to better understand PFAS sources in the Cape Fear River and Neuse River basins with special emphasis on the Haw River basin, further toxicological studies, including studies on compounds most frequently detected and detected at the highest concentrations, and further studies on effective ways to remove PFAS from water sources.

The report also includes two major recommendations: continued funding for statewide PFAS research and clearly citing data used when creating future guidance, policies, or regulations.

The latest review by a federal advisory committee of 20 scientists finds that Americans need to eat more fish.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the United States Department of Health and Human Services released in December the latest dietary recommendations for Americans. The ninth edition of the report, “Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025,” is available for download at DietaryGuidelines.gov. This time around, they are advocating for an increase in seafood consumption like never before.

For the first time since 1980, the departments’ joint report included specific recommendations for all life stages. A common theme throughout is the advocacy of nutrient-dense foods — comestibles that are rich in vitamins and minerals, but low in sodium and added sugar. As a source of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins and protein, most seafood falls into this category.

The dietary recommendations are released every five years and have a significant impact on policy and social initiatives. These recommendations influence Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, programs and school lunches, among other things. By including seafood so robustly in their report, the USDA and USDHHS are sending a clear message: Seafood belongs in the American diet.

Abby Neuroh, a registered dietician and director of nutrition at Summerfield Custom Wellness in Raleigh, said a lot of people aren’t meeting their recommended intake of seafood.

“It’s because maybe they haven’t had it prepared correctly, they’re not even sure how to cook it,” Neuroh said. “So that’s one of the things that I work on with a lot of patients is flavor profiles, ways to incorporate it into their day with easier cooking methods so that they feel confident and get the taste that they’re looking for.”

The report estimates that almost 90% of Americans currently do not get enough seafood in their diet. By contrast, most Americans exceed the suggested intake of other proteins, like beef, poultry and pork.

This does not surprise Ryan Speckman. Speckman and his business partner Lin Peterson are the owners and founders of Locals Seafood, based in Raleigh.

Speckman theorizes that many people don’t know how good fresh fish is until they’ve had it. He says that he himself didn’t understand North Carolina’s quality or variety of seafood until he moved to the coast. And then once he’d experienced a fresh catch, he wanted to bring that experience inland.

“I realized that a lot of the seafood we are catching in North Carolina isn’t readily accessible to the average consumer in North Carolina,” said Speckman. “And Lin and I decided that we needed to start bringing that seafood inland, and making it more readily accessible.”

According to Speckman, it’s important to keep the seafood market locally based for a number of reasons. It’s a lower carbon footprint, and it stimulates the local economy. But additionally, Speckman considers seafood to be a public trust resource and believes that all North Carolinians should have access to their state’s bountiful catch.

“A lot of the fish is caught in our state waters,” said Speckman. “And our tax dollars pay for the management of those species.”

Accessibility is geographic, but it is also knowledge-based. Buying nationally or internationally means that consumers can have whatever type of fish they want regardless of the season. Buying locally means that consumers have to trust their fisherfolk’s expertise. Many people need their fisher to guide them to what tastes good and how to cook it.

According to Speckman, education is a part of Locals Seafood’s mission.

“(Buyers) were unfamiliar with a lot of the fish we were bringing in because they never had access to it,” said Speckman. “We realized in the very early stages of our business that a lot of people were intimidated by cooking fish, not knowing all the different types of fish, and so we really had to spend a lot of time educating consumers and chefs.”

North Carolina’s extensive variety of fish is due to its unique geography and waterways. Boundary islands along the coast provide protected habitats for a large number of species.

Karen Amspacher is the director of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center in Harkers Island. She is also a self-described “cheerleader” for the local fishing industry. Amspacher credits the local food movement with strengthening the bond between North Carolina’s fisherfolk and consumers.

As a tendril of the national local food movement, some North Carolinians are turning to their own waters for their seafood. This gives the industry more of a platform to speak from as it faces issues like water quality and increased regulation.

According to Amspacher, local seafood consumption isn’t important just because of its nutritional advantages, but also because of its social value. The North Carolina coast has a rich history of fishing, and that history informs the coastal identity.

“It’s more than just a job,” said Amspacher. “There’s tradition, not only in the product they harvest, but in the landscape and the culture, and the value system, and the knowledge they have.”

According to Amspacher, people are realizing that fisherfolk are the link between fresh seafood and their dinner plates. As the federal report becomes more widely accepted and integrated into social programs, that link may grow even stronger.

The latest dietary report recommends 8 ounces of seafood per week for an American consuming 2,000 calories per day. For North Carolinians, that 8 ounces isn’t far away.

“It’s very important to everybody that these fishermen stay in the water,” said Amspacher. “If they stay in the water, they continue to be the link.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday denied the petition filed Oct. 14, 2020, by six eastern North Carolina organizations to require Chemours Co. to fund testing by independent scientists on 54 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, produced at its Fayetteville Works facility.

As Coastal Review Online reported at the time, the groups had asked EPA to use its authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, to require Chemours Co. to fund the testing.

“As a result of decades of pollution, these substances have been found in human blood, drinking water, groundwater, soil, air, and locally produced food adjacent to and downstream from the plant. They pose serious health risks to nearly 300,000 people in impacted communities,” the Center of Environmental Health said Friday in a statement.

PFAS, sometimes referred to as forever chemicals, are a group of about 5,000 synthetic compounds used to make products water- and grease-resistant and can be found in nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, stain-resistant carpets, lubricants, firefighting foams, paints, cosmetics, paper plates and fast-food packaging. Exposure can lead to cause cancer, thyroid disease, birth defects, hormone disruption, decreased fertility, immune system suppression, and other serious health effects, Center of Environmental Health said.

The state’s Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Human Services in June 2017 began investigating the presence of a compound known as GenX, which is in the PFAS family, in the Cape Fear River. The state found that the Chemours facility in Fayetteville was the source.

The EPA responded Thursday with a prepublication notice for the Federal Register explaining why the petition was denied and a letter to the petitioners: the Center for Environmental Health, Cape Fear River Watch, Clean Cape Fear, NC Black Alliance, Democracy Green and Toxic Free NC.

The EPA includes as reasons for denial that the petition does not set forth the facts necessary to demonstrate that there is “insufficient information and experience” for each of the 54 PFAS and failed to address ongoing testing and data collections for some of the 54 PFAS.

“In denying this petition, which EPA has full authority under law to accept, EPA, yet again, failed to uphold its mission to protect public health and the environment, opting instead to support a multi-trillion dollar corporation. Enough is enough,” said Dana Sargent, executive director, Cape Fear River Watch.

Lisa Randall, regional communications lead with Chemours Co., told Coastal Review Online Friday that the company was pleased with the EPA decision on the petition filed by parties in North Carolina.

“The petition failed to establish any of the factors required under TSCA to support the proposed action. Several of the compounds cited in the petition have no known connection to Chemours’ Fayetteville Works operations. Others are byproducts and intermediaries that occur at such small quantities, levels that continue to decrease, that it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to manufacture the volumes required for testing,” Randall continued. “Chemours supports science-based regulations and has worked with EPA and other regulators to develop and expand scientific knowledge concerning PFAS, including on issues of analytical chemistry, environmental fate and transport, toxicology and remediation. The numerous actions we have taken to reduce PFAS emissions and address remediation needs continue to make a significant difference in reducing loadings to the Cape Fear River.”

The EPA, which has authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act to order manufacturers like Chemours to determine the safety of their products and processes, explained in the letter dated Thursday that the agency is already taking action to identify solutions to address PFAS with its PFAS Action Plan issued in February 2019.

“The PFAS Action Plan is the first multi-media, multi-program, national research, management, and risk communication plan to address an emerging contaminant like PFAS,” according to the EPA. The action plan details how the EPA will address PFAS in drinking water, identify and clean up contamination, expand monitoring, increase scientific research, and exercise effective enforcement tools. The EPA updated the plan in February 2020 with actions taken and work completed in the year since the PFAS Action Plan was issued.

“The denial is not based on lack of concern with PFAS,” the letter states, adding that the EPA is leading the national efforts to understand PFAS and reduce risks to the public through implementation of its plan and through active engagement and partnership. The letter goes on to say that the EPA found that the petitioners have not met their burden.

“EPA’s petition denial does not dispute the serious health effects concerns associated with PFAS  or the extensive contamination of the Cape Fear River basin caused by Chemours. Instead, it seeks to justify its refusal to require testing with a self-serving recitation of its actions on PFAS generally —  actions which have been widely criticized as ineffective and inadequate,” according to Center of Environmental Health.

The Center of Environmental Health argues that by “poking small holes in the petition and blowing them out of proportion, the Agency also claims that petitioners failed to demonstrate that there is insufficient information available to assess the health impacts of the 54 PFAS.”

“I believe the EPA is lying to North Carolinians, and by extension the rest of America,” said Emily Donovan, cofounder of Clean Cape Fear and a mother living in a highly contaminated community. “If, as the EPA suggests, enough scientific data already exists to deny our petition then where are the drinking water standards for these 54 PFAS? Fish and wildlife recommendations? Fact sheets for medical practitioners and state health departments? The required data doesn’t exist to produce these vital protections. The EPA knows it and my children are still being exposed to these PFAS. My friends and neighbors are sick. My husband almost lost his eyesight to a brain tumor and I’m tired of a government funded by taxpayer dollars refusing to do its job.”

The center noted that the EPA acknowledges there is little or no data on nearly all the 54 substances and that North Carolina residents exposed to these substances don’t understand the risks, but the agency “has repeatedly refused to hold the companies responsible for PFAS pollution accountable for filling these alarming gaps in information.”

La’Meshia Whittington, campaign director for the North Carolina Black Alliance, called EPA’s denial a “preposterous”  decision that prioritizes corporate interests over the needs of the communities affected in North Carolina.

“This decision reflects the environment the outgoing administration created, poison over our health and profit over the people.  We won’t stop here.  We will continue to fight against our water being poisoned, and children left without a basic human right of access to clean water,” she said in a statement.

The petitioners vowed to continue the fight, including by asking the incoming Biden administration to grant the petition and require the testing.

“EPA claims that cell culture-based screening tests can be developed and used to understand the toxicity of thousands of PFAS, however these methods have simply not progressed to the point where they come close to being useful for understanding the effects of PFAS. In fact, the animal and human studies proposed in the petition will produce the very data that EPA needs to validate these more efficient approaches to predict PFAS toxicity,” said Ruthann Rudel, research director at Silent Spring Institute.

A pork-producing giant will not get another shot in court to defend itself against a group of Bladen County homeowners whose quality of life suffered at the hands of a former industrial-scale hog farm operation.

Judges with the 4^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, recently affirmed a lower court ruling that holds Murphy-Brown, LLC, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, Inc., liable for violating the rights of neighbors of the former hog farm to enjoy their property.

Jurors in that 2018 district court case awarded each of the property owners $75,000 in compensatory damages and another $5 million collectively in punitive damages.

The latter was subsequently reduced to $2.5 million because North Carolina caps punitive damages to no more than three times the amount of compensatory damages or $250,000, whichever is greater.

Circuit Judge Stephanie Thacker ruled in favor of only one of a handful of arguments Smithfield’s lawyers made in their appeal, agreeing that the company’s financial status revealed to jurors should have been limited to Murphy-Brown, not the broader company.

Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III concurred. Circuit Judge G. Steven Agee dissented with part of Thacker’s opinion.

Shortly after the judges rendered the Nov. 19 decision, Smithfield Foods announced it had resolved more than a dozen similar nuisance cases filed by eastern North Carolina residents.

Smithfield Foods is owned by Hong Kong-based WH Group Limited.

The settlement, the amount of which remains undisclosed, wraps up the remaining 20 of 25 separate lawsuits – there were 500 complaints in all – filed by North Carolinians, mostly people of color, in 2014. Five lawsuits went to trial.

The cases have brought to the forefront environmental justice matters in eastern North Carolina’s rural communities that have for years been fighting for the industrial hog farming industry to get away from the lagoon and sprayfield system.

“We certainly hope that the pretty clear decision of the judges sends a message to the industry that they need to change their practices,” said Sherri White-Williamson, the North Carolina Conservation Network’s environmental justice policy director. “Environmental justice is very much about not just black and brown communities, but low-income communities that have something in common — politically they are not powerful.”

About 26% of Bladen County’s population live below the poverty line, according to the latest Census information. That’s double the national rate.

Bladen County residents initially filed suit in 2013 and included Kinlaw Farms in their complaint.

The homeowners later withdrew that suit and refiled one that targeted Murphy-Brown, emphasizing that it is the company that directs grower management procedures, mandates design and construction of operations, dictates how many hogs are to be placed at any given operation, and controls hog waste management systems under contractual terms with farmers.

Kinlaw Farms annually maintained nearly 15,000 hogs, which produced about 153,000 pounds of feces and urine each day.

Open-air lagoons holding millions of gallons of hog waste were periodically drained and the waste spread across so-called sprayfields on farm property.

About 8 million gallons of hog feces was sprayed in the air annually, including the summer months as regularly as three to five days a week for an average of six hours a day.

Live and dead hogs were trucked on and off the property throughout the day and night. During one night in 2016 at least 12 trucks passed through the Kinlaw property between midnight and 6 a.m., according to court testimony.

The putrid smell, tens of thousands of flies attracted to the area, noise, and health concerns related to air quality and possible wastewater seepage into private wells, affected the quality of life of those living nearby the farm.

In his opinion, Wilkinson said that hog farming is “central to economic life in North Carolina,” supporting more than 45,000 jobs and producing about $11 billion in the state’s annual economy.

“But the record here reveals outrageous conditions at Kinlaw Farms – conditions that, when their effects inevitably spread to neighboring households, violated homeowner’s rights to the healthful enjoyment of their property,” he wrote. “All this the jury recognized, and its verdict, once capped, was essentially a just one.”

He goes on to write about the air quality threat to the farm’s neighbors and local water quality concerns, citing studies that show residents living near industrial hog farms may suffer from higher rates of respiratory problems, high blood pressure, depression and infant mortality.

He also addresses environmental justice issues in the case, noting that conditions at the farm were “unlikely to have persisted for long – or even to have arisen at all – had the neighbors of Kinlaw Farms been wealthier or more politically powerful.”

“It is well-established – almost to the point of judicial notice – that environmental harms are visited disproportionately upon the dispossessed – here on minority populations and poor communities,” he stated.

“But whether a home borders a golf course or a dirt road, it is a castle for those who reside in it,” he wrote. “Many plaintiffs in this suit have tended their hearths for generations – one family for almost 100 years. They are exactly whom the venerable tort of nuisance ought to protect. Murphy-Brown’s interference with their quiet enjoyment of their properties was unreasonable. It was willful, and it was wanton.”

Agee concurred with several issues, but wrote that he believed a full, new trial was necessary, saying that the admission of the financial status of Murphy-Brown’s corporate parents to the jury was “patently erroneous as to liability for both compensatory and punitive damages.”

White-Williamson said that Smithfield Foods’ decision to settle each case is “telling.”

“We’ll have to see what happens,” she said. “One of the things that is happening now is this proposal of this biogas facility.”

Smithfield Foods and Dominion Energy are in the process of kick-starting a joint project to capture biogas from hog waste lagoons at 19 industrial hog operations in Duplin and Sampson counties.

The project, called the Grady Road Project, would cap open-air lagoons to capture biogas, which would be transported through some 30 miles of pipeline to an upgrading facility then injected into an existing natural gas pipeline.

Critics of the project argue it does not address significant air pollution from the 19 operations that would be included or possible groundwater contamination.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is reviewing a draft air quality permit for the upgrading facility.

The amount of “forever chemicals” making their way into the drinking water source of thousands of Wilmington-area residents remains steady despite the fact that Chemours has stopped directly discharging its wastewater into the Cape Fear River.

When converted into pounds per day, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, including GenX, are as prevalent in the water coming from the lower Cape Fear River since the state and Chemours Co.’s Fayetteville Works entered into a consent order more than a year and a half ago, said Carel Vandermeyden, deputy executive director of Cape Fear Public Utility Authority’s treatment/engineering services.

“It’s not going down,” he said. “It’s staying the same.”

Authority officials and researchers say the primary source of PFAS entering the river comes from contaminated groundwater at the Fayetteville plant, sediment between the intake and the facility, and air emissions.

Vandermeyden was among several presenters to speak in a webinar hosted last week by the North Carolina Coastal Federation. The session, which lasted 2.5 hours, provided updates on ongoing studies of the presence of the chemicals in drinking water sources throughout the state and the effects of these chemicals on humans.

Jason Surratt, program director for the collaboration of researchers from universities across the state known as the PFAS Testing Network, or PFAST, said the network’s final report is scheduled to be submitted to the state in April 2021.

PFAST is analyzing water samples from each drinking water source in the state, determining the risks of PFAS to private water wells, studying which filtration methods best remove PFAS from drinking water, determining how PFAS travels through air emissions, and gaining a better understanding of how these chemicals impact human health and the environment.

The network has been providing quarterly reports of its findings to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, since Oct. 1, 2018.

Under the terms of the February 2019 consent order between DEQ and Chemours, the company must greatly reduce the amount of PFAS it discharges into the river and atmosphere.

In March, the facility announced its newly installed thermal oxidizer, one of the requirements of the consent order, was removing 99.99% of PFAS from its air emissions. A thermal oxidizer heats volatile organic compounds to the point those compounds are broken down and destroyed before entering the atmosphere.

But the Cape Fear region’s drinking water sources continue to contain the highest concentrations of PFAS, which are a group of man-made chemicals used in consumer products, in the state.

Significant levels of PFAS compounds are within a series of four groundwater streams that flow directly into the Cape Fear River from underneath the Chemours site, Sheila Holman, DEQ’s assistant secretary for the environment said Thursday during her webinar presentation.

“Right now, we’re capturing the water and it’s being treated through an external activated carbon unit,” she said.

The facility will have to install an underground barrier wall nearly 1.5 miles long to stop the groundwater from seeping into the river.

PFAST researchers who earlier this year studied the effects of PFAS in the immune systems of mice found high concentrations of Nafion byproduct 2 in the rodent’s blood streams. The introduction of PFAS ultimately led to liver weight gain in the mice, said Jamie DeWitt, an associate professor at East Carolina University.

Detlef Knappe, a professor at North Carolina State University, said drinking water sources downstream of the Chemours Fayetteville facility are the most heavily impacted in the state, with some exceptions.

Knappe is part of a team of researchers from N.C. State and Duke University tasked with collecting and examining samples from about 400 drinking water supplies throughout the state.

Researchers found that the drinking water source in Maysville, a small, Jones County town of about 1,000 residents, contained PFAS and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, contamination above the Environmental Protection Agency’s lifetime health advisory levels.

The source of the contamination, researchers say, is likely aqueous film-forming foam, which was used in firefighting applications up until around the year 2000.

In June 2019, the town switched to an alternative water source, tapping into Jones County’s regional water system, Knappe said.

Researchers also found high levels of PFAS in the Haw River in Pittsboro in Chatham County from samples collected in September 2019.

Samples first collected in April 2019 from that area of the river, which was flowing at a high rate when the samples were taken, registered low PFAS levels, Knappe said.

When the river flow rate was substantially lower that following September, the PFAS concentration was much higher – more than 800 nanograms, he said.

“This, of course, is very concerning,” he said.

Heather Stapleton, an environmental science professor at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, said tap water samples collected from the homes of participants in various areas of central North Carolina, including Cary, Durham, Chapel Hill, Pittsboro and Raleigh, as well as about a dozen in Wilmington, said the highest levels of PFAS were found in the tap water in Pittsboro.

Stapleton has been part of a research team studying the effectiveness of water filtration systems in removing PFAS.

Their study, published in February, found that the level of removal efficiency widely varied and that about half of the PFAS, on average, were removed.

“We do like to make the point that any filter is better than no filter,” Stapleton said.

She also encourages residents frequently change their filters.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, or CFPUA, is in the process of constructing eight granular activated carbon filters at its Sweeney Water Treatment Plant.

The nearly $43 million project could reduce PFAS levels by 90% at the plant, which provides about 80% of the drinking water to CFPUA customers, according to the authority’s website.

About 160,000 residents in the Cape Fear region get their drinking water from the public utility.

A study of GenX’s effects in pregnant mice and their offspring concluded that the chemical compound that has for years been discharged into the Cape Fear River, a drinking water source for thousands in the Wilmington and surrounding areas, caused gestational weight gain and maternal liver damage.

The study compared the toxicity of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA and GenX in pregnant mice and their developing placenta and embryos.

The research led by Bevin Blake, who at the time was earning her doctorate at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, found that PFOA and GenX had adverse effects, including abnormal lesions in mature placenta.

Suzanne Fenton, head of the National Toxicology Program’s Reproductive Endocrinology Group, discussed the results of the study Monday with the North Carolina Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board, which met online.

“We designed this study to be used in risk assessment,” Fenton said. “We blinded this study from the start, so animals were blindly assigned in this test group.”

Researchers involved in the study did not know which chemical compound they were giving the mice to ingest.

The study was one of two GenX-related research papers the science advisory board has been tasked with analyzing since finalizing its toxicological review in October 2018. That review helped establish the standard for GenX manufacturer Chemours’ proposed toxicity study.

The 16-member board assists North Carolina’s departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services by evaluating and identifying contaminants of concern.

Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility has been discharging GenX and other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, into the Cape Fear River and air since the 1980s.

As part of a 2019 consent order between DEQ, Cape Fear River Watch and Chemours, the chemical company must initiate a third-party study looking at the toxicity of up to five PFAS to human health and aquatic life.

The study will include mice and rats, as well as fish.

DEQ must approve the study plan, which must be submitted within 30 days of the consent order’s approval by a superior court judge.

The state last month made additions to the order, calling for the company to further reduce PFAS being discharged into the Cape fear River through groundwater contamination on the Fayetteville site.

Sheila Holman, DEQ’s assistant secretary for DEQ, said Monday that the newest measures mean more than 90% of PFAS going into the river from the site will be captured.

Public comments on the addendum to the consent order will be accepted through Sept. 17.

GenX vs. PFOA

GenX is the commonly used term for perfluoro-2-propoxypropanoic acid, a chemical compound produced to make Teflon, which is used to make nonstick coating surfaces for cookware.

The effects of GenX in humans remain widely unknown, though studies are currently being conducted by researchers throughout the state.

NCDHHS has established a health goal of 140 parts per trillion for GenX. There are no federal guidelines for the chemical compound.

Fenton said that researchers were surprised the effects of PFOA and GenX were similar at low doses.

“GenX did not accumulate in the liver to the extent that PFOA did,” she said.

They did, however, find that GenX significantly affected the maternal-embryo-placenta differently from PFOA. Male offspring of the test mice went on to develop metabolic disease.

Glucose and insulin levels were monitoring revealed increases in cholesterol and water weight gain.

“We hope (this study) will be used in any way that could be helpful to people living in the Wilmington area,” Fenton said.

Science advisory board member David Dorman, professor of toxicology at North Carolina State University, said the data from the two studies validate the board’s decisions leading up to the 2018 toxicological review.

“I’m really pleased seeing this type of research development,” he said. “I was struck by the description of the quality of the studies.”

N.C. State professor Detlef Knappe, who was part of the research group that in 2016 discovered elevated levels of GenX in the Cape Fear River, reminded the board that other chemicals need to be studied and that additional studies may be needed beyond what the board has contemplated.

The state is taking public comments until Sept. 17 on the latest steps to prevent GenX and other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from entering the Cape Fear River through contaminated groundwater from the Chemours’ Fayetteville Works Site.

The state Department of Environmental Quality and the Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch, announced Thursday — to the surprise of Cape Fear Public Utility Authority — an addendum to the consent order, which was finalized in February 2019 among DEQ, Cape Fear River Watch and Chemours.

Public comments can be submitted electronically NCDEQ by email at comments.chemours@ncdenr.gov or mailed to Assistant Secretary’s Office, RE: Chemours Public Comments 1601 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C. 27699-1601. DEQ will consider the public comments before the addendum is presented for entry by the Bladen County Superior Court.

“Since 2017, DEQ actions and the Consent Order have stopped the process wastewater discharge from the facility and drastically reduced air emissions of PFAS by 99.9%,” according to a Thursday release from the state. “The additional actions presented today in the Addendum to the Consent Order will further reduce the PFAS contamination to the Cape Fear River and improve water quality for downstream communities.”

The addendum will require Chemours to treat four identified seeps that account for more than half of the contaminated groundwater reaching the river in two phases.

“The interim measures to filter PFAS at an efficiency of at least 80% from the first of the four seeps will go into effect starting by Mid-November – with all four completed by April 2021. The permanent measure is the construction of a subsurface barrier wall approximately 1.5 miles long and groundwater extraction system that will remove at least 99% of PFAS to be completed by March 2023,” according to the state.

The addendum also requires Chemours to treat onsite stormwater that is adding residual pollution to the river with a capture and treatment system that must remove at least 99% of PFAS.

Failure to meet the schedules or achieve the removal goals will result in financial penalties. Penalties include the following:

• Failure to meet the construction schedule for the interim measures will result in fines of $5,000 per day for the first 14 days and $10,000/day until construction is complete.
• Failure to meet the barrier wall installation schedule results in a $150,000 fine followed by $20,000 per week until installation is complete.
• Failure to meet the barrier wall’s 95% mass loading goal in the initial demonstration results in a $500,000 fine, with a $100,000 fine for failure to meet any of the four subsequent demonstrations.

“We have already issued significant penalties and ordered Chemours to stop actively polluting. Today’s actions lay out exactly how Chemours will clean up the residual contamination they’ve caused that continues to impact communities along the Cape Fear River,” said DEQ Secretary Michael S. Regan Thursday in a statement. “This level of action is unprecedented and continues to build a foundation for the Attorney General’s broader investigation of PFAS in North Carolina. As a state, we will not wait for action from the federal government to provide relief for our communities and protect our natural resources.”

Attorney General Josh Stein announced last week a formal investigation into manufacturers and other parties responsible for PFAS contamination in North Carolina. Stein will expand his investigation into PFAS contamination to understand the extent of the damages to North Carolina’s natural resources caused by contamination from GenX and other PFAS chemicals and to further evaluate contamination elsewhere in the surface waters, soils, and groundwater of North Carolina.

“North Carolinians expect and deserve clean water to drink,” said Stein. “The emergence of forever chemicals like PFAS has led to significant and dangerous pollution – and we must hold those responsible accountable. This investigation is about protecting people from current and future PFAS contamination and restoring North Carolina’s damaged natural resources. My office will not hesitate to bring legal action against any polluters if that’s what it takes to keep the people of North Carolina safe.”

A statement Thursday from Chemours states that agreeing to the changes makes further commitments to reduce groundwater-related impacts from the site to the Cape Fear River, including implementing a groundwater extraction system and flow-through cells to treat the four groundwater seeps.

“Each of these have been identified as contributing PFAS mass loadings, and the systems once installed will reduce the annual mass loadings, including a long-term remedy objective for the seeps of reducing annual loadings by 99% during dry weather conditions and 95% including some rain events.”

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority officials found out Thursday from NCDEQ Assistant Secretary Sheila Holman and NCDEQ General Counsel Bill Lane that the agreement had been reached on the addendum to the consent order mandating steps Chemours must take to address years of PFAS releases from its chemical manufacturing site, according to CFPUA.

CFPUA explained that the staff and its attorneys, “who have been in ongoing discussions with the state regarding the consent order’s insufficient consideration for the interests of our customers,” were surprised by the information and that no mention was made of this addendum in those discussions.

CFPUA was not provided with an advance copy of the proposed addendum and provide additional comment on the details of the proposal in the coming days once staff has had an opportunity to review it in detail.

“It is disappointing that we and our customers have once again been excluded by the State from these discussions about a subject that is of vital interest to our community,” CFPUA Executive Director Jim Flechtner said in a statement.

“We have seen no evidence this or any of the steps proposed so far by Chemours will sufficiently improve water quality to the same level that the State has set as the standard for private well owners around Chemours’ site,” Flechtner continued. “We continue to be frustrated that our customers continue to be treated differently than people near the plant.”

On the heels of learning about the addendum, CFPUA provided DEQ with comments Monday on the draft wastewater discharge permit that Chemours requested.

According a news release from the state July 17, Chemours requested for the discharge of treated groundwater, stormwater and surface water from a stream on the southern portion of its property in order to reduce PFAS loading to the Cape Fear River and comply with the consent order.

“Chemours is required under the terms of paragraph 12(e) of the Consent Order to reduce by at least 99% PFAS in the groundwater flowing from the site through Old Outfall 002 into the Cape Fear River and downstream intakes,” per the state.

The treatment system must be operational by September 30, 2020, according to the Consent Order. “The system will treat groundwater that currently discharges without treatment into the river, and it is not designed for process wastewater from the facility. Since 2017, Chemours has been prohibited from discharging process wastewater into the Cape Fear River.”

CPFUA submitted comments on a draft permit “that would allow Chemours to discharge into the Cape Fear River as much as 1.58 million gallons of wastewater a day resulting from a treatment system the company says will reduce per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in surface water, stormwater, and groundwater from Chemours’ industrial site on the Cumberland-Bladen county line,” according to a release.

“Overall, we find the proposed discharge permit and treatment system are the latest in an ongoing succession of partial measures Chemours promises to undertake to fulfill its obligations under the February 2019 consent order meant to address decades of PFAS contamination in the Cape Fear River by Chemours and the company that created it, DuPont. Like so many of Chemours’ previous proposals under this consent order, the stated PFAS-reduction goals meant to benefit hundreds of thousands of downstream water users such as CFPUA’s customers fall far short of the far more specific, timely measures afforded a few thousand private well owners around the Chemours site,” the comments signed by Fletchner state.

Reprinted from Port City Daily

Preliminary data released last month by scientists at seven North Carolina universities showed the highest levels of “forever chemicals,” known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, were observed at the Cape Fear region’s main raw water supply at the Kings Bluff pump station on the Cape Fear River.

The high level was attributed to PFAS chemicals coming from discharges at the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant.

The team of scientists measured a total PFAS level of 425.5 parts per trillion, or ppt, at the station, only two points higher than the nearby Bladen Bluffs station, which only serves the Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, but nearly double the third-highest level found in Harnett County. It is important to note that these numbers only included the study’s first round of testing. A second round is in progress, which identified a preliminary PFAS level of 804.9 at Pittsboro’s water source.

The pumps at Kings Bluff supplies water to at least 350,000 people in New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties. The study measured untreated, raw water.

According to the FDA, there are nearly 5,000 types of PFAS, referred to as forever chemicals because of their inability to naturally break down once they are released into the environment. They are man-made chemicals that include PFOA, PFOS and GenX and have been used for U.S. manufacturing since the 1940s.

Currently, only several PFAS chemicals have official health advisory levels and even these are guidelines, not enforceable regulations. Further, while researchers believe PFAS chemicals may impact the human body in similar ways, there’s limited research on what cumulative effects of multiple PFAS might be.

In other words, it’s not clear if drinking water with 10 ppt each of two separate chemicals is more toxic, less toxic or the same as ingesting water with 20 ppt of a single chemical.

The scientists’ first round of sampling was conducted at 405 sites across the state, according to Duke University chemist Lee Ferguson, who along with Detlef Knappe at North Carolina State University generated the data set.

“This was essentially every municipal water supply as well as some county water supplies across the state,” Ferguson said.

State lawmakers funded the creation of the NC PFAS Testing Network address the presence of the toxic chemicals in the state’s drinking water. The network is a collaboration of scientists from Duke University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Wilmington, NC State, University of North Carolina Charlotte, East Carolina University and North Carolina A&T university. The group was charged with measuring concentrations of known PFAS compounds and also surveying for a non-targeted analysis of overall PFAS levels at the sites.

The scientists are currently conducting a second round of testing account for variability in PFAS levels that can change due to rain, which causes lower PFAS concentrations due to the dilution of the water, and drought conditions that can cause higher PFAS concentrations, along with other factors. They aim to complete the second round of testing by April 2021, according to Ferguson.

Pender County relies on inconsistent state testing

The first-round data showed Pender County’s raw water supply to be the highest in the state; however, this is simply a matter of the small variability that existed when testing the same water that supplies New Hanover and Brunswick counties on different days.

Ferguson said a total PFAS level of 425.5 ppt is “very high for drinking water,” although he emphasized the water was not yet treated.

“For North Carolina drinking water, raw water samples that we’ve measured, that would definitely be considered high … It certainly gives me pause when it comes to the safety and health of the water for drinking purposes,” Ferguson said.

Although the Pender County Utilities, or PCU, water treatment plant uses a granulated activated carbon filtering system, the same process that CFPUA chose as their preferred option for water filtering, it does not perform its own tests on its treated water. Instead, it relies on the state to test for PFAS levels in its treated water.

But the state only tests for three known compounds — GenX, PFOA and PFOS — Brunswick County measures 49 compounds and Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, CFPUA, measures 42 compounds. The reason the state tests for PFOA and PFOS is because it has set a combined level health advisory, which is not enforceable in any way, of 70 ppt for those compounds.

From September to December last year, the state’s Division of Water Resources observed a significant drop-off in GenX, PFOA and PFOS of Pender’s treated water.

Levels of PFAS Chemicals in Pender’s Treated Water, measured in parts per trillion, ppt:

According to PCU Director Kenny Keel, the drop-off was likely due, in part, to a replacement of the filters in October, which is typically done twice a year. But he later added that PFAS levels in the region had also likely dropped.

“It appears that all other systems in the area have seen decreased PFAS levels since November, which leads me to think there has been a decrease in the levels in the river since that time,” Keel said.

Asked if the county was surprised by the preliminary results published by the NC PFAS Testing Network, Pender County spokesperson Tammy Proctor emphasized that the data only showed measurements of raw water on one specific day.

“Even in ‘raw water,’ the sum of PFOS and PFOA is less than 70 PPT as well as GenX,” Proctor said, noting that PCU will “continue to test all water according to state and federal guidelines.”

But before the filters were replaced in October, the combined PFOA-PFOS level was 77 ppt, over the state’s health advisory level. When adding GenX, the level of only three PFAS contaminants in the treated water was 117 ppt.

Because the amount of total PFAS in Pender’s raw water supply has been measured at 425.5 ppt by the university scientists, there is reason to believe the total PFAS level of its treated water in September 2019 was higher than 117 ppt.

“Now, this is a sum total concentration for all the PFAS that we can measure, but still, I consider that to be a risky water (supply) with respect to PFAS exposure, if you think about cumulative exposure,” Ferguson said.

And while Brunswick tests weekly, the state’s testing of Pender’s treated water is inconsistent. For instance, between March and June of last year, 12 tests were conducted. But there were no tests between June 7 and August 9. And over the past fourteen months, the state has only conducted 10 tests of PCU’s treated water, the last in early May.

Furthermore, the county is not publishing those results to its customers, as is done by Brunswick and New Hanover.

“All data will appear in NCDEQ databases,” Proctor said when asked.

‘A large-scale reconnaissance’

As is the case with any water analysis study, the NC PFAS Testing Network method isn’t perfect, mainly because of the large variability it has found in certain areas of the state. Such variabilities can exist from rainfall, drought conditions, sediment being kicked up from the bottom of the rivers during storms, or chemical releases from upriver plants on certain days.

Ferguson acknowledged that time variability is “certainly a big issue particularly in surface water supplies,” as opposed to well water, but the second round of testing is intended to help find more accurate PFAS levels.

But even with a second round now in the works, an average of multiple samples over time would be needed to provide more accurate measurements.

In Pittsboro, for instance, first-round testing on April 9, 2019, showed a total PFAS level of only 54.3 ppt. But testing performed during the second round, which occurred on Septe. 5, showed a total PFAS level of 804.9, nearly double the level recorded for Pender County, the first round’s highest measurement, and nearly 15 times larger than the first measurement taken at the same Pittsboro site five months earlier.

Ultimately, however, the study encompasses such a large area, with 405 water providers, that its main purpose appears to be as a statewide warning indicator versus an in-depth analysis of each site over time, analyses that can be performed frequently by local utility providers, as shown by Brunswick County in its weekly tests.

“Our monitoring study is intended to be a large-scale reconnaissance to identify PFAS problem areas in the state, and we anticipate that utilities that have elevated PFAS in their supplies will conduct more frequent monitoring efforts for these compounds going forward,” Ferguson said.

Frequent monitoring is especially important for a region that draws water downriver from the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant. Last week the plant announced sediment had spilled into the river, causing the state Department of Environmental Quality to investigate the incident. While Brunswick and New Hanover counties conducted tests shortly after the announcement, there is no indication that the state measured Pender’s treated water for GenX or other contaminants in response.

Although Chemours later said the apparent increase in sediment flow into the river was actually the result of natural river conditions, not the company’s construction work, the incident does show the importance of local water providers quickly responding to such incidents.

For Pender County, the question seems to be why they are not performing PFAS measurements itself, which would provide more frequent observations of a larger set of PFAS contaminants. Its plant’s filtration system is more advanced than Brunswick’s, which only uses a traditional filtering system (although it plans to build a $137-million reverse osmosis filtration system by sometime in 2023).

But the higher PFAS levels found last summer, before it replaced its filters and before regional PFAS levels also appear to have dropped, shows that increasing tests would provide a more accurate overview of the plant’s filtration effectiveness at any given time.

This story is provided courtesy of Port City Daily, an online news source for Wilmington and the Cape Fear region, including New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties. Coastal Review Online is partnering with Port City Daily to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

Summer on the Outer Banks is in full swing. Even in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, Netflix’s hit show “Outer Banks” and Forbes’ listing the OBX as number one in the “20 Top Places Americans Are Dreaming About Right Now” have put the barrier islands on the global radar.

Lee Nettles, executive director of the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau, said that according to the bureau’s website traffic, the Outer Banks are drawing people from areas with higher rates of the virus. These numbers show that the Outer Banks may be perceived as a “safer vacation option,” he said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s  COVID Data Tracker shows that there are higher rates of total coronavirus cases in places like New York, New Jersey, Florida and Georgia states from which the CDC’s website shows Outer Banks visitors may be traveling.

This correlation “suggests people who live in those markets want to get out of those markets for vacation,” Nettles said. Other visitors to the Outer Banks this summer come from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

In response to the virus, the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau created the Outer Banks Tourism Pledge, which encourages everyone to “Be Safe. Be Smart. Have Fun.” More than 100 businesses have promised to take specific steps that will best keep their employees and customers safe. Website users can click on the listings to see those steps.

The pledge also encourages visitors to do their part to keep the Outer Banks safe. “It takes everybody, not just locals,” Nettles told Coastal Review Online.

The way in which businesses have been handling the county’s mask mandate varies. In Nags Head, Morning View Coffee House & Roastery is serving customers at the door, while SeaGreen Gallery still allows customers inside as long as they follow the guidelines.

Duck’s Cottage Coffee & Books in Duck rerouted their foot traffic, as well as put markings on the floor to help customers know where they should go. They have stationed an employee at the door to make sure that there are only six customers inside at any given time.

“People have absolutely been responding positively to the changes,” said Allen Lehew, owner of Duck’s Cottage. They have encouraged larger families to send one person inside to order for everyone, so while their “transactions are down, (their) dollars are up.”

Currituck County Travel and Tourism Director Tameron Kugler at the county visitor center in Moyock told Coastal Review Online that the county-operated Whalehead Club in Corolla is operating directly under Currituck County’s mandates as well as the state’s.

While the tourism bureau’s administration buildings remained closed to the public, services such as county permits for four-wheel-drive beach parking are being sold outside with protection and social distancing measures in place. Officials ask that face masks be worn.

The Whalehead Club has protocols for disinfecting, once it’s allowed to reopen, and while the tourism staff say they miss their interaction with visitors, Kugler said that they “need to make sure everyone is safe.”

Visitors appear to be taking these new measures in stride. Laura Hobson from Mechanicsville, Virginia, is staying with a friend who lives in Colington.

“I’m kind of on the fence with (wearing a mask) but I understand it and it is for everybody’s protection,” she said. “If you want me to wear it, I’m going to wear it.”

“I’m kind of on the fence with (wearing a mask) but I understand it and it is for everybody’s protection.”

Laura Hobson, Outer Banks vacationer

Hobson said she has been limiting the times that she goes to the grocery store.

“We try and go during the least-busy times. (We use) lots of Clorox wipes, lots of hand sanitizer,” she said. “It’s pretty normal for us anyway to do a lot of hand washing.”

Another visitor, Mary from Chesapeake, Virginia, said she has been coming to the Outer Banks every year since she was a child.

“(I’m using) tons of hand sanitizer and hand washing,” she said. “I keep my wipes with me everywhere I go, so just a lot of practices of being clean, not touching my face with my hands, just the basic stuff that they recommend.”

She said she had noticed the changes that businesses have made and the measures that they have taken.

“My coffee shop (is different) – you can’t go inside. Masks or no masks, you’ve got to order outside,” she said. “I went into Owen’s (Restaurant) the other night and there was no wait. It was dead. I’m not used to that but it was nice to not have to wait, but sad for the businesses.”

There is a personal reason that Mary wears her mask.

“I’m torn (about the mask mandates) but you know, if they say it’s protecting someone else – my father’s 89 – I would want to protect the elderly,” she said. “If this is doing my part I’m fine with it.”

Kelly Nettnin, communications specialist at the Dare County Department of Health & Human Services, told Coastal Review Online that although, based on observation, it seems more people are wearing masks per Gov. Roy Cooper’s mandate announced June 24, the county office has been getting complaints about individuals not wearing masks.

Those not wearing masks are both Outer Banks residents and visitors alike.

“This is so important to stress as on social media there is a lot of finger-pointing to visitors not complying,” Nettnin said.

Also, contact tracing is made more difficult when individuals do not give accurate information regarding other individuals with whom they have been in close contact.

“The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact has been a significant one. It has been difficult and created hardships on many different levels for so many different people,” she said. “There isn’t a handbook on how to respond to COVID-19, and our response in Dare County can only be as good as the information we receive and the amount of individuals that are following the recommendations.”

She said that it can be disheartening to hear of people who do not comply with the recommendations, or who refuse to cooperate with contact tracing.

“What I try to remember is there are a lot of unknowns and people are scared, and when people are scared, they may act out of character.”

In some circumstances, Nettnin said, “police are giving citations if citizens are not complying with the mask mandate.” It is important to note that citations are not given to individuals “who cannot comply due to age, disability or health issue.”

She encourages people to follow the Three Ws and wear their masks, wash their hands, and wait 6 feet apart.

“The most important thing people can do to protect themselves and their loved ones is to follow the Three Ws and not attend mass gatherings of more than 10 individuals indoors and more than 25 outdoors.”

Plans for the school year

Businesses are not alone in taking new measures against the virus. Schools in Dare and Currituck counties are also figuring out how to operate under the new guidelines, looking towards the fall.

On July 14, Gov. Cooper announced that schools will be operating under an updated Plan B that provides safety protocols for children who come to school in person. It also gives school districts the opportunity to provide remote learning for children who prefer it. Complete remote learning will be an option for any school district who chooses it.

Currituck County Assistant Superintendent Secondary Instruction Renee Dowdy said that school officials are “anxiously optimistic” and are cautiously moving forward. Both parents and teachers are concerned, but everyone’s main focus is to provide that “hugely important education” while following Cooper’s guidance.

Dare County Schools Digital Communications and Secondary School Director Keith Parker explained that Superintendent John Farrelly, the senior leadership team and school administrators have spent the past month working on procedures for this fall to fit all three plans that the governor’s office developed.

Hybrids of the state Department of Public Instruction’s Plan B were presented to the Dare County Board of Education during its special meeting Monday.

During the meeting, the board adopted a plan that calls for remote learning until the end of the first quarter of the school year, Oct 23, with a decision to be made at that time on whether to begin in-person instruction.

“These hybrid choices were created to best meet the needs of students, take into account feedback from (Dare County Schools) staff and parents/guardians, and feasibility within DCS, and state regulations,” Parker said in an email Sunday.

School officials said during the meeting Monday that their concerns included maintaining staffing once schools reopen.

“We are concerned about a higher need for substitutes with less substitute availability,” Farrelly told the school board Monday.

Two options have been added to incorporate Plan C, or remote learning only, based on the state guidelines should the district choose to go that route.

“Providing safe, healthy, and effective instructional program options that meet state requirements is our top priority,” Parker said.

Coastal Review Online staff contributed to this report.

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

John Wolfe doesn’t know what else he can do to protect himself against the coronavirus.

The Wilmington boat captain follows all of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. He wears a mask and requires tourists on his boat to do the same. He practices social distancing and washes his hands frequently.

But Wolfe, like thousands of others who live downstream of the Chemours chemical plant on the Cape Fear River, worries that he may be more susceptible to the coronavirus.

He has reason to be concerned.

Late last month, the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry released a report saying studies suggest that exposure to high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — commonly referred to as PFAS or “forever chemicals” — could suppress the immune system and increase the risk of getting COVID-19 and the severity of infection.

Studies have also shown that exposure to PFAS could reduce the effectiveness of childhood vaccines and adult flu vaccines.

The agency’s report was followed by an opinion piece from some of the nation’s leading PFAS researchers, including Jamie DeWitt of East Carolina University. The article was published July 6 in Environmental Health News.

“Most concerning during this global pandemic … is that exposure to PFAS suppresses the ability of the immune system to make antibodies — the part of the immune system critically important in fighting COVID-19 and other infectious agents,” the article states. “Our studies have found that laboratory animals exposed to PFAS have decreased antibodies, verifying what we have seen in PFAS-exposed people and making us confident that PFAS are toxic to the immune system.”

Blood tests show high PFAS levels

PFAS, a class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been in use since the 1940s to make products nonstick, waterproof or stain-resistant. They’re used in rain jackets, carpets, upholstery, cookware, fast-food packaging, dental floss and much more.

DuPont — and Chemours since 2015 — produced PFAS either as a product or a byproduct at a chemical plant near the banks of the Cape Fear River in Bladen County. The Wilmington Star-News disclosed in June 2017 that high levels of GenX and other PFAS had been found in the drinking water for New Hanover, Pender and Brunswick counties.

Wolfe knows that his blood contains high levels of a few of the estimated 5,000 PFAS that exist. He has the results of blood tests conducted by North Carolina State University  and released them to the public in November 2018 to prove it.

Researchers at N.C. State took tap water samples and drew blood from Wolfe and 344 other people living in the Lower Cape Fear River Basin. They found that the levels of certain types of PFAS were much higher in Wilmington than in the United States as a whole. Wolfe’s test results came back higher than the median for all of the study’s participants.

On Tuesday, Wolfe said he had just read the opinion piece linking PFAS to the coronavirus.

“My first thought when I read that article was like, ‘Of course, of course it does. Why wouldn’t it? It already does everything else that’s terrible for you. Let’s just throw this on the pile,’” he said.

According to the CDC, a large number of studies suggest that PFAS could cause an increased risk of testicular or kidney cancer, increased cholesterol levels, decreased vaccine response in children, changes in liver enzymes, increased risk of high blood pressure or preeclampsia in pregnant women and small decreases in infant birth weights.

Wolfe’s blood test found elevated levels of a particularly concerning type of PFAS called Nafion by-product 2, which has been used in the manufacturing process by both Chemours and DuPont. It has been found in tap water downstream of the chemical plant and in private wells surrounding it.

Wolfe said his blood tests revealed that he has a concentration of Nafion by-product 2 of 5.5 parts per trillion, double the median of everyone who participated in the testing.

A new study published in ScienceDirect found that the livers of mice given high doses of Nafion by-product 2 more than doubled in size compared with a control group.

Filtration systems coming

It’s estimated that 200,000 people get their drinking water from the Cape Fear River below the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant. The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which provides water to New Hanover County residents, is preparing to spend $46 million on a granular activated carbon filtration system that is expected to remove most of the PFAS in the finished water it delivers to customers. The system is scheduled to go online in early 2022.

Nearby, Brunswick County plans to spend $137 million on a reverse osmosis filtration system, completion of which appears to have been delayed until May 2023. Both utilities have filed lawsuits against Chemours and DuPont seeking reimbursement for the costs of installing the purification systems.

There are no federal or state standards for PFAS in drinking water. In 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set a health advisory for two of the oldest PFAS — known as PFOA and PFOS — at 70 parts per trillion, either by themselves or in combination. North Carolina set a provisional health advisory of 140 parts per trillion in drinking water for GenX. None of those advisories is legally enforceable, and no other PFAS have health advisories.

Private wells also contain PFAS

People living below the Chemours plant who get their drinking water from the Cape Fear River aren’t the only ones in North Carolina dealing with exposure to PFAS in their drinking water.

More than 3,000 homes surrounding the plant have been found to have PFAS in their well water. That contamination, which extends at least 10 miles from the plant, was deposited through the air by DuPont and Chemours and seeped into the groundwater.

Last month, N.C. State released findings of testing on wells and tap water of 85 homes in the stricken area. Of those, 70 were found to contain GenX — 33 at levels above the state’s health guideline. Researchers found that wells containing high levels of GenX also contained high levels of other PFAS.

The researchers drew blood samples from residents, but those results aren’t yet available because the university’s labs had remained closed during the pandemic.

PFAS hotspots in the state

There are other hotspots of PFAS contamination in North Carolina. The NC PFAS Testing Network just released a complete data set of testing it conducted at 320 municipal water utilities in the state.

Of those, nearly half had levels of PFAS above the reporting detection level, according to a July 1 article by NC Policy Watch. The network is part of the NC Policy Collaboratory, a consortium of seven universities funded through grants and the General Assembly.

The network found Pittsboro’s water supply to have the highest concentration of all types of PFAS measured — a whopping 844.8 parts per trillion. The contamination is believed to be coming largely from industries that discharge into the Haw River upstream of Pittsboro and from an airport in Greensboro.

Researchers at Duke University are conducting studies of blood from Pittsboro residents, and the town has established a task force to help determine the best way to remedy the situation.

Network findings

Data from the PFAS Testing Network show that 10 municipal water plants in the state had total PFAS concentrations above 100 parts per trillion.

• Pender County: 425.5
• Bladen Bluffs: 423.5
• Wilmington: 406
• Harnett County: 217.5
• Bladen West: 144.5
• Fayetteville: 115
• Cary: 110.6
• Bladen East: 107.4
• Aurora: 104.3
• Harris Nuclear Plant: 102

For a complete set of the data, click here: https://ncpfastnetwork.com/data-and-tools/

The state Department of Environmental Quality says residents should avoid drinking water that has any individual PFAS measuring above 10 parts per trillion.

Of the 405 samples taken by the collaboratory at the municipal treatment plants, 42 had a single PFAS measuring above 10 parts per trillion, according to NC Policy Watch. None of the samples found GenX, PFOA or PFOS at levels above the federal and state health guidelines.

Regulating PFAS as a class

The EPA says it continues to address the problems caused by PFAS contamination across the country, including efforts to set maximum contaminant levels for the substances.

But DeWitt, the ECU researcher who has been studying PFAS for 15 years, and other scientists say PFAS need to be federally regulated as a single class. They make that argument in a study published on June 30 in Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

“To date, managing the risk of PFAS has focused primarily on one chemical at a time, or a small group of PFAS,” the study says. “This approach has not been effective at controlling widespread exposure to this large group of chemicals with known and potential hazards.

“The more we study PFAS, the more we learn about the harm they can do to our health and the environment. However, it is not possible to thoroughly assess every individual PFAS, or combination of PFAS, for their full range of effects in a reasonable time frame. Without effective risk management action around the entire class of PFAS, these chemicals will continue to accumulate and cause harm to human health and ecosystems for generations to come.”

New PFAS research center

Some, including Gov. Roy Cooper, argue that the EPA isn’t moving fast enough to limit the danger posed by PFAS.

Wolfe, the Wilmington boat captain, feels the same way. He is angry at DuPont and Chemours and thinks they should be required to clean up the contamination they caused.

“I’m concerned for my health. I’m concerned for my family’s health. Why should this be my problem, you know? What failed in the system to allow this to happen the way that it did?” he said.

Wolfe is also frustrated about the coronavirus and the idea that PFAS could make him more susceptible to the disease.

DeWitt and other scientists can’t definitively answer the question of whether people with high exposure to PFAS are more susceptible to COVID-19. No studies on people have been done to confirm what the researchers believe is true.

But DeWitt hinted that that could soon change.

In March, N.C. State announced that it has received a $7.4 million federal grant to establish the Center for Environmental and Human Health Effects of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS).

The center will bring together researchers from N.C. State and East Carolina University to study PFAS toxicity and bioaccumulation. It is expected to become operational in the fall. When it does, DeWitt said she’ll be ready to go to work.

“One of the questions that I will be asking, is just that — why do PFAS suppress the ability of the immune system to make antibodies?” she said.

Mike Watters, administrator for the advocacy group Gray’s Creek Residents United Against PFAS in our Wells and Rivers, sent a letter dated June 23 to N.C. State professor Jane Hoppin supporting research into the possible link between PFAS exposure and the coronavirus.

Watters’ group has more than 2,400 members, most living just north of the Chemours plant. Hoppin has been the lead researcher in N.C. State’s GenX Exposure Study. Watters said he wrote his letter to support Hoppin’s quest for additional grant funding.

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

A New Hanover Regional Medical Center committee weighed options for the future of the Wilmington-based hospital system last week as the county seeks a partner to back the hospital, one of the largest in the southeastern region. 

In a series of meetings last week, three contenders for partnership — Duke Health, Atrium Health and Novant Health — discussed their visions for the Wilmington-based health system, with options ranging from an outright sale to a long-term lease. New Hanover Regional officials have said repeatedly that they are not necessarily looking for someone to purchase the hospital, but rather to explore partnership opportunities that will help New Hanover better care for the community.

At 647 beds, as of the state’s last count, New Hanover Regional is the largest county-owned system in North Carolina. New Hanover’s decision to affiliate or even sell has sparked impassioned debate in the community about local control of health resources, with many citizens urging for remaining independent.

New Hanover officials previously said partnership with a larger health system could strengthen capacity and provide a cushion from the financial uncertainties of North Carolina’s health care market.

New Hanover convened the Partnership Advisory Group, a 21-member body, to study the options and make recommendations to the county board of commissioners, who will eventually vote on the hospital’s future. 

In recent months, the advisory group narrowed down its options to six contenders, among them UNC Health, which along with its medical school, partners with New Hanover Regional on medical education programs. Though the advisory group sought information on the three systems who presented this week, the advisors did not totally eliminate the other organizations it did not invite to present. 

The Partnership Advisory Group plans to hold a public hearing on the proposals on Monday, June 22. The group will then make recommendations to the hospital’s board of trustees and the county commissioners. There will be additional public hearings on the proposal that move forward, but the final decision rests with the county board of commissioners.

We’ve summarized each of the three contenders’ proposals below, but their full plans and recorded presentations are available on the NHRMC Future website. 

Duke HealthWho are they? Duke Health is based at the Triangle, with hospitals in Raleigh and Durham and ambulatory and outpatient clinics in central and eastern North Carolina and southern Virginia. The second-largest employer in North Carolina, Duke is renowned for its medical school and clinical research capabilities. Duke does not own any hospitals in the eastern part of the state, and its nearest clinics to Wilmington are in Lumberton and Holly Springs, almost two hours away. 

What partnership structure do they want? Duke prefers to buy New Hanover, but is open to other agreements, according to the proposal. The system has offered $500 million in cash during closing and at least $1.9 billion for improvements over the next 12 years. Alternatively, Duke Health can pay the county upwards of $1.35 billion upfront. 

What are they proposing? Duke officials highlighted the financial stability they can bring to New Hanover, saying they have not furloughed or let go of any employees amidst the financial pressures of the coronavirus pandemic. Duke stated its commitment to partnering with community-based organizations and bolstering research opportunities and medical training programs in Wilmington.

If selected, Duke officials stressed that they would retain New Hanover Regional’s senior leadership and all employees in good standing for at least a year. Under the proposal, Duke said it would invest “significant resources” in improving and expanding New Hanover’s programs, technology and facilities, with the goal of turning the hospital into a destination medical center for patients from all over.

What will the proposal do to New Hanover’s existing partnerships? Duke Health’s proposal said it intends to retain New Hanover Regional’s medical education partnership with UNC Health and the UNC medical school. It also indicated that it would keep the physician group’s relationship with Atrium. However, UNC Health has already told NHRMC that the health education would end if New Hanover pursues partners other than UNC. Duke officials later issued an addendum to the proposal, saying that the university and hospital system is committed to creating and expanding medical education as well as clinical research opportunities in Wilmington. 

Novant Health

Who are they? Based in Winston-Salem, Novant Health has 15 medical centers and more than 600 clinics and ambulatory facilities, including in Charlotte, Winston-Salem, the Triangle, northern Virginia, and in Brunswick County, just south of where NHRMC sits. Novant already has ties with New Hanover Regional through the Brunswick County facility, according to the proposal. 

What partnership structure do they want? Novant is proposing to explore several options, ranging from an affiliation, in which the Wilmington system will retain some, but not all of its local control, to a management agreement, where Novant oversees operations, but New Hanover remains county-owned. Novant has also floated other options, such as forming a separate company that would have either partial or full control over the hospital. Under each arrangement, Novant pledges to deliver “significant” funding for capital improvements. If the parties pursue affiliation, the capital improvements would total $60 million a year for “the foreseeable future.” Novant would also make a one-time contribution of $50 million to New Hanover’s foundation and pay $1.5 billion at closing.

What are they proposing? Novant officials highlighted their commitment to health care access, and to diversity and inclusion, with plans of turning New Hanover into an “eastern flagship” facility on par with population centers such as Charlotte and Winston-Salem, officials said this week. By partnering with UNC Health and the UNC School of Medicine, Novant proposes to preserve and deepen the medical education program in Wilmington. 

A UNC official who also attended the meeting said that UNC intends to develop a UNC health sciences campus in Wilmington, which will include training programs in pharmacy, dental and other specialties, among other improvements. UNC and its medical school also want to increase the number of residents it assigns to the hospital system. The parties plan to sign a letter of intent that cements these commitments in the coming days.

What will the proposal do to New Hanover’s existing partnerships? Novant wants to ultimately transition the physician group away from the partnership with Atrium. The partnership between Novant, UNC and the medical school would ensure the hospital’s medical education program will remain intact. 

Atrium Health

Who are they? Headquartered in Charlotte, Atrium is a quasi-governmental network of 40 hospitals and 900 clinics, with locations in Georgia and the Carolinas. Atrium is the largest mental health provider in the state and the largest provider of psychiatric emergency room services in the Southeast, according to the proposal. The organization already manages New Hanover Regional’s physician group. It also employs most of the 207 physicians in the group. Atrium announced a merger with Wake Forest Baptist Health and Wake Forest University last year, meaning that the system will have a medical school that could potentially replace UNC’s medical education program if New Hanover Regional chooses the partnership. 

What partnership structure do they want? Atrium proposes a long-term lease, which would initially run for 40 years. The county would maintain ownership and control, with Atrium sharing in the hospital’s revenues. Atrium would also pay a one-time fee of $50 million at closing and $28 million a year for 30 years, with a different fee for the remaining 10 years. The Charlotte-based health system also pledged to invest $2.17 billion over 40 years in capital and would create a $150 million community foundation to support New Hanover Regional’s health initiatives. Under the proposal, New Hanover County can sell the hospital at any time throughout the agreement and all decisions would remain local. 

What are they proposing? Atrium has stressed that New Hanover Regional could remain county-owned, with the right support, something that could address the concerns of some local community groups that have organized to oppose any sale of the hospital. Under the partnership, New Hanover’s children’s hospital, cancer center and orthopedic hospital will be integrated with Atrium’s existing network, so patients could access specialty care and clinical trials locally. Atrium officials argued at this week’s meeting that medical advancements the system would bring could turn Wilmington into a medical tourism destination.

Atrium’s proposal also outlines investments in the seven-county region New Hanover Regional serves, including the construction of a $120 million behavioral health and addiction medicine facility in Wilmington. 

What will the proposal do to New Hanover’s existing partnerships? Atrium commits to maintaining the medical education relationship with UNC Health for at least five years, according to the proposal. For the following five years, Atrium’s proposal would be to create a medical education program with Wake Forest University School of Medicine. But if UNC and New Hanover Regional choose to end the relationship early, Atrium said in an addendum that it could establish a Wake Forest Baptist campus in Wilmington. Atrium’s relationship with NHRMC Medical Group and will continue if the proposal is selected.

This story is provided courtesy of North Carolina Health News, a website covering health and environmental news in North Carolina. Coastal Review Online is partnering with North Carolina Health News to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

The beaches are open, and locals as well as out-of-towners, all eager to escape the confines of their home, are heading to their favorite beach. Perhaps the lure of sun and surf has never been so enticing as folks yearn for some fun, freedom and escape from the restrictions imposed during COVID-19 lockdown.

The good news is that the beach is a great place to be. The chances of getting infected from COVID-19 are low, as the ocean breeze disperses the droplets that contain the virus, according to Frank Scholle, associate professor in biological sciences at North Carolina State University.

However, to keep the virus in check, it’s essential that all beachgoers practice social distancing. Otherwise, we could see outbreaks such as those that occurred in Florida in February, warned Cameron Wolfe, associate professor in Duke University’s infectious disease division.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that people will recognize they all have a responsibility to do a good job with some level of social distancing, and we can open the beaches and do it safely,” he said. “If we forget all the lessons learned in the last three months, I have anxiety.”

Last weekend, beachgoers seemed to be taking social distancing seriously. Most kept a good 6 feet or more of sand between themselves and other families. Many planned to move to another spot if their area became congested or to go to another beach altogether.

“We’re staying away from everyone,” said Dan Bruno, a Wilmington native who was at Wrightsville Beach with his daughter Sunday morning. “It’s really important that everyone adhere to some kind of rules.”

Many beaches, including those at Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, Surf City and on the Outer Banks, took measures to ensure the beaches were safe. Lifeguards, police, National Guard members or volunteers patrolled the beaches and reminded families to stay 6 feet from other groups and to follow the ordinances each town has enacted.

“Many tourists don’t know that they need to practice social distancing at the beach,” explained Sheila Nicholson, executive assistant to Carolina Beach’s town manager. “It’s an educational process.”

Regardless of parental or official admonitions, social distancing proved to be hard for some children. A few little ones ran right up to strangers, and others regularly traded sand pails and shovels. Some young people shared cell phones and sodas.

To ensure children stay safe, Lisa Brown, New Hanover County’s public preparedness coordinator, recommended explaining to children what they can and cannot do before visiting the beach and determining whether they can handle the environment.

“You have to know your family and how good they are going to be at social distancing,” said Brown.

Though no one was wearing a mask at the beach — there is that issue of a really funky tan line – health officials said it’s not a bad idea, especially if the beach is crowded.

Another recommendation is to keep beach trips short. This may be a necessity as numerous beaches have closed public bathrooms. Those that are open should be avoided, said Scholle.

“Bathrooms, especially on the beach, are not the cleanest, and it’s a small space,” he added.

Further, the longer people are at the beach, the more comfortable they become, said Brown. That’s when they may let down their guard and forego social distancing.

Another time when people relax is when they leave the beach. Looking at the activity in coastal communities Sunday, it was easy to forget there’s a pandemic. People crowded the streets of Wrightsville Beach, riding bikes, strolling along the sidewalks and passing within 2 or 3 feet of each other. Long lines formed for Carolina Beach’s Britt’s Donuts, where people sort-of social distanced from each other.

These are common and expected behaviors when beachgoers take a break from the seashore for some food, drinks or conviviality. That’s also when it’s most likely the virus will spread, said Wolfe.

“The beach isn’t the problem,” Wolfe said. “It’s what people do outside the beach. They crowd the ice cream vendor, sit down in close proximity in a restaurant beside the beach. Thirty people gathering and sharing large drinks is not social distancing.”

Instead, Wolfe recommended that people bring their own food, separate utensils for everyone in the family and take hand sanitizer to the beach. He also reminded beachgoers to keep social distancing in mind. They may also want to wear masks for that extra bit of protection.

If last weekend was an indication, beach popularity is at a record high. Surf City was as crowded as it was on July Fourth in years past, said Denise Lippert, administrative assistant for the Surf City Police Department.

Public parking at Carolina Beach was filled by 12:30 p.m., said Nicholson. The beaches will likely be as busy or busier during the long Memorial Day weekend.

“We could see quite a surge,” Brown said. “It’s great weather, and people are tired of being cooped up.”

To keep everyone safe, in addition to taking the precautions mentioned above, residents and visitors alike should be prepared to adjust their beach plans, Brown said. Their Plan B could be moving to another, less crowded beach or going to a park for part of the day.

“Be ready to be flexible,” Brown said. “Don’t put yourself in a higher area of risk.”

Additionally, those planning Memorial Day gatherings for family and friends should take steps to minimize the risk of the virus spreading. Brown recommended limiting gatherings to 10 people or fewer, holding the event in a park so people can spread out and ensuring the gathering lasts only a few hours rather than all day.

If someone must hold a gathering at their home, the host should determine if everyone will use the same restroom and how the interior of the home will be kept sanitized.

“We must plan ahead, think through the potential risks, and how to manage or avoid them,” Brown said.

Over the last few months, families have been staying home to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 at great cost, especially financially, and measures have been put in place both by the governor and electric cooperatives along the coast for families to keep the lights on.

During this slowdown, researchers, who acknowledge that the pandemic has caused untold hardships for families, noted that during the time the stay-at-home order has been in effect, air quality had improved due to the drop in energy demand. They say water quality could improve similarly.

Gov. Roy Cooper put in place the 30-day, stay-at-home order that went into effect March 30 to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in North Carolina.  The order was extended to May 8, when Cooper began the first, two-week phase of a three-phase plan to reopen the state.

Cooper also issued an executive order to help families with their electric bill.

“Our region has been substantially impacted by COVID-19, BEMC is listening to all of our members and catering programs and plans to the needs of our members,” Corey Thurlow, chief operations officer for Brunswick Electric Membership Corp., told Coastal Review Online. He added that Brunswick Electric, which has 76,000 members, made the decision March 15 to suspend disconnects and waive late fees and penalties on all past due accounts in an effort to help members.

Cooper issued an executive order that expires May 31 requiring all utilities to suspend disconnects and waive late fees and penalties. Utility customers are to be given at least six months to repay any amounts owed during the period under the executive order. Utilities regularly report data to the North Carolina Utilities Commission on the number and type of accounts that are past due and the related past-due amounts, Thurlow explained.

“Currently about 6% of our accounts have past due balances with the average past due balance being around $155. We project that at the end of May when executive order is lifted approximately 7% of our accounts will have past due balances, with the average being $195. With a six-month repayment arrangement, the average amount would be $33 per month,” he said. “After the executive order is lifted, we will be working with our members to establish repayment arrangements that are fair to both them and the cooperative membership as a whole.”

Regarding usage, Thurlow said that after adjusting for weather fluctuations, there haven’t been large spikes in usage.

“We did see a typical morning peak move closer to the middle of the day, due to people staying in their residences,” he said. “Small business sales have been impacted, with consumption moving slightly over to residential. Considering weather, the overall sales have been pretty flat.”

Lisa Galizia, communications director with Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative, said that with children home from school, people working from home, or even out of work, there have been increases in residential energy use. “But fortunately, we have had mild weather, which means most people are not needing heating or cooling, one of the biggest contributors to home energy use,” she said.

The cooperative serves about 42,000 accounts in Carteret County, Havelock and a small portion of Jones and Onslow counties. These are mostly small homes with one or two residents, to more modest homes with families, and second homes, like many in Emerald Isle and elsewhere along Bogue Banks.

“We do see, in general, that household energy use is spread out across the day more like weekends, rather than having peaks in the morning before work and school and evening after school and work,” she said.

“We are encouraging people to avoid high-energy use appliances when they can. Grill outdoors instead of using the stove or oven. Wash clothes in cold water, and hang them out to dry. Avoid long, hot showers,” she said. “Nonetheless, we have recognized that the COVID-19 outbreak has been a financial hardship for many of our co-op members. Since mid-March, we have suspended all disconnects and waived late fees. We will continue to work with those who are having difficulties paying once the governor’s ‘stay home’ order is lifted and we resume normal business operations.”

She added that since the co-op members are the “owners,” they have equity in the business. “When our finances allow, we return part of that investment to them in the form of capital credits. This year, CCEC’s directors voted to return a portion of capital credits early. Members are getting a credit on May bills that should help those who are seeing higher energy use,” she said.

Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative is also taking steps to help its customers.

“For members experiencing financial hardship due to COVID-19, we have suspended all disconnects for nonpayment and late fees through May 31st. Although we have suspended disconnections for nonpayment temporarily, members will still be responsible for electric use during this time. We encourage you to make payments towards your account, as you are able, to minimize the balance due when we resume regular business,” General Manager Susan Flythe wrote in a letter to customers.

During these difficult times, member safety remains our top priority. Due to the ongoing #COVID19 pandemic, CHEC is suspending all disconnects for nonpayment & late fees until Dare County lifts the State of Emergency declaration. #HatterasIsland #OBX

— Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative (@CHEMC09) March 23, 2020

Laura Ertle, director of public relations & marketing for Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative, which services 7,600 accounts on Hatteras Island in Dare County, said they had noticed a decrease in use since Cooper’s stay-at-home order was put in place in March.

“April gave us a good picture, since the stay-at-home order lasted the entire month. The decrease is notable in both residential and commercial sales,” she said, adding that the area may be different than others along the coast because at the end of March, Dare County restricted access.

“All visitors and nonresident homeowners were not allowed to come down. Last week the county opened back up to nonresident homeowners and we will be welcoming visitors back beginning this weekend,” she said. “So even though many of us are working from home, energy use has been down across the board because we missed out on things like spring break and spring fishing — both big economic drivers in the area.”

Kate Konschnik, climate and energy program director at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, explained that during normal times, there are usage spikes in the morning when a lot of people are getting ready for work or school, and then when they get home at the end of the day, but as temperatures rise, electricity use will increase when people begin air conditioning.

Konschnik was joined by two experts last week during a media briefing coordinated by Duke University Communications to discuss how the pandemic is affecting the environment and energy industry.

“We’re already seeing in Florida a shift to residential electricity demand … and the temperatures have required people to start air conditioning their homes. We’re not seeing overall electricity demand go down and we’re not seeing these spikes. So it’s looking like there’s sustained increase across the day in electricity use in residential buildings,” she said.

“That could show where the rest of the country, as temperatures rise, is heading,” she said. “We could see a shift from commercial spaces to residential spaces being air conditioned in the summer. In some parts of the country … that could go against this general trend of a drop in electricity usage.”

Drew Shindell, Nicholas Professor of Earth Science at Duke University, explained during the briefing that the drop in energy demand is making “a substantial difference to emissions of all things that affect air quality and climate change.”

“As we change the emissions over the course of weeks, days, months … we see a response very quickly. Most of the public can see that,” he said, adding that he can feel a difference in his breathing now while running in Durham. “I think we will be able to see (a profound difference) in human health. As people breathe less pollution, fewer people go to the hospital. So we’re seeing people go to the hospital for COVID, but fewer people go to the hospital for respiratory problems. So there’s some really interesting medical questions going on.”

Carbon dioxide, or CO₂ emissions, have dropped substantially during the pandemic, Shindell said.

“We see the largest percentage drops in things like shipping and aviation, but those are in general smaller contributors to global emissions. In terms of the total tons of CO₂ coming out into the world, the largest drops are from industry — the decline in industrial manufacturing — and from transportation, primarily motor vehicles. We’re seeing smaller declines in energy,” he explained.

New research supports Shindell’s statements. Two studies show that levels of two major air pollutants have been drastically reduced since lockdowns began in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, American Geophysical Union reports, though ground-level ozone has increased in China.

The new studies in AGU’s journal, Geophysical Research Letters, found that pollution from nitrogen dioxide, which is a highly reactive gas usually emitted from vehicles, power plants and industrial activities, over northern China, Western Europe and the United States has decreased by as much as 60% in early 2020 compared to the same time last year. One of the studies found that pollution from particulate matter, which are small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and cause damage, decreased by 35% in northern China.

The research, announced May 11, is part of an ongoing special collection of research in AGU journals related to the current pandemic.

“The current COVID-19 pandemic interacts with many aspects of earth system science. Although painful and disruptive to society, it also provides unprecedented opportunities for scientific discovery. In recognition of these unique circumstances, AGU’s journals have established a cross-journal special collection to publish and highlight COVID-19 related research on the links between societies, environment, and health, as well as the multiple effects of ongoing changes in human behavior on the earth’s environment,” according to AGU.

“Maybe this unintended experiment could be used to understand better the emission regulations,” said Jenny Stavrakou, an atmospheric scientist at the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy in Brussels and coauthor of one of the papers. “It is some positive news among a very tragic situation.”

Stavrakou and her colleagues used satellite measurements of air quality to estimate the changes in nitrogen dioxide pollution over China, South Korea, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Iran and the United States, where there have been outbreaks.

Researchers found that nitrogen dioxide pollution decreased by an average of 40% over Chinese cities and by 20-38% over Western Europe and the United States during the 2020 lockdown, compared to the same time last year.

The significant drop in emissions is unparalleled since air quality monitoring from satellites began in the 1990s, said Stavrakou. The only other comparable events are short-term reductions in China’s emissions due to strict regulations during events like the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The improvements in air quality is probably temporary, but the findings give scientists a glimpse into what air quality could be like in the future as emissions regulations become more stringent, according to the researchers.

Shindell agrees with the researchers that these changes aren’t permanent.

“Going into the future, we expect industry to largely return. It’s still a big unknown what will happen with transportation, and if we’ll go back to the same demand and usage patterns and commuting patterns,” Shindell said.

The pandemic is showing that people can be cleaner and are seeing that when we make a change, “we can have an immediate impact on the environment — a profound impact. Obviously we don’t want to deal with climate change by locking everyone up at home. But the public will to live in a clean environment is enhanced because they’re seeing what can happen when we get rid of pollution.”

Down the line, researchers may find that with the “slowdown” associated with COVID-19 water quality may improve.

With the stay-at-home order, folks are driving less, and urban, agricultural and industrial activities have decreased. “One possibility is that due to less human activity, there will be a decrease in nutrient inputs, potentially leading to improved water quality. A ‘silver lining’ to the dark COVID-19 cloud. Stay tuned, as these system’s responses will likely take months to gauge,” Hans Paerl, Kenan Professor of Marine and Environmental Sciences at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences, or UNC-IMS, in Morehead City, explained to Coastal Review Online.

He said that the slowdown will likely lead to a decrease in nutrient inputs to coastal waters and the effects on estuarine and coastal water quality are being assessed the state Department of Environmental Quality’s ambient water quality monitoring program, the collaborative UNC Chapel Hill and North Carolina Water Monitoring and Modeling Program, ModMon; and the ferry-based water quality monitoring program, FerryMon, for the Neuse River Estuary and Pamlico Sound.

As of now, water quality testing on the coast is showing normal results.

Swimming season typically begins April 1, the North Carolina Recreational Water Quality Program has not been able to test coastal waters until recently due to the stay-at-home order, but officials have found that waters are within safe swimming standards.

State officials sample about once a week 210 sites throughout the coast from April to October. Fewer tests are done during the colder months.

The state began testing May 4 said Erin Bryan-Millush, environmental program supervisor and laboratory quality assurance officer for Shellfish Sanitation and Recreational Water Quality Section of the Division of Marine Fisheries under DEQ.

“The delay was due to the governor’s stay-at-home order and because most beach access were blocked or closed, so accessibly was a concern,” she said in an interview. Last week there was a swimming alert issued for Brunswick County but was lifted the next day. “This alert is nothing out of the ordinary, occasional random bad samples occur from time to time,” she explained, adding shorebirds, domestic animals or people could have been the source.

The resample result of the water in Brunswick County shows that bacteria levels have dropped below the state’s and Environmental Protection Agency’s standards set for swimming and water play. “All other results throughout the state have been well within safe swimming standards.”

The real question is what happens moving forward, according to the scientists participating in the Duke University media briefing.

“If you ask a lot of Americans, and tell them we’ve dropped our CO₂ emissions 11% over the last year, they’ll say I’m trapped in my house and I’m unemployed, so if this is what it takes to tackle climate change, no thank you. That is a real risk going forward,” Konschnik said.

Shindell added, “I think what we’re really going to be looking for is how governments respond post-pandemic. Do we build back better and get a new society where we put people to work doing things that will help the environment long term? All these 20 million people who have lost jobs, they need something to do.”

WILMINGTON – As the numbers of sick and dead from a rapidly spreading virus climbed and evidence mounted that our daily lives would be upended indefinitely, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority officials began hashing out how to maintain water treatment plant operations during a pandemic.

What happens if one or more of the onsite plant operators gets sick? What can be done to ensure the continuation of plant operations if operators have to be quarantined? What can be done to reduce operators’ exposure to COVID-19?

CFPUA officials started out by staggering shifts to maintain social distancing and allowing employees to work remotely. The facilities were closed to the public March 18.

It was a start, officials agreed, but more would need to be done to cut plant operators’ exposure to the virus.

“These operators – you can’t just pick somebody off the street,” to replace them, said Carel Vandermeyden, CFPUA’s deputy executive director. “It takes years of education and experience. We don’t want them to get sick. If somebody on the crew became ill then obviously there’s a concern that another on the crew would be potentially exposed as well.”

State rules dictate that water treatment plants may must be run by licensed operators.

Initially, authority officials discussed the possibility of bringing in backup operators, such as retirees with the knowledge and experience, but not an active license.

The backups would be onsite, working under the direction of certified operators in person or through remote communication.

CFPUA asked the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, for temporary guidance that would make this plan possible.

The authority has yet to receive a response.

“From there, we migrated more into what about what if we protect our operators more from exposure and house them at the treatment plant,” Vandermeyden said. “What would that look like?”

They turned their attention north, specifically Des Moines Water Works and Greater Cincinnati Water Works – utilities that have set up a system that groups operators into teams to work multiday shifts and live in temporary housing at their facilities.

By the third week of March, CFPUA framed a plan that cuts down on the amount of travel, and therefore, exposure of their licensed operators.

Seven campers (one for each operator), rented from local businesses, have been added to the grounds of the authority’s Sweeney Water Treatment Plant and Richardson Nanofiltration Plant.

Each camper has its own bathroom and kitchenette. They are equipped with WiFi and televisions.

During hurricanes, staff who need to ride out a storm on the grounds of the facilities have been provided cots – sufficient for a couple of nights, but not through a pandemic.

“In order to do this right, we went the extra step and we rented these trailers,” Vandermeyden said.

On April 6, the first of two, seven-person operational teams moved into the campers, kicking off a seven-day-on, seven-day-off, 12-hour shift rotation.

Four operators live and work on the grounds of the Sweeney plant. Two work the day shift and two the night shift. Three operators monitor the Richardson plant — two work the day shift and the night.

They are being supervised remotely. And, when the operators are at home, they continue to work, filling out paperwork and fulfilling other duties.

“They make their normal rounds at the plant. They monitor the plant’s performance. They take samples throughout the treatment plant. They work with our CFPUA lab that is outside the plant to coordinate official samples that we need to acquire for state requirements,” Vandermeyden said.

Food and cleaning supplies are provided at the campers. When operators wrap up their on-site work week, they clean and disinfect their campers. Before the next team of operators start their rotation, their temperatures are checked. Any potential symptoms of COVID-19 must be reported to management.

Social distancing and isolation are key.

A support team of other employees make food runs and replenish the necessary cleaning supplies.

Signs have been posted to prevent contractors from interfacing with the operators. In operations control rooms, the workers try to maintain social distancing.

“On one shift you may have two people working at the same time,” Vandermeyden said. “We have marked areas in the plant where only they can work. The real goal is to keep those folks as isolated as much as possible.”

When they’re not working the seven-day shift, operators need to stay home as much as possible, he said.

“To that point what they do when they come off their seven-day work shift is we provide an order of essentials and food for the next seven days,” Vandermeyden said.

The estimated cost is $160,000 a month.

CFPUA has a 90-day rental agreement for the campers.

Should the stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Roy Cooper and New Hanover County Commissioners be lifted by month’s end, operators will not be sheltered at the plants, Vandermeyden said.

When that happens, the operators will continue to work in the same teams, he said.

“The overarching goal for us in this is providing a continuous supply of safe water to the community,” he said. “That’s critical.”

Research staff and educators in Carteret County have responded to an ever-growing need for personal protective equipment by turning their homes into face shield factories, using 3D printers from area institutions.

They’re donating the shields to first responders and health care workers in eastern North Carolina.

Julian Dale, lead engineer in the Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, transported the lab’s larger 3D printer to his garage after the Duke Marine Lab closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dale’s original plan was to continue making customized drone research equipment from home.

Then he heard that others were 3D printing personal protective equipment. People around the world have been collaborating online to share and revise designs for 3D-printed face shields and other gear.

Dale confirmed the need for this equipment with Beaufort Mayor Rett Newton, also a doctoral student in the Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab, who asked Beaufort fire and police chiefs.

“Our first responders enthusiastically welcomed this protective gear,” noted Newton.

Dale found a relatively easy design online for a visor that could be outfitted with a shield. Rather than wait for an online consensus on face shield designs, of which there were several options, he jumped to work.

“We should probably just have a crack at producing them,” Dale said he thought Saturday, April 4.

Since then, he’s sent out about 100 face shields and is continuing to produce more. Other 3D printers have joined the production chain too.

“IMS volunteered their printer as well that was sitting idle,” said Dale, referring to the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City.

Ryan Neve, IT and engineer support specialist at the institute, brought the lab’s 3D printer and Carolina blue plastic filament home for the specific purpose of printing face shields. Filament is a spool of plastic thread that feeds the printer.

UNC IMS has had their printer for almost two years, and Neve previously used it to make customized and inexpensive research equipment parts.

“We mainly used it to print out parts for field work, for profilers at Jordan Lake,” he explained. Profilers are floating platforms that release water measurement devices to the bottom of the lake every half hour.

That same 3D printer can print two plastic visors in about five hours. The larger printer in Dale’s garage can print two visors in about one and a half hours.

Todd Williamson, Project Lead the Way Teacher at Beaufort Middle School, is now using one of the middle school’s 3D printers to make the visors as well, with filament provided by UNC IMS.

The clear plastic shields that attach to the visors are ordered separately, and Dale rounds down their sharp edges for safety. The last piece of the face shield is a rubber band, which holds the back of the visor together. Dale said that each completed face shield costs about $1.30 in supplies.

The shields can be washed and reused, and the clear plastic part can be replaced when necessary. Dale said if he’s able to get enough parts they can give away extra plastic shields with the visors.

Shields protect the mouth, nose and eyes, though healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients must also wear face masks for respiratory protection.

Dale provided Newton with face shields to distribute to Beaufort emergency medical services and fire rescue, and has left shields on the doorsteps of healthcare workers for them to distribute at their respective workplaces. Carteret General Hospital, New Bern Hospital, Carteret Medical Specialists PLLC, and Oceanside Pediatrics in Morehead City have received shields.

“This is another great example of citizens wanting to safely and effectively contribute to the fight against COVID-19,” commented Newton.

The Carteret News-Times reported Sunday that the county currently had a sufficient supply of personal protective equipment for first responders in the short term, but will likely need more face masks as the pandemic continues.

If residents want to donate extra personal protective equipment to Beaufort’s first responders, they can contact Public Information Officer Rachel Johnson at r.johnson@beaufortnc.org. For more information about 3D printing protective equipment for healthcare workers, you can visit the National Institute of Health’s collection of 3D-printable equipment.

MOREHEAD CITY — Disinfecting your home is a critical part of slowing the spread of COVID-19 and a University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences professor has created an infographic to help get the word out.

Rachel Noble, a professor of public health microbiology, told Coastal Review Online Monday that the infographic is intended to make accessible to the community accurate information about disinfecting the home and what can be used that’s already around the house.

“We know that because the virus can live on both porous and nonporous surfaces for a period of time,” she said, adding it looks like that it could be from about two to nine days, depending on the type of surface.

“This particular virus is fairly sinister in the fact that it only takes a few particles to make you ill,” she said, and these very small viruses can be carried. Being diligent about disinfecting and taking precautions is helping flatten the curve, or keeping the daily COVID-19 case load manageable for medical providers.

She said the goal with creating the infographic is to simplify the information found on federal agency websites and make it available in one spot, increasing the likelihood of the public finding the information.

“So, there’s a lot of information out there. Most of it is accurate and will help someone disinfect the home and we just hope to provide it in a simple format so that people could access it,” she said.

Noble compiled the information featured on the graphic created by UNC Research on how and what to disinfect. The infographic suggests a solution of 1 tablespoon of household bleach to 1 quart of water for hard surfaces; 1 part over-the-counter 60% or stronger isopropyl alcohol to 1 part water for technology; and 1 part over-the-counter hydrogen peroxide to 1 part water for soft surfaces like a wallet or purse. Apply, let stand 5-10 minutes, then wipe down.

“The point is that disinfecting and the ways that you think about disinfecting have to be different from just cleaning the home,” she said.

Without disinfecting, a person can touch a contaminated surface and transfer any number of those virus particles onto their hand and then to their face.

Noble said that most households across the country are doing a good job to prevent the spread, like social distancing, but one of the risks that remains are having to leave home for necessities such as for groceries, the pharmacy, bank and gas station.

“Those are realities. People are going to do it once a week or once every two weeks. Some people might be in a position, income wise, that they need to do it every three or four days. Those things are all going vary and we see people doing the best that they can,” she said.

The frequency and purpose of trips from home determines how often a person should disinfect their home. For example, if a person works an essential job, they’ll need to disinfect more.

“The disinfection process scales up and scales down, according to how much people are exposed to outside potential sources of this particular coronavirus,” she said.

Noble explained that upon returning home, the best process to disinfect is in the exact reverse of how you went out.

After pumping gas and properly disposing of gloves, you’ll touch the door handle, then steering wheel, and maybe the radio or your phone. “You have to work your way backwards and re-disinfect all of those surfaces that you touched.”

It’s an important part of being preemptive, she reiterated, but isn’t meant to be fearful; just work backward in a systematic way. Once this has become habit, you’ll be prepared if your particular area sees a surge in case counts and will help reduce the number of total people overall that are hospitalized.

Noble said that people need to assume that any time they’re in a public space and have contact with others, they should treat the situation as a potentially contagious event and be proactive about disinfecting.

For every patient with a positive, lab-confirmed COVID-19 test, she said that she calculates a ratio of five or 10 people that are infected but aren’t tested. Noble said that it’s a hard number to gauge and really depends on location; some states are doing a better job of testing the population than others.

She used Carteret County as an example. If there’s 15 confirmed cases here, she said that it’s most likely somewhere around 150 cases, though it could be much more — around 200 or 300 cases — or it might be fewer. “But that’s the way I think about it from everything that I’ve read, save for the places who have done a really good job of testing, where their numbers are higher.”

For those communities with higher numbers, it’s most likely because there’s more testing and not a failure of the residents to comply with social distancing measures. Washington and New York have been proactive because of the population density.

In Eastern North Carolina, the population is spread out with small pockets. A person who doesn’t know they’re infected in a small community would transmit the virus to significantly fewer people than in bigger city.

Noble said she was trying to read more about rural disease transmission but found there was no information; that all the models were based on major metropolitan areas. She’s putting a proposal together to look into rural disease transmission.

Regarding masks, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends wearing cloth face coverings in situations that are difficult to maintain social distance.

Noble said that the masks are a key, but a lot of people are forgetting the details.

“First, the nose piece is crucial, without it, the air goes in the top of the mask and settles on or in the nose,” she said. “Second, boil or wash the masks after each use.”

She recommends making a mask for every other day of the week. Wash as soon as you return to home in hot water or boil in water for 5 minutes and then hang to dry in a safe private place — in sun would be excellent — and then only use that mask at least five days from that time.

She said that UV light, which is effective at breaking down coronaviruses, can complement other disinfecting steps, although natural sunlight doesn’t have the same properties as radiation in a clinical hospital setting and shouldn’t be relied on to disinfect.

“It’s one of those things that like helps, but it’s not a magical zap,” Noble explained.

After washing a cloth mask properly using detergent, hot water and bleach additive, set it in the sun as a great additive step.

“Finally, the air has to come through the mask, not around the mask, so if you use too many layers of cloth you are actually defeating the purpose. The cloth has to be very tightly woven, think high thread-count bed sheet, not the material of a sweater or any loose knit,” she said.

“One of the biggest pieces of advice is to really cut down on social interaction. Continue to be vigilant,” Noble said. It’s important to people in your community of all shapes and sizes, not just the older people but it might be that the child down the street who was just diagnosed with type 1 diabetes or you might be protecting a friend who in the medical field.

Rick Luettich, director of the UNC IMS, told Coastal Review Online that the mission of the institute is to provide service to the state through research, education and engagement.

“We are extremely fortunate to have Dr. Noble, a nationally renowned expert on viruses, on our faculty and we are pleased that she is able to share her expertise with our community. All of us at Carolina’s marine lab live and work in eastern North Carolina; we want to do everything we can to help our community during this extraordinary time,” he said.

WILMINGTON – While Chemours touts the test results of its new air emission reduction equipment at its Fayetteville facility, the company is being called out for not doing enough to cut back on the amount of chemicals it releases into the Cape Fear River.

Chemours announced in late March that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, at the Fayetteville Works plant are being controlled at an efficiency of more than 99%.

Results of the tests run on the plant’s thermal oxidizer, which was installed last year, were turned over to the North Carolina Division of Air Quality officials on March 30.

“We are currently reviewing the report to verify the data,” Zaynab Nasif, the division’s public information officer, said in an email. “It generally takes some time to verify the data, likely a few weeks.”

DAQ staff were on site to observe the testing process of the plant’s thermal oxidizer, she said.

A thermal oxidizer heats volatile organic compounds to the point those compounds are broken down and destroyed before entering the atmosphere.

Chemours Fayetteville Works’ thermal oxidizer in January and February “demonstrated a 99.99%” PFAS destruction efficiency, according to a company press release dated March 30.

Under the terms of a Feb. 25, 2019, consent order, the company was required to install the thermal oxidizer by Dec. 31, 2019, and control all PFAS at an efficiency of 99.99%.

“As we have said previously, we hope our progress in emissions control provides a launching point for other PFAS manufacturers to make similar commitments, and demonstrate to our neighbors how seriously we take their concerns.”

Brian Long, Plant Manager, Chemours Fayetteville Works

Tests show the thermal oxidizer is controlling PFAS emissions at an average efficiency exceeding 99.999%, according to the company.

“These results surpass the 99.99 percent destruction of PFAS air emissions as required in our consent order agreement with the state of North Carolina and Cape Fear River Watch, and further emphasize our ongoing determination to deliver our commitments to our community, state and federal regulators and to ourselves,” Fayetteville Works Plant Manager Brian Long said in a statement. “As we have said previously, we hope our progress in emissions control provides a launching point for other PFAS manufacturers to make similar commitments, and demonstrate to our neighbors how seriously we take their concerns.”

Emissions and discharges of PFAS include the compounds that make up GenX, a chemical compound produced to make Teflon, which is used to make nonstick coating surfaces for cookware.

Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility has been discharging GenX and other PFAS into the Cape Fear River and air since the 1980s.

Larry Cahoon, a professor of biology and marine biology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, explained in an email that there were three avenues of groundwater pollution from Fayetteville Works.

There was seepage from an unlined outfall to the Cape Fear River, which stopped after the discharge was relocated to a pipe; leaks and spills on facility grounds; and aerial discharges throughout the airshed around the plant, he said.

“When you factor in the facts that these compounds do not break down in the environment, the cumulative mass of PFAS in local groundwater can be impressive.”

Larry Cahoon, UNCW

“Note that vegetation (tree leaves, etc.) acted to absorb and then release in rainfall runoff very high concentrations of PFAS compounds,” Cahoon said. “Inspection of the air emission reports for Fayetteville Works show that a variety of PFAS compounds were released by various processes through several pathways – direct emissions, fugitive emissions, etc. The direct emissions were generally the largest.”

One set of PFAS compounds released were those that react with water.

“Most of those dissolve in rain water and come down on the landscape, and they also adsorb to aerosols and come down as dry deposition (we can inhale those),” Cahoon said. “When I add up some numbers I get fairly big ones – in 2017 total GenX air emissions added up to about 1650 Kg or about 3600 pounds. We worry about parts per trillion in drinking water, so let the math tell you the story. When you factor in the facts that these compounds do not break down in the environment, the cumulative mass of PFAS in local groundwater can be impressive. Let me emphasize that we do NOT yet know the real geographic footprint of PFAS aerial deposition from Fayetteville Works.”

In an April 3 letter to the state Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director James Flechtner wrote that the authority remains concerned about PFAS discharge into the Cape Fear River from the Chemours facility.

The letter was submitted to DEQ as part of the official public Chemours Corrective Action Plan, or CAP, record of comments.

“More than a year has passed since the approval of the consent order meant to address Chemours’ widespread PFAS contamination,” Flechtner wrote. “Our regular monitoring of raw and finished water has not shown this promised sustained decrease in PFAS. Instead, PFAS levels increased throughout most of 2019 – spiking as high as 377 parts per trillion and often remaining above concentrations that, when detected in wells in Bladen or Cumberland counties, trigger immediate, unambiguous remedies by Chemours. It’s going on Year Two of the consent order, and we’re still waiting.”

He went on to write how Chemours promises to reduce its production of PFAS into the river by 79%, but that the schedule to do so shows nearly two-thirds of that reduction will not occur for another four to five years, “at best.”

“The CAP waves away or ignores a number of important pathways for PFAS loading into the Cape Fear River,” he said. “No mitigation efforts are promised to address PFAS in the more than 50 miles of river sediment between Chemours’ outfall and CFPUA’s raw water intakes at Kings Bluff. No mitigation efforts are proposed for Willis and Georgia creeks, which carry PFAS into the Cape Fear River. No remediation efforts are proposed for the 70-plus square miles of groundwater around the Fayetteville Works that Chemours estimates it has contaminated.”

In a joint letter to DEQ, the New Hanover County and Brunswick County branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People shared similar sentiments about Chemours’ corrective action plan.

“History has clearly defined that where we live has direct bearing on our well-being,” according to a statement from those branches. “For us living in the Lower Cape Fear region it seems that our postal code will now determine the health of our citizens who live here. We know that our poorer communities will continue to bear the physical, emotional and financial brunt of Chemours harmful pollution of our drinking water source delivered by way of the Cape Fear River. Chemours’ mistreatment of marginalized communities downstream of its Fayetteville plant is unconscionable and discriminatory.”

Chemours’ disposal of PFAS into the Cape Fear River was made public in 2017 with the publication of an investigative story by the Wilmington Star-News.

Since that time, PFAS, particularly GenX, has become a household name throughout the region.

Hundreds of residents in New Hanover and Brunswick counties are part of an ongoing study headed by a group of 20 researchers from seven North Carolina universities known as the PFAST — the “T” stands for testing — Network Research Initiative.

PFAST is analyzing water samples from each drinking water source in the state, determining the risks of PFAS to private water wells, studying, which filtration methods best remove PFAS from drinking water, determining how PFAS travels through air emissions and gaining a better understanding of how these chemicals impact human health and the environment.

“As for Chemours’ installation of thermal oxidizer treatment, it’s about damn time,” Cahoon said. “I understand that Dupont was using this same technology at its Parkersburg, WV, plant years and years ago. Going forward there should be far less PFAS aerial pollution, but we are struck with what has happened there since 1980 – almost 40 years of aerial emissions.”

Calvin Cupini of Clean Air Carolina said technology like thermal oxidizers need to be implemented at the front-end by industry and regulators.

“We’ve got to do better about capturing best available control technologies before they’re a problem,” he said.

When March began, students all over the Outer Banks were looking forward to warmer weather. Happier, carefree days filled with spring break travels, hanging out with friends at the beach or grabbing a smoothie from The Spot seemed like they were right around the corner. Proms and graduations were on everyone’s minds, and talk about the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, seemed like a distant and improbable thing.

Eva Klauser, a 16-year-old junior at Manteo High School, never thought the virus would turn her world upside down. “I remember hearing about it for the first time and thinking that it would never have any sort of effect on me,” she said.

“At first I didn’t really think anything of it,” said Nags Head resident Mike Leech, 18. “I thought that the media was hyping it up way too much.”

It only took a few weeks, however, for everything to change.

Universities across North Carolina, as well as the rest of the country, began to shut down, closing campuses, requiring students to return home and moving all classes online. On March 23, Gov. Roy Cooper issued an executive order closing all K-12 schools through May 15. A statewide stay-at-home order took effect March 30.

These lockdown measures meant that face-to-face learning was finished for the school year, and remote learning quickly took its place. Generation Z, which includes anyone born from the late 1990s to the mid-2010s, already spends more than six hours a day on electronic devices. Since remote learning began, students have found themselves in front of their screens more than before.

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill senior and Kitty Hawk native Carla Hardy, 22, was not too bothered by the change initially. “I was apprehensive about transitioning to online classes, but I was truthfully a little relieved,” she said. “I was not upset about being able to complete (my general education credits) from my bed.”

For high school students, learning from home has allowed them the flexibility to create their own schedule. This is a far cry from the rigid nature of a normal school day.

“I like online school a lot because I can set a time for myself to do it every day,” Klauser said. “I was not sure if I was going to be OK with it, but I’ve learned to just make the most out of it because it is what it is.”

While the flexibility of learning from home may be a welcome change, having the school year end abruptly meant that club meetings, retreats and other activities were canceled. For seniors throughout the Outer Banks, that meant losing out on honored traditions and senior events they had looked forward to for more than four years. Commencement ceremonies were postponed.

“I started to become very disappointed. Graduation being canceled was probably the nail in the coffin for me,” said Hardy. “I’m really worried about how long this will all last and the long-lasting economic impacts.”

Young people across the Outer Banks who were preparing to enter the workforce later this year are now left without any idea of what to expect in the job market. On top of this uncertainty, many dread the isolation and are anxious about the health of their loved ones.

“I know a lot of us are struggling to get through without being able to do many of the things that bring us happiness, such as spend quality in-person time with friends or participate in activities outdoors,” Hardy said. But she is keeping her chin up. “I am trying to keep perspective about it all and remember that this is essential for the health of our population. Sometimes sacrifices must be made.”

While social distancing has radically changed the average school day, Leech, a professional photographer, hasn’t seen much of a difference in his work.

“Being in the water, while keeping my distance, gives me and other surfers a sense of normalcy to our lives,” he said. “It’s hard to not hang out with friends and go to work, but I am making the most of it.”

Even though lockdowns will help in the long run by flattening the curve, or reducing the surge in positive cases, there is no doubt that empty roads and boarded-up stores feel a bit like the apocalyptic novels that took over the Young Adult market in recent years. The sudden and jarring changes have left many young people feeling uneasy.

“Everyone seems a little more anxious, just because how much is unknown to us,” Leech said.

According to the American Psychological Association, 27% of Gen Z is likely to report poor mental health. While social media has played a part in this heightened anxiety in the past, it has now become a distraction from the stress and sadness of the virus. A plethora of new memes, videos or artwork await anyone who opens Instagram.

“You can tell that people are starting to get bored because they may post lots of things or post about what crazy thing they have done,” Klauser said. Recent challenges included posting embarrassing pictures of yourself, cute photos of pets or favorite Bible verses. Tagging friends’ accounts helps the challenge spread, and suddenly old middle school photos are on everyone’s feed.

Amid the boredom, anxiety and isolation, there are some bright spots. Hardy’s family, which is spread across different households, had a recent Zoom conference call to catch up with one another.

“My mom and sister held their respective cats up to the screen so they could ‘meet’ each other,” said Hardy. “The ridiculousness of it all was really funny.”

Klauser’s dog Stash is also helping to keep her spirits up. “He’s so cute every time I look at him, I can’t help but laugh.”

With her free time, Klauser has had more time for exercise, art and helping out around the house. She is also catching up on sleep.

While there is no minimizing the severity of the coronavirus, hope has risen despite it. Videos of city residents applauding healthcare workers from their open windows or musicians playing from their balconies have gone viral. Leech said he had seen a shift in the local community.

“This quarantine has given all of us the opportunity to reconnect with our families,” he said. “It’s given us the chance to spend time together and talk. I think it’s better to look at (social distancing as) opportunities rather than inconveniences.”

Even in the middle of a difficult time, he said, there is hope for the future, and comfort in routine. Spring is approaching, and with it, the flowers bloom and the birds chirp again. The Earth has begun to wake up, a reassurance that not every aspect of island life has changed.

“It reminds us that the world keeps turning,” Leech said. “Waves keep breaking, and time keeps moving forward.”

Even under the current shutdown of the economy, North Carolina consumers still can find fresh or fresh-frozen fish in supermarkets. That belies the enormous financial hit facing the commercial and recreational fishing industries in a state that counts fishing as one of its most valuable resources.

“We do have retail markets all across the state that are open and selling,” said Glenn Skinner, executive director of the North Carolina Fisheries Association.

But only 20% of domestic seafood is sold through retail outlets, he said. The remaining 80% is sold through restaurants.

Most restaurant service, except for delivery and pickup orders, has been closed in North Carolina — as well as most other states — since last month to prevent spread of COVID-19.

“All our fishermen need now are markets.”

Glenn Skinner, Director, North Carolina Fisheries Association

That leaves fishers struggling to find markets for fresh fish they’ve caught, Skinner told Coastal Review Online Tuesday. Depending on the dealer or the location, freezers are at or close to capacity.

“Some are selling local, some are not,” he said. “All our fishermen need now are markets.”

Skinner said that there have been discussions about working with the state to find a way to get the current inventory of fish to people, ideally at a reasonable cost. In the process, it would not only free up freezer space, it would provide some income and delay, or prevent, the need to file for unemployment compensation.

“That way, instead of giving us free money,” Skinner said, “they would have a product they could utilize.”

Storage freezers can each hold tens of thousands of pounds of fish, he added, and frozen fish maintains its quality for “quite a while.” And with flounder, crab and shrimp seasons approaching, it would be helpful to have freezers available for fresh product to be kept until restaurants reopen.

Meanwhile, Skinner is keeping a close eye on any government help to keep the fishing industry afloat during the crisis. For the first time, unemployment insurance is being offered for self-employed or independent workers, which describes nearly every person who fishes for a living.

“We’re still relatively not far into this,” he said. “It’s still evolving and it’s getting worse by the day.”

According to a report released in February by the fisheries division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA Fisheries, in 2018 U.S. fishermen landed 9.4 billion pounds of fish valued at $5.6 billion. Shrimp and crab, two of North Carolina’s largest fisheries, were also among the most valuable fish nationwide.

Blue crabs start shedding their shells in mid-April or so, and depending on temperatures, will continue until early June. Crabbers spend many intensive hours keeping a close eye on their shedding operations to get the timing of the peeler harvest just right.

“Those guys have got a lot invested in their tanks and everything,” Skinner said.

Fresh soft-shell crabs, or peelers, are a favorite spring seafood specialty on the Outer Banks, and other coastal North Carolina communities, but now with such limited distribution to restaurants, nearly all of the harvest will be frozen.

Murray Bridges, the 87-year-old owner of Endurance Seafood on Colington Island, the largest and oldest shedding operation in the county, said that everyone is getting ready to start as usual.

As a veteran of a multitude of challenges over the decades as a crabber, Bridges didn’t seem too worried. Nearly 75% of the peelers are typically cleaned and frozen, he said, and much are freighted out of the county.

Part of the value of the crabs is influenced by how much inventory is left over from the year before, he said. But this year’s wild card will also be how many might try to “take advantage of something like this” to shortchange the crabber or undercut the market.

“It’s not really about getting rid of the crabs,” Bridges said about the impact on the market. “The only thing is price-wise.”

The burgeoning oyster-growing industry in North Carolina, however, is confronting a dire potential loss of revenue and investment, said Chris Matteo, president of the North Carolina Shellfish Growers Association.

Before the shutdown, he said, the 75 or so oyster growers in the state, not including those with bottom leases, were “set to do $6 to $7 million for 2020.”

The growers cultivate oysters on the half-shell, which have become popular offerings in the trendy local food market and food tourism.

But shuttering of the nation’s restaurants has had a devastating impact on the industry.

“Thousands of shellfish farm, processing, transportation and distribution workers have been let go or put on standby,” said representatives from the East Coast and the Pacific Coast shellfish growers associations in a recent letter to Congress seeking assistance. “Most are small companies without the wherewithal to continue to pay wages and benefits. Many are holding off on ordering and planting seed for future years crops due to the uncertain future and the need to reserve cash.”

Most of the oyster farmers in North Carolina plant multiple crops a year at different locations, so there’s a “rolling” harvest, Matteo said. In general, more oysters on the half-shell are available in early September, when ideal water temperatures catch up with the sales, but they’re also available during other months.

Oysters are still available. Buyers are not.

“Everyone has confirmed that their sales have gone down to zero,” Matteo said.

But the health emergency from the virus pandemic presents a “double whammy” to the oyster industry, he said. Oysters on the half-shell that are sold to restaurants are almost always eaten raw. But raw seafood — especially shellfish — can be unsafe to eat for people with compromised immune systems.

“Growers are panicking because they know this might be a drawn-out thing.”

Chris Matteo, President, North Carolina Shellfish Growers Association

So even in the unlikely event that restaurants can reopen soon, raw shellfish would probably be considered risky, at least for a while. The market for oysters used in backyard roasts is smaller and not as lucrative.

“Growers are panicking because they know this might be a drawn-out thing,” Matteo said.

Like many other businesses, for oyster growers this crisis is layered on top of losses and damages from recent storms. As it is, much of the tourism-based economy in the state is already on edge and in dread of another storm.

“That would be the nail in everybody’s coffin,” he said. “We’re all very vulnerable right now.”

The timing in spring is also terrible for the charter fishing boat operators, said Steve Coulter, who owns the 58-foot Sea Creature that runs out of Hatteras.

This is the time of year to shell out big bucks for boat repairs and maintenance, he said. But charter vessel owners also pay their annual insurance bills this month and make bait orders for the year.

With Dare County closed to all but residents and certain essential businesses and personnel, Coulter said that he has already had some charter boat groups cancel trips. He’s also gotten a lot of calls from others trying to figure out if they should cancel.

A full-day charter trip costs $1,850, typically divided among a group of about six, Coulter said. About 50 charter boats, including his business, operate full time out of Hatteras, he said, and about 30 more offer half-day trips.

People are not being stopped from fishing, as long as it was fewer than 10 people in a boat, but they can’t get to the Outer Banks to fish. Even if they could, virtually nothing is open for business. And with so many people suddenly out of work, recreational charter fishing trips may no longer be considered affordable.

“So, we’re taking it two-fold,” Coulter said. “We’re taking it from the economy and the fact that they can’t get here.”

Coulter said that so far, he has lost about 30% of his annual income. And it’s hard to predict when customers may start booking trips again.

“That depends on what the economy does when they open up,” he said. “We’re tied to the hip with the tourist industry.”

With vacation rentals shuttered and restaurants closed or open for takeout only, local governments in tourism-dependent coastal areas are bracing for bleak options as they begin to draft new budgets.

By law, North Carolina counties and municipalities are required to adopt new budgets by July 1, the beginning of a new fiscal year. None is allowed to run deficits, and borrowing is limited under a system put in place after a wave of local government failures during the 1930s.

That system and the ability for public sector spending to prop up teetering economies and deal with widespread unemployment will be tested in ways they haven’t been since.

In Raleigh, legislative hearings on the impact of the coronavirus have featured a litany of losses across all sectors of the economy, but none as quickly or deeply felt than in the areas of food service, hospitality and travel.

On Tuesday, members of the Economic Support Working Group of the House Select Committee on COVID-19, heard pleas for immediate state action from industry representatives.

“The biggest business challenge that I am hearing from restaurants and hotels is that they are cash strapped today,” Lynn Minges, president and CEO of the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association, told working group members during a teleconference Tuesday. Some businesses have resorted to making payroll using credit cards, she said, and all are faced with ongoing bills, leases and debt service. Adding to the urgency, she said, is that many small businesses are finding that there are pandemic riders on business interruption insurance.

Minges said help is coming from recently passed federal relief bills, but that will take time to arrive.

“The application process is long and cumbersome and we’re still waiting on guidance from the federal government. There are loan programs these folks can apply for, but they need cash in their pockets today. They cannot make their payments today. They cannot make their payroll today. They are really struggling.”

The association estimates that 350,000 of the state’s roughly 500,000 restaurant jobs and 23,000 of the 80,000 hotel jobs have been lost so far. It’s calling for a $100 million state emergency grant for hospitality businesses that would provide one-time grants up to $25,000 for smaller restaurants and $50,000 for larger restaurants and hotels to temporarily cover rent, utilities, payrolls and vendors. The association is also asking for the state to delay sales tax collections and other tax payments.

That would especially help restaurants trying to stay open on a limited basis to make payrolls and keep vendors paid, Minges said.

At Floyd’s 1921 Restaurant & Catering in downtown Morehead City, a dining room and patio that can hold up to 250 patrons is quiet, although the kitchen remains open.

Since the statewide ban on dine-in service began March 17, a small staff assembles there six days a week to prepare dozens of meals for carryout customers.

Restaurant manager Jason Eure said the special takeout menu was already in the works when the statewide order was announced. Even though they had a head start, he said, Floyd’s had to quickly adapt from being a dinner destination to a carryout food service.

“Eating is more of a necessity than a luxury at this point in time,” he said. The restaurant has always focused on local customers and wanted keep serving, but from a business perspective, Eure said it was like going from being a full-service restaurant to operating a food truck.

“The bills are still coming, as far as the mortgage, the power, all that kind of stuff, but you’re not able to utilize the basic square footage.”

Eure said it’s not all doom and gloom. The community has been supportive, he said, and there’s enough business to keep a skeleton staff of 10 employed.

But the front-of-house staff, which can grow to around 60 employees at the height of the summer season, is idle and those employees have started collecting unemployment. There’s also a lot of uncertainty about what’s ahead, especially how it will affect the typically busy summer season.

“We’ve all come to the reality that it’s going to go longer than we want it to,” Eure said. “We’re on the cusp of summer basically. Even if all is golden at the end of April, the public is going to still be gun shy about going out.”

Preparing for an economic hit

At Tuesday’s hearings, legislators also received warnings about how business closures and precipitous drops in sales and occupancy tax revenues would affect the bottom line for the hundreds of communities in the state that rely on travel and tourism.

Erin Wynia, chief legislative counsel for the North Carolina League of Municipalities, told members of the select committee working on the impact to state and local government that the hit to small businesses would have a big effect on local government.

Wynia said sales tax distributions, which typically make up nearly a quarter of the municipal revenue stream, are expected to drop considerably. Occupancy taxes, which take in roughly $300 million for the 63 local governments that have them in place, will take an even bigger hit. Those funds usually go to support tourism advertising and marketing but are also used for beach renourishment and dune repairs and facilities such as convention centers and stadiums.

“Nearly all of those funds will dry up for the time that the economic crisis is happening,” Wynia said.

Any major drop in commercial and industrial water use, which accounts for almost half of water system revenues, is also putting pressure on local governments, she said.

“Those revenues are sharply declining along with economic activity and that will be something to reckon with in the future.”

With the bulk of municipal budgets dedicated to public safety and transportation, Wynia said, cuts in those areas are more likely.

“If revenues decline to where we fear they might, this is where the cuts will take place,” she said. “There’s not a lot of bloat in these budgets already and it will be very difficult for local governments to continue providing services they’ve been providing through the crisis.”

Wynia said that since sales tax distributions lag collections, the loses in March will start showing up in lower distribution payments in June.

Washington Mayor Mac Hodges said he’s expecting to see revenues fall when the sales tax numbers are reported, but the Beaufort County city is in good enough financial shape to ride out the crisis.

“It just depends on how this thing drags out,” Hodges said in an interview Wednesday. “If it’s two or three more weeks, we’ll probably survive it OK.”

A month or more would be difficult, he said, but with a growing tax base and a built-up fund balance, the city budget should be OK in the long run. “Ours can take a beating,” he said. “Others may not be able to.”

The worry, he said, is if the shutdown extends further into summer and affects summer camps, which usually bring a lot of visitors to the area.

In the meantime, Hodges said the city took advantage of the shutdown to move ahead with infrastructure upgrades.

Since most of the businesses along Main Street were forced to close, Hodges said it made sense to go ahead and start tearing up pavement for a major streetscape project.

Local and state leaders must be able to be flexible given how fast things are changing, he said.

“What seems like a good idea today might not be so hot next week,” he said. “That’s just the way this thing is.”

As the number of positive cases increases in the state, many coastal town and county governments are responding to Gov. Roy Cooper’s stay-at-home order that went into effect at 5 p.m. Monday.

The state Department of Health and Human Services said Monday morning that the total number of cases in the state was 1,307. Six people have died in North Carolina.

As of Monday afternoon, Currituck, Perquimans, Washington and Pamlico counties had each reported one confirmed case; Pasquotank and Hertford each reported two cases; Beaufort County reported three cases; Bertie and Craven counties each reported five cases; Onslow County reported six cases; Carteret County reported 11 cases; Brunswick County reported 14 cases; and New Hanover County reported 27 cases.

During a press conference Monday afternoon DHHS Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen emphasized that there is no vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 and the best course of action is to stay home.

“Social distancing is the only tool we have to slow the spread of COVID-19 so fewer people get sick at the same time and so we don’t overwhelm our hospitals,” she said. “I can’t stress it enough. Your actions matter. Staying home matters. Staying home will save lives. And I know this is really, really hard. Most of us have never lived through a time where we’ve had to take this kind of collective action to change our entire way of life in a matter of days.”

.@SecMandyCohen: We have many rural areas without as many hospital resources in this state. We have a population comprised of older folks at higher risk. We have to tailor our solutions to our state to make sure we are protecting North Carolinians in the best way possible.

— NCDHHS (@ncdhhs) March 30, 2020

She said that this virus is, in many ways, like a war right here at home, “and our enemy is this virus, it can hurt us. It can take our loved ones from us. And the only way we can win and save as many lives as possible, is if we all do our part, and stay at home.”

Cohen added that the state is “imploring North Carolinians to please heed our advice to stay home.” Her response was to a question about the expected impact of Cooper’s order.

“We’ve seen (these measures) work in other parts of the world and even other parts of this country,” she said regarding the effect of slowing the spread. “We know that the virus is here in North Carolina, we can’t change that fact, what we can do is slow the spread, and we will continue to do the social distancing measures to protect people here in North Carolina.”

The number of cases is going up in North Carolina, Cohen explained, because there is more testing and, as for a peak, Cohen said that’s hard to pinpoint because they’re still learning about the virus.

“So while we are testing more, we’re going to find more, but what we are finding is a different kind of someone who is positive,” she said. “Where prior, we were able to trace back each of those positive cases to someone who may have had contact with someone who was positive, what we’re seeing now is that there is community spread of this virus.” Community spread means that folks don’t know where they picked it up from, “and that changes what we think about in terms of our level of response. It means we need to increase our social distancing, it means we need to make sure we’re planning to have the medical capacity that is appropriate to respond to COVID-19.”

To our doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff on the front lines: Your service is going to help us beat this virus, and I am deeply grateful to every one of you. – Gov. Cooper #NationalDoctorsDay pic.twitter.com/SjgkVM4LFI

— Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) March 30, 2020

Alignment with stay-at-home order

Cooper’s stay-at-home order was difficult, he acknowledged Monday, but “we must do this to slow the disease’s spread.”

Coastal counties responded with new restrictions to align with the statewide order.

Hyde County announced Monday that as of 5 p.m. visitors to mainland Hyde County were prohibited until further notice. Residents of Beaufort, Dare, Tyrrell, and Washington counties can enter for activities as outlined by the order, such as emergency services or to purchase essentials like groceries.

Hyde County also restricted nonresident property owners’ and workers’ access to Ocracoke. Those working on critical repairs requiring a building permit will be issued temporary entry permits. Permit applications will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and will be verified before an entry permit is issued. Temporary permits issued prior to the order that cannot be verified using the amended entry guidelines will be voided.

The order does not apply to permanent residents or anyone previously allowed entry without requiring a temporary permit. Vendors, delivery personnel and service providers of critical infrastructure are also permitted and do not need a temporary permit. The NCDOT Ferry Division said it will have access to a list of all permits issued and will deny entry to those who have not been verified. The Ferry Division also put in place new ferry schedules that go into effect Tuesday.

Dare County modified its  “Stay Home – Stay Healthy” declaration that went into effect at 5 p.m. Saturday to align with Cooper’s order.

New Hanover County said it was working with Wilmington, Carolina Beach, Kure Beach and Wrightsville Beach to put into place additional countywide restrictions effective Monday. New Hanover County’s additional restrictions are effective for at least 14 days, starting Monday, and include the following:

• Playgrounds, team sport facilities and public gardens are closed.
• Private and publicly owned amusement places such as children’s play centers, recreation centers, country clubs and social clubs are closed.
• Golf courses are restricted to allowing walking golfers or one golfer per cart to maintain social distance requirements.
• Nonessential retail, including indoor or outdoor shopping malls, and retail facilities that do not provide goods essential for health, sustenance, shelter, mobility and hygiene are closed, but delivery and curbside service at all retail establishments may be continued.
• Auto dealerships, boat dealerships and other motor vehicle sales points, not including repair or maintenance services, hotels, motels, and short-term lodging except as allowed by a governmental request to assist with the emergency response to Coronavirus, retail or “captain” stores situated at marinas are closed.

New Hanover County’s restrictions do not apply to grocery stores, pharmacies, convenience stores, hardware and building supply stores, or gas stations may remain open. Delivery, drive-through and curbside food service are allowed but carry-out food services that require the customer to enter the interior of the merchant’s facility are closed.

Carteret County in a declaration Friday discouraged entry into the county by those who are not residents or property owners, and further discouraged travel to the county. Late Monday afternoon, the county amended its State of Emergency to prohibit starting at 5 p.m. that day, the rental of a hotel room, motel room, rental housing unit, condominium, RV campsite, primitive campsite, or similar accommodation for less than 30 consecutive days through April 29, except to those contractors and employees performing essential services within Carteret County.

Emerald Isle placed mandatory restriction that began Friday on the same short-term rentals, Atlantic Beach put out the same restrictions on Saturday and similar restrictions for Pine Knoll Shores went into effect at 5 p.m. Monday.

All Pamlico County government offices closed to the public except by appointment effective Monday and will remain closed until April 30.

Regional trends

State Epidemiologist Dr. Zack Moore said Monday that no specific trends were clear regarding regions of the state, such as the mountains versus coast, on positive COVID-19 cases, but such information will be tracked.

Moore explained that what was clear was that COVID-19 is not limited to any particular part of the state. The confirmed cases have been in larger cities and in more rural areas.

While the focus has been on laboratory-confirmed cases, DHHS acknowledged limits in testing capability. Other methods and tools are necessary to track COVID-19, Moore said.

“Everyone knows this is a rapidly evolving situation. We have great experts here at the state level, very experienced workforce at the local level in public health in tracking communicable diseases of all kinds, and we have great tools that we plan to draw from, but it is rapidly evolving,” Moore said.

Moore said that in early February, COVID-19 was recognized as a threat and the state health director issued an order to add COVID-19 to the list of conditions that physicians and laboratories are required to report to the state. “So that basically means that all the positive lab result must be reported to the state, and we’re getting that data and tracking it and posting it daily on the ncdhhs.gov website,” he said.

Information about patients’ symptoms such as cough, fever or shortness of breath is going to become a more important tool, he said, rather than simply relying only on laboratory testing. Such information includes tracking those who present for medical care with symptoms but aren’t tested for COVID-19.

Tracking emergency department visits for symptoms and hospital admissions for acute respiratory illness by week doesn’t capture people who don’t seek medical care people who have minimal symptoms or no symptoms at all, Moore said.

As far as the stay-at-home order goes, Moore said that the number of cases probably won’t reflect the impact of the order for another two weeks from the time it goes into effect.

Personal protective equipment needs

Director of the state Emergency Management Mike Sprayberry said during the afternoon conference Monday that work continues to locate and acquire needed personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and first responders to include masks, gloves and gowns.

“(Monday) we’re receiving our third shipment of personal protective equipment from the Strategic National Stockpile,” he said. “We’ve received two other shipments from the national stockpile over the past two weeks.”

He said the state has requested a half million each of N95 masks, procedure masks, gowns, gloves, face shields and coveralls. The first two shipments had fulfilled of that request 38% of the N95 masks, 91% of the procedure masks, 32% of the gloves, 14% of the gowns and 16% of the face shields.

Additionally, Sprayberry said that so far, the state had placed orders totaling about $92 million in the private market and some of these supplies were starting to arrive.

On the Outer Banks, daily life feels almost like the familiar suspension of normality in preparing for a storm: Everyone and everything is hyper-focused on stocking supplies and staying safe.

But unlike the adrenaline-fueled anxiety of hurricane readiness, anticipating the impact of looming disease is just endless churning of anxiety. No one knows what to expect or when it will end.

With the first death in North Carolina from COVID-19 reported Tuesday in Cabarrus County, and Dare County’s first positive case reported Wednesday, the state is bracing for the continued spread of cases from the coronavirus pandemic. So far, few have been found in northeastern North Carolina coastal counties, but public health professionals have been gathering resources for weeks to be as ready as possible. People in these rural counties are generally poorer, older and less healthy than most North Carolinians.

“This is such a fluid situation, and there are so many unknowns,” Hyde County Health Department Director Luana Gibbs said in an interview last week. “I think we’re pulling together as a community … We’re being very proactive.”

Gibbs said that in limiting their public contacts, healthy people are protecting not only themselves, but also the frail or vulnerable folks where they live and work.

“We do have a growing population of elderly and we do have a population with chronic health conditions,” she said. “Yes, that is a concern and I do worry about that.”

Older adults and people with serious underlying medical conditions such as heart disease and diabetes are at higher risk of severe illness from the virus.

Besides the higher percentages of folks in the high-risk population, there are other public health challenges in the region. Public transportation is sparse or nonexistent, Internet service can be spotty and high-speed broadband needed for streaming video — and virtual healthcare, or telemedicine — is still unavailable or unaffordable in some rural areas. And the area has been hit hard by the opioid addiction crisis.

The unfolding economic and health emergency is happening right on the heels of historic storm damage from Hurricane Dorian last fall, especially on Ocracoke Island in Hyde County. The 800 or so year-round residents on the island are still recovering from devastating destruction, with island businesses just starting to get back on their feet. Now, like the rest of the Outer Banks, there is a state of emergency in effect and commerce from tourism has screeched to a halt. Health care and mental health care are available at a county clinic on the island.

Recent positive cases of COVID-19 have been reported in nearby Pasquotank, Bertie, Northampton and Hertford counties. Hyde had a positive test show up last week, but it was in a person who had a Hyde address but was not in the county. The Dare County case was found in a person who did not use a Dare County address when they were tested.

With tourists barred from Dare, Hyde and Currituck counties, all bars closed and restaurants shuttered except for take-out and delivery, and museums, movie theaters, gyms and hair salons no longer open for business, more residents can be seen outside, taking long walks with their dogs and strolling beaches and trails with their children. But with social contact so limited and the health risk hovering ominously over the future, the atmosphere is hardly happy-go-lucky.

As of midday Thursday, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported there were 636 cases of COVID, up from 504 positive test results statewide Wednesday, of 12,910 tests.

Two coronavirus-linked deaths have been reported in North Carolina. A person from Cabarrus County died on March 24 from complications associated with the virus. The patient was in their late 70s and had several underlying medical conditions. A person in their 60s from Virginia who was traveling through North Carolina also died from COVID-19 complications.

Gov. Roy Cooper has ordered all K-12 public schools to stay closed through May 15, banned gatherings of 50 or more people and limited restaurants and bars to delivery and take-out service and restricting visits to long-term care facilities.

Cooper said that the recent deaths in the state should serve as a “stark warning” to residents about the serious health risk of the virus.

“All of us must do our part to stop the spread by staying at home as much as possible and practicing social distancing,” the governor said in a press release.

But maintaining social distance — about 6 feet apart from other people — and other measures such as limiting group activities, are not always practiced, willfully or not.

“Based on the calls we are receiving at our call center and seeing on social media, we see some individuals expressing skepticism and others that understand the seriousness of the situation,” Director of the Dare County Department of Health and Human Services Sheila Davies said in a March 20 email, responding to an inquiry from Coastal Review Online.

Like Gibbs, Davies said that since the virus is novel, disease experts are learning about its characteristics in real time. For that reason, there is little to go by to estimate the magnitude or timeline of spread of the virus, or the rate and severity of infection.

“We don’t have a way to predict the numbers of individuals who could become ill from COVID-19,” Davies said.

About 87% of Dare County residents have health insurance, she said, but with a population that skews older, they’re at higher risk of being infected.

Available care

Residents in Dare County and parts of Currituck, Hyde and Tyrrell counties depend on the 26-bed Outer Banks Hospital in Nags Head for a range of health care needs that can’t be treated in community health clinics. Depending on their proximity, Tyrrell and Hyde residents can also go to 142-bed Vidant Beaufort Hospital in Washington, in Beaufort County. Basic healthcare and prescription medications are provided by the Community Care Clinic of Dare in Nags Head for uninsured or under-insured Dare County residents.

There are also numerous clinics, health centers and medical practices in the region operated by Vidant Health, which is affiliated with the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. The nonprofit system, which earlier this month announced a layoff of 191 “team members” serves more than 1.4 million people in 29 eastern North Carolina counties.

And if a community is overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases, help will be provided, Davies said.

“The state has a stockpile system in place where counties can request additional supplies as needed,” she said.

North Carolina’s medical response through the Health Care Coalitions is built to augment healthcare needs for citizens during disasters. The state has recently appealed for volunteers to supplement the healthcare workforce and to provide medical supplies and protective equipment.

In an informational video released last week, Outer Banks Hospital president Ronnie Sloan said that the hospital, which is part of the Vidant system, had been “working around the clock to prepare.” Weeks ago, staff started collecting samples from patients to send off to several laboratories to test for the virus. As a result, he said, the response time for results has gotten shorter. The hospital has also been doing “scenario planning” in the event the virus starts to spread.

“Daily, we are planning for a potential surge, reviewing supplies, staffing, policies, procedures, capacity and partnerships,” Sloan said.

With a few exceptions, the hospital is prohibiting all visitors and outpatient appointments have been rescheduled. Plans are being made to offer some patients virtual medical visits via telephone, FaceTime or video chat.

In addition, PORT Health is providing mental health services, and has started offering virtual counseling and groups. Mental health care is also available on Ocracoke Island through the county.

College concerns

Clearly, healthcare providers have been at the front lines of the coronavirus response. At the same time, instructors have continued to teach training classes for public health and safety personnel, such as nurses, EMTs and emergency fire and law enforcement responders, at College of The Albemarle.

But Peter Graves Roberts, a Southern Shores resident, said that the continued in-person instruction at campus sites, including Roanoke Island, puts instructors in danger. One instructor he knows is at high-risk and has been worried about working, but they felt hesitant to speak up, Roberts said in an interview.

Roberts said that the teaching should be done online, or the classes should be postponed.

“This is a liability nightmare waiting to happen,” Roberts wrote in an email he sent to local officials. “State funded colleges should not require civilian instructors to participate in face-to-face instruction during the current pandemic and state of emergency.”

Roberts also said that the travel between counties many of the instructors must make to do their jobs puts them at additional risk of exposure to the virus.

According to Jenna Hatfield, public information officer for COA, the state considers the instruction a critical need. The system is following the guidance and recommendations from the North Carolina Community College System and other state offices.

“If we are asked as a system to stop all activities, other than online course delivery, then we will be prepared to do,” she said in an email. “However, we refrain from taking actions that are not consistent with the guidance provided to all of the community colleges.”

In responding to Roberts’ concerns, COA president Jack Bagwell said in an email that instructors can opt out if they choose, and all safety measures are taken to keep personnel and students safe. The number of instructors and students was not immediately available.

“We have suspended all face-to-face instruction except in areas we have specifically been requested by the state to continue if we can do so safely,” he wrote. “We are continuously working with our clinical sites to evaluate whether programs will be able to continue.”

For recommendations from the North Carolina Community College System, visit www.albemarle.edu/coronavirus. You can find additional guidance below from the NC Community College System office at their COVID-19 Response webpage.

Updated at noon Wednesday with most recent case numbers

North Carolina will likely see the number of COVID-19 cases accelerate, health officials say, but not all coastal communities are responding alike.

“We’re going on the assumption that we had community spread even before we had documentation of community spread. I think you can see our numbers are going up,” Dr. Betsey Tilson, state health director and chief medical officer for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said Tuesday afternoon during a press conference.

“We don’t have lab documentation of all the infections. I think we are in acceleration spread,” she said, which is why the governor has been putting in place community-based measures.

She added that the state has been proactive and will continue to be, because they see acceleration spread. “We want to double down on everything that we can do for our state to flatten that curve. We know it’s going to go up and we want that curve to be as less steep and as flattened as possible.”

Gov. Roy Cooper in a letter to President Trump requested a major disaster declaration for the State of due to the continuing impacts of COVID-19, his office announced late Tuesday.

“It’s important that we help North Carolinians stay protected from the health impacts of COVID-19 and recover economically from the financial impacts this crisis is having on our state,” Cooper said in a statement.

Cooper, as part of the major disaster declaration, has asked the federal government to provide individual assistance for those affected, including crisis counseling, disaster unemployment assistance and Small Business Administration assistance, among other programs.

Tilson began the media briefing Tuesday afternoon by explaining that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, now recommends that those who think that they may have COVID-19 and have mild symptoms should stay home, separate themselves from others and call their doctor for medical advice.

According to the CDC, those at high risk include people who are 65 and older or have a high-risk condition such as a chronic lung disease, asthma, heart disease with complications compromised immune system, severe obesity, or other especially poorly controlled underlying medical conditions like diabetes or kidney problems, she said.

Current data does not show a specific increased risk for COVID-19 in pregnant women. While children are generally at a lower risk for severe infection, some studies point to a higher risk for infants.

Tilson said that those with mild illness who recover at home can return to their normal activities when they can answer “yes” to all three of these questions: Has it been seven days since you first had symptoms? Have you been without fever for three days without any medicines for fever? And are your other symptoms improved?

“Once you can say yes to all that then you can go back into your life,” she said.

Anyone with more serious or worsening symptoms such as worsening shortness of breath, difficulty breathing chest pain or pressure, confusion or blue lips should call 911 right away.

“We already know that we’re not capturing or identifying all the cases in North Carolina — I think we’ve talked a lot about this — there’s people with very mild symptoms or no symptoms,” Tilson said.

She explained the way to understand the spread across the state is not to try to test everybody. Instead, they’ll use the evidence-based surveillance strategies used to understand the spread of influenza across the state and apply that to COVID-19. “That will give us a much more evidence-based, science-driven data on the spread of disease and then that will help us understand, ‘Do we need to put more social distancing and community mitigations and strategies in place?’ or can we start pulling them back so that’s the pivot that we’re going to be doing.”

The department released a new fact sheet to help North Carolinians know what to do if they are sick and what could happen if someone with mild illness leaves home to be tested. “They could expose themselves to COVID-19 if they don’t already have the infection and if they do have an infection with COVID-19, they could give it to somebody else, including somebody in their community at high risk for complications or a healthcare provider who will be needed to care for people with more severe illness,” she said.

Tilson said regarding testing, it’s most important for those who are seriously ill, in the hospital, in a high-risk setting, like a long-term care facility or a nursing home, and healthcare workers and other first responders who are caring for those with more serious infections with COVID-19.

“This is particularly important as we face a nationwide shortage of personal protective equipment,” she said. “We need to be mindful so that our health care providers have the supplies they need to care for people who need medical attention.”

Mike Sprayberry, director, North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, said that globally there are shortages of personal protective equipment. “We know that we don’t have as much as we need, but we are working to get as much as we can. And that is the number one priority over the next few days.”

He said early in the conference Tuesday that this is day 15 of our activation in the State Emergency Operations Center for COVID-19. As of that afternoon, 49 counties have activated county emergency operations centers and 94 counties have declared states of emergency.

“This morning we received our second allocation of personal protective equipment from the federal Strategic National Stockpile,” he said. The shipment included included N95 respirators, surgical masks, face shields, surgical gowns and gloves, which were dispersed to medical facilities across the state. A similar shipment of supplies was received last week and dispersed as well.

These supplies are also being sourced on the private market and donations of personal protective supplies are coming in from corporations and individuals, he added.

NCDHHS reported late Wednesday morning the first  COVID-19 associated deaths in the state. The patient from Cabarrus County died March 24 from complications associated with the virus. The patient was in their late 70s and had several underlying medical conditions. A second person in their 60s from Virginia who was traveling through the state also died from COVID-19 complications.

Statewide cases as of 10:35 a.m. Wednesday totaled 504, according to NCDHHS. As of noon Wednesday, the following cases have been reported on the coast: Hertford and Pasquotank counties have one confirmed COVID-19 case each; two in Beaufort County: three each in Bertie, Craven and Onslow counties; five in Carteret County; 10 in Brunswick County; and 10 in New Hanover County.

Dare County Department of Health and Human Services announced its first case Wednesday morning. It will not show up as a Dare County case with the NCDHHS because a Dare County address was not used when the person was tested.

Closures, restrictions along NC coast

While some coastal towns and villages were quick to force visitors out, others, including some towns on Bogue Banks in Carteret County, have taken an apparent wait-and-see approach in their response.

Brunswick County beach towns have closed all town facilities, restricted public gatherings to 10, a minimum 6 feet apart, at parks and on beaches and prohibited new short-term rentals.

In Sunset Beach, rental agencies and property owners with current short-term rental occupants are required to notify the occupants that they must vacate and leave town no later than 5 p.m. Thursday.

Ocean Isle Beach says all current short-term renters must leave town by 2 p.m. Wednesday.  New rental occupancies of any nature or duration or prohibited until April 6.

Holden Beach is giving short-term renters until 2 p.m. Saturday to leave. New rentals are prohibited until April 4.

Short-term renters in Oak Island were asked to leave Tuesday and rentals discontinued through April 30.

Bald Head Island is under a voluntary evacuation but shut down access last Thursday, except for residents and property owners, and short-term rentals on Sunday. Restrictions are to remain in place through Thursday April 30.

New Hanover County towns of Wrightsville Beach and Kure Beach had not restricted short-term rentals as of Tuesday, but Carolina Beach ended vacation rentals Tuesday with current visitors to be out by 2 p.m. Friday. Kure Beach was set to hold a continued emergency meeting Tuesday evening. Wrightsville Beach previously closed its beaches to residents and visitors, but as of Tuesday, visitors were still able to enter and leave town without going through a checkpoint and displaying a reentry pass.

Topsail Beach is not allowing new rental occupancies until April 22. Those already staying in a rental property can finish their stay but no later than April 4.

Surf City renters and guests are to leave no later than 2 p.m. Wednesday. As of Monday, no new rental occupancies of a duration less than 90 days will be allowed.

North Topsail Beach is enforcing restrictions from Saturday through April 25. Renters who have checked-in and their rental extends beyond March 28 will be allowed to finish their stay but cannot extend.

In Carteret County, no restrictions on rentals are announced but Atlantic Beach recommends visitors stay away. Social gatherings of more than 10 are prohibited and the town urges vacation and hotel management companies to refuse reservations to leisure travelers until April 6.

Hyde County Monday announced that nonresident property owners not actively working on repairing their homes are no longer permitted entry to Ocracoke. Contractors working on Ocracoke properties are permitted access. These two groups will need to submit an application for a temporary permit to access the island.

Visitors and nonresident property owners are barred from entering Dare County.

And access to the Currituck County section of the Outer Banks is denied to visitors and nonresident property owners.

Fort Fisher State Recreation Area and Fort Macon State Park are closed because of county beach and travel closures and county declarations of state of emergency. Jockey’s Ridge State Park is open only to residents of Dare County.

Statewide closures

Monday, Gov. Roy Cooper extended school closures statewide to May 15, closed close-contact businesses and limited visitors to long-term care centers, effective Wednesday.

Grocery stores and restaurants providing takeout and delivery are to remain open.

The following types of businesses are to be closed by 5 p.m. Wednesday in order to stay within the lowered threshold on crowds of more than 50 people:

• Bingo Parlors, including Bingo sites operated by charitable organizations
• Bowling Alleys
• Indoor Exercise Facilities, such as gyms, yoga studios, martial arts facilities, indoor trampoline and rock-climbing facilities
• Health clubs
• Indoor pools
• Live performance venues
• Movie theaters
• Skating rinks
• Spas
• Sweepstakes lounges
• Video game arcades
• Barber shops
• Beauty salons, including waxing and hair removal centers
• Hair salons
• Nail salons/manicure/pedicure providers
• Massage parlors
• Tattoo parlors

Cooper highlighted the need for medical and health care workers and urged qualified, available professionals to volunteer by signing up at ncdhhs.gov/coronavirus, especially doctors and nurses, pharmacy, imaging and respiratory care, and facility maintenance and administrative support workers.

Editor Mark Hibbs contributed to this report.

State and local officials imposed further rounds of restrictions in an attempt to head off the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

Gov. Roy Cooper signed an executive order Tuesday that bans dine-in service at bars and restaurants and includes a plan to streamline unemployment applications for affected workers.

“We did not come to this decision easily. But North Carolina must keep fighting this pandemic with the right weapons,” said Cooper in a news release Tuesday evening from his office. “During this time of uncertainty, I will keep working to protect the health and safety of North Carolinians and keep our state’s economy afloat.”

The order directs restaurants as of 5 p.m. Tuesday to close sit-down service and are restricted to take-out or delivery orders. Onsite consumption in outside seating areas that follow social distancing guidelines of patrons at least 6 feet apart and crowds of fewer than 100 persons are permitted. The restrictions will remain in place until March 31 or until the order is rescinded or replaced.

Grocery stores, gas stations and convenience stores are exempt and will remain open, though they may not serve sit-down food, according to his office.

Additionally, the order waives the one-week wait time for applications for unemployment benefits and an in-person meeting. Recipients can apply online or over the phone and won’t be required to prove they are looking for work, which Cooper said doesn’t make sense given the amount of widespread job losses.

Cooper and members of his coronavirus task force held a media briefing Tuesday afternoon to give an update.

“You have my personal commitment and the commitment of my administration to work tirelessly and make the very best decisions that we can,” Cooper began. Cooper continued that some things are going to have to change for a while. This will be a long and difficult road for us to travel but we are North Carolinians and we are resilient. And even as some things change, who we are will not.”

Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said during the press conference the new strategies are necessary to slow the virus’ spread.

“Our goal is to slow the spread of the infection so fewer people get sick at the same time and we don’t overwhelm our medical system resources,” she said.

Cohen said that, as of Tuesday morning, the state had 40 positive cases in 16 counties and that testing was ramping up at both state and local laboratories. Three coastal counties, Brunswick, Craven and Onslow, have each reported one case of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Outer Banks officials opted for a storm-like response, closing access to Dare County for all visitors.

The decision by Dare County Tuesday to close to visitors came after backlash against businesses touting Outer Banks getaways for the pandemic.

In a Facebook post over the weekend, Nags Head Mayor Ben Cahoon said that, for the most part, town residents and businesses had adapted to the changes, but he criticized businesses trying to drum up more guests.

“Church services are being modified or canceled, businesses are adapting, people are refraining from close contact. Bravo!,” he wrote. “But a few businesses are attempting to capitalize on out-of-state school cancellations and remote-work options and are inviting vacationers. This is absolutely contrary to the spirit of the guidelines and common sense. I would urge them to reconsider.”

On Ocracoke Island, which continues to struggle in its recovery from Hurricane Dorian’s devastation in September 2019, residents and business owners were anxious about their health and the health of the village’s economy, said Peter Vankevich, co-publisher of the Ocracoke Observer.

Some businesses only recently reopened, and now some have voluntarily closed to protect their employees’ health and that of other island residents.

Vankevich called the ordeal a “double whammy” of anxiety. “The stress factor over here is absolutely huge,” he said.

The latest actions follow a major shift in the state’s response last weekend over concerns about an impending acceleration in cases in North Carolina of the highly infectious virus.

Cooper and state health officials announced Saturday that schools would close statewide Monday through at least March 27 and a prohibition on public gatherings of more than 100 people.

Under the governor’s March 14 executive order, the ban on gatherings of more than 100 people in spaces such as auditoriums, theaters, stadiums and meeting halls. Parades, fairs, festivals and other events in confined indoor or outdoor spaces is also under the ban. It did not apply to airports, bus and train stations, medical facilities, libraries, shopping malls, retail stores, factories, offices and grocery stores.

In addition to an extended break for the schools, the order also set up a state task force to develop ways to provide meals and other services for students during the closure period.

Cooper said he expected businesses and individuals throughout the state to take an economic hit over the shutdowns. In addition to the changes to unemployment rules, Cooper said he expected further state and federal aid.

Cooper requested Friday a Small Businesses Administration disaster declaration and State Emergency Management officials announced Friday that they were reviewing rules on an initial round of federal aid.

Last week, all three branches of state government announced delays and cancellations. North Carolina General Assembly committees preparing for the upcoming short session set for the end of April suspended work through the end of the month and staff members were encouraged to work from home. House Speaker Tim Moore announced that the earliest the legislature would restart committee work would be April 1.

The Department of Environmental Quality also postponed several hearings, including an update in Hope Mills on GenX and per- and polyfluorinated substances, or PFAS, and a public hearing in Wilmington on methyl bromide and log fumigation.

The state Coastal Resources Commission canceled its April meeting in Manteo and announced it would move all items on the agenda to its June 10-11 meeting.

Federal guidelines announced Monday also emphasized social distancing, limiting gatherings to 10 persons, avoiding visits to nursing homes, retirement and long-term care facilities and limiting discretionary travel, shopping and social visits.

On Monday, the state Ferry Division asked passengers to stay in their vehicles when possible during crossings and if using facilities to limit contact with surfaces, keep 6 feet away from other passengers and crew and wash their hands.

In New Hanover County, public libraries and the Cape Fear Museum will be closed starting Wednesday and remain so until further notice. The county’s parks and gardens, including Airlie Gardens and the Arboretum, will remain open for visitors, but the education centers and enclosed areas at the county’s parks and gardens will be closed.

New Hanover County’s Health and Human Services Department remains open, but residents are asked to call ahead at 910-798-3500 to determine if services can be conducted over the phone prior to coming to the building.

The Onslow County Health Department announced Tuesday it would not be accepting walk-in appointments and would be limiting some services.

For more information on the virus, visit the CDC’s website at www.cdc.gov/coronavirus and NCDHHS’ website at www.ncdhhs.gov/coronavirus, which includes daily updates on positive COVID-19 test results in North Carolina.

Coastal Review Online Editor Mark Hibbs and Assistant Editor Jennifer Allen contributed to this report.

Schools in New Hanover and Brunswick counties are installing new water filling stations and special filters in reaction to continuing concerns about levels of industrial contaminants found in drinking water systems.

The move to reduce per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, comes after a nationwide report again highlighted high levels of the compounds in water supplies, with Brunswick County registering the highest levels in the country and the Wilmington region listed as the fifth highest.

The new filtration systems use reverse osmosis, or RO, the method that’s been determined to be most effective in reducing levels of the compounds. Initial plans call for one RO station at each school.

Last week, the Brunswick County Board of Education reviewed a plan for a pilot project to test reverse osmosis stations at Lincoln Elementary and Belville Elementary, both in Leland, and a third-party testing lab to monitor before-and-after results.

Earlier this month, the New Hanover County School Board agreed to move $142,582 in its capital projects fund to begin a similar project.

New Hanover County School Board member Stefanie Adams said the approved funding will go to start engineering studies of how and where to put in RO filters in the county’s 30 affected schools, but it won’t cover the total cost of the program. Moving ahead with the program is essential, she said, especially considering that the installation of new filtration systems at Cape Fear Public Utility Authority’s Sweeney Treatment Plant is expected to take about three years to complete.

“There’s definitely the interest to move forward and make sure we are providing safe water in all of our schools,” Adams said. “It’s a crisis and it’s absolutely imperative that we quickly and expediently get these services available to our children and our school staff.”

Adams said worries about the safety of schools’ drinking water remain high throughout the community.

“I know this as a parent,” she said. “I have a son who is 8 years old, and I lived here when I was pregnant, and I drank the water from the tap. When he was an infant, if I made formula, I made it from the tap.”

She said her family’s reaction was to contract with a water service for regular deliveries of bottled water, but that option isn’t available to everyone.

“I think people are very angry and they are frustrated,” Adams said. “For those that have the means to be able to put an RO filter in their home or order bottled water, that’s great, but what about those in our community that can’t. What are we doing for them?”

Emily Donovan is a co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, an environmental advocacy group that has focused on PFAS issues. Donovan said RO stations are an important step, but she would also like to see the number of water stations expanded.

“We’d like to see three filling stations at each school,” Donovan said in an interview with Coastal Review Online.

She said that after an Environmental Working Group report on PFAS in drinking water came out last fall, volunteers collected more than 2,000 signatures asking for an alternative water source for students in both school systems.

The group gathered quotes from reverse osmosis system providers that put the cost of installing three stations in each of the 30 affected schools in the New Hanover County system at roughly $350,000. The estimate also included a three-year maintenance agreement.

Legislation proposed

Last week, actor Mark Ruffalo, who starred in “Dark Waters,” a film about the fight over PFAS contamination in West Virginia, visited both Wilmington and Pittsboro to draw attention to contamination in both areas.

During a press conference at the North Carolina Legislative Building in Raleigh, Ruffalo, community members from the Cape Fear River watershed and legislators called on stronger action from the state General Assembly to address the problem.

“How did we come to a place in America when we are afraid to drink the water out of our tap?” Ruffalo asked.

Also during the press conference, Sen. Harper Peterson, D-New Hanover, said he would introduce a local bill when the legislature returns in April to help fund three RO systems in each New Hanover County school and potentially in other systems.

“I hope the other counties also impacted by the contamination will follow suit,” he said.

Peterson said he also supports a move, as called for in a New Hanover County School Board resolution approved earlier this month, to allow affected school systems to collect some of the fines imposed on Chemours Co., whose manufacturing facility near Fayetteville was identified as the source of high levels of the PFAS compound GenX detected in the Cape Fear River.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, who introduced several measures last session to address PFAS contamination, said the state is not doing enough, especially with an ongoing reluctance of federal officials to take more aggressive action.

“It’s everywhere and its ubiquitous and it has significant health problems associated with it,” she said. “We have limited federal oversight and a weak federal regulatory structure … We have limited state regulatory protections in place and the state agencies have also been constrained by recent actions in the General Assembly that have limited in their ability to be aggressively proactive with this.”

Last year, legislative leaders delayed action on new PFAS bills, saying they wanted to wait for results from statewide testing by a consortium of state and private universities. A request by Gov. Roy Cooper for additional funds and personnel was pared down considerably in the legislature’s spending plan but has since been caught up the ongoing budget standoff between the governor and the legislature. So far, legislators have not included the PFAS funding in any of the handful of mini-budgets passed to work around the standoff.

Harrison said that ultimately the state should adopt tighter regulations and a precautionary approach to the thousands of PFAS chemicals and other contaminants that would prevent them from being discharged into public waters without proof that they are not harmful.

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

Not all types of in-home filters are completely effective at removing “forever chemicals” from drinking water, and a few could do more harm than good if not properly maintained, according to a new study released Wednesday by North Carolina researchers.

Water filters in refrigerators, pitcher-style filters, under the sink reverse osmosis systems and whole-house filtration systems can function differently and have vastly different price tags, according to the study, headed by the researchers from Duke University and North Carolina State University.

Researchers tested 76 drinking water filtration systems to determine their ability to remove toxic perfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS, in homes in Chatham, Orange, Durham and Wake counties in central North Carolina. They also tested in homes in New Hanover and Brunswick counties in the southeastern part of the state.

The conclusion is that “their effectiveness varied widely,” said Heather Stapleton, an associate professor of Environmental Health at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and a lead researcher in the study. But researchers say having a filter is better than not having one.

Reverse osmosis works best

Stapleton said the study, published Wednesday in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, found that reverse osmosis filters work best. They reduced GenX and other PFAS by 94% or more, according to a news release provided to reporters from across the state who attended a panel discussion at Duke University titled “Safeguarding the Water We Drink: Understanding the Science Behind Emerging Threats to N.C.’s Drinking Water.”

Activated carbon filters, such as those found in refrigerators and pitcher-style filtration systems, on average, removed 73% of PFAS contaminants, but the results varied widely.

“In some cases, the chemicals were completely removed; in other cases, they were not reduced at all,” according to the release. “Researchers saw no clear trends between removal efficiency and filter brand, age or source water chemical levels. Changing out filters regularly is probably a very good idea, nonetheless.”

In contrast to reverse osmosis filters, Stapleton said in the release, “the effectiveness of activated-carbon filters used in many pitcher, countertop, refrigerator and faucet-mounted styles was inconsistent and unpredictable. The whole house systems were also widely variable and in some cases actually increased PFAS levels in the water.”

N.C. first to study filters’ effectiveness

The study was the first to examine the efficiency of filtration devices in removing a slate of PFAS in homes. Its authors said the discrepancies in effectiveness and cost may make it harder for people concerned about the contaminants in their drinking water to know which system best suits their needs and budgets.

“The under-sink reverse osmosis filter is the most efficient system for removing both the PFAS contaminants prevalent in central N.C. and PFEAs, including GenX, found in Wilmington,” Detlef Knappe, an N.C. State professor, said in the release. “Unfortunately, they also cost much more than other point-of-use filters.

“This raises concerns about environmental justice, since PFAS pollution affects more households that struggle financially than those that do not.”

Knappe, a co-author of the study, called home filters “a stop-gap” measure.

“The real goal should be control of PFAS contaminants at their source,” he said.

5,000 types of PFAS

There are an estimated 5,000 different types of PFAS, which have come under scrutiny in recent years because of their potential harm to health and widespread presence in the environment, especially in drinking water. Long-term exposure to PFAS is associated with various cancers, low birth weight, thyroid disease, impaired immune function and other health problems.

North Carolina is said to have the third-worst problems with PFAS of any state in the country. The Washington-based Environmental Working Group released a study last month that found Brunswick County had the highest level of total PFAS from samples of tap water taken at 44 locations in 31 states.

Data released last month by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality found much higher levels of PFAS being discharged into rivers and streams from some sewer treatment plants in the Cape Fear River basin. Samples taken in September at Sanford’s sewer plant detected total PFAS measuring 4,026 parts per trillion. In Burlington, total PFAS measured 2,296 parts per trillion in August.

Although the DEQ did not sample for PFAS in drinking water, it is evident that the contamination is present in tap water in many communities in the river basin. Data out of Fayetteville show a contamination spike of 244 parts per trillion of total PFAS in its drinking water in September.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has set a health advisory on only two types of PFAS — known as PFOA and PFOS. Under those guidelines, a person who consistently consumes 70 parts per trillion of either chemical, or a combination of them both, stands an increased risk of cancer and other adverse health effects.

Knappe said after the meeting that he would like to see North Carolina lower its health advisory for PFOA and PFOS to be more in line with what other states are doing, particularly New Jersey and Michigan. Health officials in those states have proposed advisories of only 13 parts per trillion or less. The Environmental Working Group proposes an even lower advisory level: 1 part per trillion for all PFAS.

Other water pollution problems highlighted

Joining Stapleton and Knappe on the panel Wednesday were Duke University environmental professors Avner Vengosh and Lee Ferguson.

Vengosh spoke about high levels of heavy metals and other contaminants being found at the bottom of Sutton Lake, which was once used by Duke Energy to cool a coal-burning power plant. Toxic levels of contaminants have been found in the lake’s fish, Vengosh said.

Vengosh also spoke about a study released in November that he co-authored that found potentially harmful levels of hexavalent chromium in more than half of 1,400 wells tested in the central part of the state. Hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen, occurs naturally in groundwater. It is also found in coal ash.

Ferguson spoke about the North Carolina PFAST Network’s sampling of all of the municipal drinking water supplies in the state. Although the second round of testing continues, Ferguson said high levels of PFAS have been detected in seven water systems — for Brunswick, New Hanover, Pender and Orange counties, Wrightsville Beach, Maysville, and International Paper Co.

The network is part of the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory. It was created in 2018 with a $5 million grant from the legislature to assess PFAS contamination statewide. Ferguson serves as a network director.

He said after the meeting that the contaminants found in Orange County’s drinking water were barely above the EPA’s health advisory, and the county has taken action to keep the contaminants low. He said Wrightsville Beach has corrected its problem and Maysville is getting water from neighboring Jones County.

WILMINGTON — Biodegradable food packaging seems to offer the best of all worlds — convenience and an environmentally friendly waste product. However, recent studies have shown that compostable food containers, as well as paper plates and fast-food containers, often contain short-chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, to repel water and grease.

Short-chain PFAS may pose significant environmental and health risks.

A study by Environmental Science & Technology Letters showed that PFAS are present in compost that includes food containers. Researchers found that seven facilities that accepted compostable food containers had PFAS concentrations from about 29 to 76 micrograms per kilogram of compost, while compost from facilities that didn’t accept food containers contained less than 8 micrograms of compost per kilogram of compost.

“The bad news is that PFAS are so prevalent in everything we do that it’s extremely difficult to have a lifestyle where you aren’t using something with these chemicals,” said Joe Suleyman, New Hanover County’s director of environmental management. “The grocery stores are full of food products that come in packaging that’s coated with this family of chemicals.”

The dangers that short-chain PFAS pose are multi-faceted. Even though short-chain PFAS stay in the body for a few days to a couple of months, as opposed to long-chain PFAS that stay in the body for years, we are exposed to them repeatedly. They’re used in food containers ranging from biodegradable food ware to convenience food packaging to hamburger wrappers and pizza boxes, and the accumulated effect adds up. Just as problematic is that short-chain PFAS never break down, even when composted, and they are extremely mobile. As a result, these substances leach into soil and water and end up in food crops, according to the report, Take Out Toxics: PFAS Chemicals in Food Packaging.

Furthermore, short-chain PFAS may be as harmful to our health as their ugly siblings, long-chain PFAS, which were banned in the U.S. in 2016 for their link to liver disease, thyroid dysfunction and several forms of cancer. Though scientists don’t know how short-chain PFAS affect human health, studies on this new generation of chemicals have found in laboratory tests that their effect on health resembles those caused by the older compounds, according to Take Out Toxics: PFAS Chemicals in Food Packaging.

Movement to ban PFAS in food packaging

The outcry against short-chain PFAS has been growing. In May, Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., introduced legislation to ban the use of toxic PFAS in food containers and cookware. The Keep Food Containers Safe from PFAS Act empowers the Food and Drug Administration to deem PFAS substances in any food containers or cookware unsafe and gives the FDA until 2022 to enforce this ban.

The industry, too, is working to limit short-chain PFAS in compostable products. The Biodegradable Products Institute, or BPI, which certifies compostable products and packaging, has put measures in place to restrict, and then eliminate, the use of fluorinated chemicals in products and packaging it certifies as compostable. BPI approved 100 parts per million total fluorine limit in its certification and said BPI certified compostable products and packaging that don’t meet the 100 ppm total fluorine requirement must be phased out of the marketplace by the end of 2019.

PFAS-free products available

Fortunately, food containers that don’t contain PFAs are available. Those composed of steam-pressed bamboo or palm leaves break down completely when composted, according to Suleyman.

Outer Vanguard, whose products are sold by the Wilmington Compost Co., also has a line of PFAS-free food ware. Made from sugarcane, these molded fiber plates and containers can be used in microwaves, keep food hot or cold and are water and grease resistant.

“Outer Vanguard is the only compostable product line that doesn’t contain a fluorinated compound,” said Riley Alber, founder of the Wilmington Compost Co. “It’s the first and only product line that meets new regulation standards.”

New Hanover County’s composting initiatives

New Hanover County’s food waste composting program, begun in November 2017, accepts food containers that have been BPI-certified compostable. With its “in-vessel” system, all composting is done in a sealed vessel at extremely high temperatures. However, the system doesn’t get hot enough to break down PFAS, which are made to withstand high temperatures, according to Suleyman.

That’s one of the reasons why New Hanover County doesn’t test for PFAS, even though it regularly sends its compost to state department of agriculture laboratories to ensure it’s a good product. Other deterrents to testing for these chemicals is their sheer numbers, the cost and difficulty finding test facilities.

“The concern for us is do we take this finished compost, send it off, and have it tested for PFAS, and if so which ones, because there are literally hundreds of them,” Suleyman said. “There’re very few labs that have the equipment or certification to do that sort of testing, and it’s very expensive.”

Suleyman said he would be surprised if there weren’t any PFAS in New Hanover County’s compost, but he expects the number would be low because 80 percent of the system’s compost is made up of preconsumer food waste or kitchen scraps.

New Hanover County has taken steps to ensure its landfill wastewater doesn’t contain undesirable chemicals that could leach into the ground and reach the Cape Fear River. This year the county tested wastewater that collected on the bottom of the landfill for 30 to 35 different compounds in the PFAS family. Wastewater that was treated with the system’s double reverse osmosis system showed no detectable levels of PFAS, compared with its untreated wastewater, which had 13,000 parts of PFAS chemicals per trillion, or 0.0000013%, said Suleyman.

“We were immensely relieved that the system did as advertised and literally removes everything,” Suleyman said.

Reprinted from  North Carolina Health News

North Carolina is not among seven states that will be awarded federal grant funding to conduct health studies on people in specific communities who have been drinking water contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS.

The reason: North Carolina, which is said to have the third-worst PFAS contamination in the country, did not apply for a grant.

“It had nothing to do with someone dropping a ball at all in this case,” said Heather Stapleton, a researcher at Duke University whose work includes PFAS contamination.

Stapleton said she and a colleague had considered applying for one of the grants but realized they couldn’t meet enough of the criteria to submit a competitive application.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, or ATSDR, announced Monday that researchers in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, New York and Colorado will each receive $1 million to study the relationship between drinking water contaminated with PFAS and human health effects.

Little is known about the health effects caused by PFAS exposure, said Patrick Breysse, director of ATSDR and CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health.

“The multi-site study will advance the scientific evidence on the human health effects of PFAS and provide some answers to communities exposed to the contaminated drinking water,” Breysse said in a news release.

The exclusion of North Carolina from the grant money riles Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, a grassroots environmental group based in Wilmington.

“Our children were born drinking poisonous levels of PFAS tainted water,” Donovan said in a statement. “A quarter of a million residents downstream of DuPont/Chemours exposed us to dangerous levels of toxic PFAS for decades and our data will not be added to this nationwide study. It’s heartbreaking.

“Our participation in this study would have added valuable information to the nation’s understanding of human PFAS exposure.”

Who is responsible?

Clean Cape Fear says the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, or DHHS, was “ultimately responsible” for ensuring that the state applied for the grant. Donovan said the department should have been overseeing a roundtable group of health officials, research institutions and others to submit multiple grant applications. Other states did that, she said.

In response, Kelly Haight, a spokeswoman for DHHS, said the department searches for any opportunities to better understand PFAS exposures in North Carolina, including reviewing all potential grant applications.

“Although this particular grant was not appropriate to NCDHHS as a research study, NCDHHS did recently apply for another competitive CDC grant to better understand human exposure to PFAS across the state,” Haight said in an email. “Our application was scored highly by the reviewers, but unfortunately we did not receive funding.’’

Haight said DHHS also “works with academic researchers across the state to encourage and support them in applying for and conducting PFAS-related research.”

Chemours and GenX

An estimated 250,000 people who get their drinking water from the Cape Fear River downstream of the Chemours chemical plant in Bladen County have been exposed to high levels of GenX and other PFAS contaminants. DuPont, and later Chemours, had been discharging GenX into the Cape Fear River as a byproduct since 1980. New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties draw their drinking water from the lower reaches of the Cape Fear.

Levels of GenX, used to make Teflon and a multitude of other nonstick and rain-resistant products, are now well below the state’s health guideline, but residents wonder what the cumulative effects of the contamination are having on their health. An estimated 5,000 different PFAS are known to exist.

High levels of PFAS have also been found in the Haw River, which flows into Jordan Lake, where hundreds of thousands of people get their drinking water.

Four new PFAS found

Last year, results from a study conducted by N.C. State University’s Center for Human Health and the Environment revealed four newly identified PFAS in the blood of the vast majority of the Wilmington residents sampled. The study participants got their water from the Cape Fear Public Utilities Authority.

The study also found that participants had twice the national average of perfluorooctane sulfonate — or PFOS — in their blood and three times as much perfluorooctanoic acid — or PFOA. Those two legacy compounds have been phased out because of concerns about the environment and human health.

The two compounds are often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down easily in the environment. GenX and other PFAS with shorter carbon chains replaced them. The study found no detectable levels of GenX in participants’ blood.

According to Clean Cape Fear, there are no health-effects data for the newly identified PFAS found in people who participated in the study — Nafion byproduct 2, PFO4DA, PFO5DoDA, and Hydro-EVE.

“It’s reasonable to assume residents in New Hanover, Pender, and Brunswick Counties who regularly consumed tap water sourced from the Cape Fear River during the height of our contamination story have varying levels of these newly identified PFAS in their blood,” the statement says. “Yet, residents are unable to manage the potential health risks associated with these exposures because no health data is available to help medical practitioners preemptively screen and/or address potential health problems for their patients.”

Dr. Kyle Horton, a member of Clean Cape Fear’s leadership team, said the grant funding would have provided an “invaluable shot to advance our understanding of the links between PFAS exposure and important health endpoints like kidney function, thyroid disease, liver disease, lipid metabolism, diabetes, and immune and vaccine response.”

State should act

The organization is now calling on North Carolina leadership to address the emerging threat of PFAS water contamination on human health at the state level.

“NC needs to fund their own parallel or similar study asap,” Clean Cape Fear said in the statement. “Our NCGA lawmakers need to stop playing partisan politics and draft a budget that includes grant money to fund our own statewide PFAS Human Exposure study. People down here are suffering and dying. We deserve a fighting chance to address our own health needs and that starts with knowing what this crap does to our bodies.”

Last year, the General Assembly allocated slightly more than $5 million to the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory to study PFAS contamination in the state. The collaboratory has made grants to researchers at seven state universities.

Among many other things, those researchers are now sampling all public drinking water supplies in the state for PFAS.

Additionally, N.C. State announced in May that North Carolina, Michigan and Colorado will receive a $1.96 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to work collaboratively on research to determine whether limiting PFAS in public drinking water is enough to protect human health.

The contamination is also showing up in locally grown food.

This story is provided courtesy of North Carolina Health News, a website covering health and environmental news in North Carolina. Coastal Review Online is partnering with North Carolina Health News to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

This story was reprinted from North Carolina Health News

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Near the end of a congressional hearing Sept. 10, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz grilled executives of the 3M, DuPont and Chemours chemical companies about their willingness to compensate people harmed by fluorinated compounds.

The hearing, before a U.S. House subcommittee on environmental oversight and reform, was the third in a series amid pending legislation that aims to better regulate the chemicals, known collectively as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, nicknamed “forever chemicals” because of their persistence in the environment.

At the core of the hearings is whether the companies should share in the costs of the cleanup of PFAS contamination across the country, as well as the costs of adverse health effects caused by them.

According to the advocacy organization, the Environmental Working Group, PFAS contamination has been found in tap water for 19 million Americans in 43 states. North Carolina is said to have the third-worst PFAS pollution problems in the country. Affected areas include the Cape Fear, Deep and Haw rivers, Jordan Lake and areas surrounding Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant in Bladen County.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has detected PFAS in 20 public water systems in 11 of the state’s counties, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Researchers from a consortium of North Carolina universities are now testing every municipal water system in the state for PFAS.

The contamination has been detected across the country in food, water, soil and air and at military bases and airports, where firefighting foam containing PFAS has been widely used for decades for training exercises.

Not taking no for an answer

The more than three-hour hearing provided insight into the companies’ willingness to take responsibility for the contamination.  The following exchange between Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, and Daryl Roberts, DuPont’s chief operations and engineering officer, was particularly illuminating:

Wasserman Schultz: “Are any of your companies that were responsible for using any of these chemicals that firefighters and military service members were exposed to planning any type of compensation to harmed victims?”

Roberts: “At this point, the DuPont Company is focused on cleaning up and remediating the sites we operate. That’s our focus, as well as reducing the amount of firefighting foam that we use on our sites, but that’s the limit of where we are focused at this time.”

Wasserman Schultz: “So no.”

Roberts: “We are focused on what … (interrupted by Wasserman Schultz)

Wasserman Schultz: “Yes or no.”

Roberts: “We will continue to focus on what’s within our control.”

Wasserman Schultz: “That’s not a yes or no answer. Yes or no, are you planning at any point on compensating people who have been harmed by your company’s chemicals?”

Roberts: “Congresswoman, are you speaking specifically about armed forces around the world?”

Wasserman Schultz: I’m speaking to this issue specifically.”

Roberts: “We are focused on working through … (interrupted again)

Wasserman Schultz: “OK, the other two people if you could answer please … Let the record reflect that the gentleman (Roberts) essentially said no, there are no plans.”

The other executives

Paul Kirsch, president of fluoroproducts for Chemours, replied “no” to Wasserman Schultz’s question as well. He also said his company has had no involvement with the two PFAS legacy compounds, PFOA and PFOS, which are found in firefighting foam and had routinely been used in everyday products such as Teflon, food packaging and water-resistant clothing.

Chemours spun off from DuPont in 2015. Chemours is a leading producer of GenX, a chemical cousin of PFOA, which DuPont had made at the Fayetteville Works plant from 2002 until voluntarily agreeing with the EPA to phase out its use around 2009 for environmental and health reasons.

GenX and thousands of other fluorinated compounds took the place of GenX and PFOA.

Chemours was found in 2017 to have contaminated drinking water with GenX for an estimated 250,000 people in New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties who draw their water from the Cape Fear River downriver of the plant. The state considers levels of GenX and other PFAS found in the river today to be safe to drink, but scientists continue to study the health effects of the unregulated chemicals.

Responding to Wasserman Schultz’s question, Denise Rutherford, 3M’s senior vice president of corporate affairs, said 3M has no plans to compensate people because there is no scientific evidence proving that PFOA or PFOS have caused anyone adverse health effects, a statement she repeated throughout the hearing.

Decades of denial

Before that exchange, lawyer Rob Bilott and former Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson outlined information contained in internal documents obtained through litigation of DuPont and 3M. The documents indicate the companies knew the dangers of PFOA and PFOS decades ago and covered them up.

Swanson and Bilott, a lawyer with Taft Stettinius & Hollister in Cincinnati, said they seriously doubt the companies would have taken responsibility for cleaning up contaminated sites near their plants in Minnesota and West Virginia if it had not been for years of litigation that resulted in multi-million dollar settlements.

Bilott has spent 20 years fighting DuPont over PFOA contamination surrounding its plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. In 2017, Chemours and DuPont agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by Bilott for $671 million.

As part of that lawsuit, Bilott formed a science panel that concluded PFOA is likely to cause kidney and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, preeclampsia, thyroid disease and high cholesterol.

Bilott told the congressional committee that DuPont knew for decades about the health hazards of PFOA and “acted with conscious disregard.”

3M denies human harm

Minnesota sued 3M over drinking water contamination and environmental damage  in 2010. The state won an $850 million settlement last year. The money will be earmarked for cleanup, Swanson said.

Despite that settlement, and the internal 3M documents, Rutherford, a company vice president, maintained that there is no concrete scientific evidence showing that PFOA and PFOS cause adverse human health effects. She said 3M scientists have studied company workers with much higher exposure to the compounds and found no related health problems.

“The weight of scientific evidence has not established that PFOS, PFOA or other PFAS cause adverse human health effects,” Rutherford told the committee. “Public health agencies and independent science review panels, while acknowledging certain possible associations, agree with that basic fact.”

Kirsch, the Chemours executive, blamed DuPont for the contamination it created and for not assuming much more of the liability and legal costs when Chemours was spun off of DuPont four years ago.

“DuPont unilaterally designed the transaction, including a deliberate, disproportionate assignment of two-thirds of DuPont’s environmental liability and 90 percent of DuPont’s active litigation to Chemours — liability and litigation resulting from DuPont’s operating practices at dozens of manufacturing sites throughout DuPont’s very long history,” Kirsch said.

Kirsch said Chemours has entered into a consent order with North Carolina and the environmental group Cape Fear River Watch to clean up the contamination. He pointed out the company is spending $200 million on cleanup efforts and cutting emissions of GenX by 99 percent at its Fayetteville Works plant. He said costs are expected to soar “way north” of the $200 million figure as the company works to contain contamination at all of its plants.

“Collaboration and transparency are critical to addressing this issue,” Kirsch said.

Near the end of the hearing, committee Chairman Harley Rouda, a Democrat from California, questioned what he called a 123% financial increase in Chemours’ lobbying budget. Kirsch replied that he did not have knowledge of that budget.

Chemours sues DuPont

Chemours filed a lawsuit against DuPont in May of this year, saying DuPont grossly underestimated its environmental liabilities.

Roberts, the DuPont executive, countered by telling the committee that Chemours’ leadership is essentially former Dupont executives who knew, or should have known, the  liabilities when the company was formed.

Roberts said Dupont did not try to reduce its liabilities, a statement Rouda later in the hearing called “patently false.”

Rouda praised Roberts when the executive said DuPont supports a proposal to designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under the Superfund law, which could help speed cleanup efforts. Those two legacy compounds have eight carbon chains, making them chemically tenacious, meaning they don’t break down in the environment easily. They’ve also been found to  accumulate in the blood of humans and animals.

GenX, like most of an estimated 5,000 other types of PFAS, have shorter carbon chains. Although little is known about their human health effects, the shorter chains replaced the legacy compounds because they were thought to be more likely to break down and therefore safer. Scientists are now studying whether that is the case and whether PFAS should be regulated as a class or as subclasses.

Superfund law

Kirsch and Rutherford said any decision on whether to designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances should be left up to the EPA.

Wasserman Schultz said the Department of Defense has been slow to react to PFAS contamination at military bases because the compounds are not regulated. She said this has risked the health of thousands of service members and their families.

At the end of the hearing, she made a reference to Emily Donovan, an environmental activist from North Carolina’s Brunswick County who at a July committee hearing said all PFAS compounds should be designated hazardous substances and added to the Superfund law.

“I agree with Ms. Donovan,” Wasserman Schultz said before polling the company executives as to whether they think so, too.

DuPont’s Roberts agreed to the designation, but only for PFOA and PFOS and not all PFAS. He said earlier in the hearing that DuPont would support the designation for about 22 other types of long-chain PFAS. Kirsch, from Chemours, didn’t provide a direct answer. 3M executive Rutherford said no.

“For those of you who have disagreed or refused to answer, you are playing a part in this national emergency,” Wasserman Schultz said. “You have sickened our first responders and our members of the military, and I don’t know how you sleep at night.”

This story is provided courtesy of North Carolina Health News, a website covering health and environmental news in North Carolina. Coastal Review Online is partnering with North Carolina Health News to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

OCRACOKE — Despite being a business leader in a busy tourist town, Cheryl Ballance sometimes has had to tell summer guests not to come to Ocracoke.

“Sometimes, we’d get calls from people who said they were nine months pregnant with a high-risk pregnancy, wanting to know if we had resources for them,” Ballance said. “I’d tell them, ‘Oh, you really need to look at the map.’”

Ballance, the longtime head of the Ocracoke Health Center has seen and heard it all from tourists and from the thousand-or-so year-round residents on the 13-mile long island, which lies south of Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks.

The health center is an important place on the island’s map, as it’s the only place to get consistent health services. The center does not turn anyone away, insured or not.

Supplementing the remote island’s health care is Gail Covington, a mobile nurse practitioner, who provides services in homes on Ocracoke and Hatteras islands, and who does not take insurance.

“On a summer holiday weekend, we have this blossom of you know, maybe 10,000 people who show up,” Ballance said. ”I think it’s probably like seven to 8,000 during the week.”

Despite the center’s importance to the life of Ocracoke, the past few years have been challenging financially. Ballance said she’s making a go of it, but it’s difficult to keep providing high quality care on a shrinking health care dollar in one of the most remote and sparsely populated parts of the state.

Seasonal work, year-round expenses

One issue for Ballance is about a third of her patients are uninsured, even as they work two, three, even four gigs at a time during tourist season, when there’s work to be had.

“The people who support this whole resort are people who are only employed, if they’re lucky, somewhat in April, May, June, July, August, and if we don’t have hurricanes September and October,” she said. “Then by November, everything is closed.”

“They’re making a year’s worth of income during that five to six month period.”

Some workers do leave the island in winter, Ballance said. Maybe “they have a friend that lives out in the mountains, ‘Can you come up here for three weeks, we’re really busy, you can help us at ski lodge?’”

But for many people on the island, funds begin to dwindle in the lean months of the late winter, especially as unemployment checks peter out.

It’s something familiar to Erin O’Neal, the clinic’s chief operating officer, who used to work in restaurants when she’d come home from school.

“Anybody who’s waiting tables, and you got a lot of that, or cleaning rooms, aren’t a high hourly rate, their unemployment is gonna be the lowest,” O’Neal said, noting how the law changed to shorten the number of weeks someone can draw an unemployment check.

“And if there was a storm, and they drew on their unemployment during that time, they’ve already used part of their weeks before they’ve even gone out with their season. So it’s an even longer extended period of time with no income, it’s really hard for people.”

The flip side is that winters give the clinic’s doctor, Erin Baker, time to dig in to problems.

“In the summertime, she’s clipping those visits for the residents,“ because the clinic is hopping, Ballance said. “But she spends a lot of time, time you’re never going to get anywhere else … in the winter.”

Getting away has a cost

The isolation that tourists crave also poses challenges for the locals.

When Vince O’Neal was a kid on Ocracoke, his only medical encounters were with the school nurse or his grandmother, a midwife who delivered the island’s babies for decades. That was before the clinic started in 1981.

“We did not have any kind of medical services here until that clinic was built,” said the 59-year-old restaurant owner, and, by his reckoning, eighth-generation Ocracoker.

Otherwise, it was off the island to the doctor, a trip that could take hours, or even a whole day.

Access to emergency care from Ocracoke has gotten better over the years.

There are always emergency medical technicians on the island and helicopter service to Vidant Medical Center in Greenville or to the Outer Banks Hospital in Nags Head, but there’s no pharmacy and no lab.

Getting off the island takes hours by ferry to the mainland and then to the nearest hospital or an hourlong ferry ride to Hatteras from the northern end of the island and another 90 minutes from there to Nags Head.

So much depends on the ferry. If the weather turns stormy or foggy, the ferries don’t run. Even when they do, getting to a specialist off the island or to the dentist can mean getting up at 3:30 a.m. to get the 5 a.m. Hatteras ferry run.

Prescriptions? They come by courier from Hatteras every afternoon.

But if a tourist gets a stingray barb in their foot or a severe sunburn, the center is where they turn.

This story is provided courtesy of North Carolina Health News, a website covering health and environmental news in North Carolina. Coastal Review Online is partnering with North Carolina Health News to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

After a decades-long absence, large-scale algae blooms have for the past four years returned in parts of the Chowan River, Edenton Bay, Albemarle Sound and Little River, and counties are looking to the state for help.

On July 5, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Water Resources reissued a warning to the public to avoid contact with green or blue water in the Albemarle Sound and adjoining water bodies in the far northeastern regions of the state.

State officials with the N.C. Division of Water Resources continue to urge the public to avoid contact with green or blue water in the Albemarle Sound and adjoining waterbodies, due to an algal bloom that has lingered in the area since May 14, 2019. https://t.co/H0MiCuqj06 pic.twitter.com/85FJWPXl9u

— N.C. DEQ (@NCDEQ) July 5, 2019

Another harmful algae bloom had been reported that same day, in Dances Bay on Little River, the next in a series of alerts that have been issued throughout the spring and into the summer. 

Algae blooms have lingered in the area since May 14 and have been observed in parts of the Perquimans, Pasquotank and Chowan rivers. 

The algae contributing to the blooms are cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, some species of which can produce harmful toxins called cyanotoxins. 

State health officials are encouraging the public to avoid contact with large accumulations of algae and asking the public to prevent children and pets from swimming or ingesting water in an algal bloom. Counties affected so far include Bertie, Chowan, Pasquotank and Perquimans. 

More recently, on Tuesday, state Department of Health and Human Services officials released a report urging the public to stay out of the east side of Chowan River, near Arrowhead Beach, north of Edenton. A bloom of cyanobacteria, after about a week of monitoring, was producing the toxin microcystin at levels officials consider “a high risk for acute health effects during recreational exposure.” 

“Environmental conditions controlling toxin production by cyanobacteria are not well understood and can change rapidly over time and location,” according to the report, which advised people in the area, especially those with children and pets, to avoid the water, wash with soap after any contact and not to handle dead fish from affected waters.

Since their return in 2015, these annual summer blooms in and around the sound have triggered advisories for swimming and eating fish. Researchers agree 2015 had the worst blooms seen in the sound since the late 1970s, and 2019 is continuing a pattern of blooms starting earlier, before the heat of the summer creates the prime conditions for blooms to occur. 

But researchers aren’t sure why. 

How blooms burst

Blooms thrive on warm temperatures, sunlight and nutrient-rich waters. The sources of blooms often narrow down to two culprits: nitrogen and phosphorus. These enter waterways through stormwater runoff, which carries them from lawns, roads, septic systems and agricultural fields.

Hans Paerl is an aquatic microbial ecologist at the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City. Paerl said these excess nutrient inputs are precursors to blooms.

“A bloom, in simple terms, means excessive growth of algae to the point when you can almost see it, and it’s a visible phenomena because of the high biomass of organisms in the water,” Paerl said. “So in order to generate that much biomass you need sufficient nutrients. 

“Human nutrient over-enrichment has been identified as pretty much the basic cause of blooms.”

Wet winters and springs, followed by warm summers with droughts and stagnant water, combine with increased nutrient inputs to create the perfect storm for the maximum bloom, Paerl explained.

“That’s pretty much the formula,” said Paerl who’s been studying blooms in North Carolina and around the world for more than 40 years. “That’s the formula for them to dominate the system and that is what’s happening in the Chowan and Albemarle.”

Identifying nutrient hot spots and sources is the key to combating algal blooms. Staff from the state Division of Water Resources regularly monitor and map elevated algal densities and blooms. 

The division’s interactive map of state blooms recorded six cyanobacteria blooms in the Albemarle in May and June and two more in July.

Sarah Young Perkins at the Division of Water Resources said follow-up monitoring of blooms depends on staff time, the bloom types and the public’s use of the water bodies. Priority is granted to water bodies that are used heavily for recreation and affected by cyanobacterial blooms, but she said frequent monitoring is difficult because of staff limitations and the tendency for blooms to migrate and dissipate rapidly. 

Wary Communities

Cyanobacteria blooms are easy to spot. They usually appear bright green, or milky blue when they start to decay. The cyanotoxins they can produce can be hazardous to human health.

Paerl said DEQ has done a good job alerting the public on blooms and their hazards, but he still worries about human exposure to pathogens from fish kills caused by low-oxygen conditions in the water.

“There’s a variety of issues that would make one be very leery about swimming, for example, in affected water, and for sure ingesting anything from those waters, including catching fish,” said Paerl, who noted shellfish also present risks.

Mark Powell, a consultant for the Albemarle Resource Conservation and ​​Development Council, or ARC&D Council, said there is no shortage of local concern about the blooms.

“When people go out and use the water for recreation — pulling inner tubes with kids — people want to know if the water is safe to swim in,” Powell said. 

“Our general rule is if the water is green, just don’t get in it.”

Mike Ervin has seen a lot of blooms in his lifetime. Ervin, director of the Edenton Historical Commission, has lived in the area on and off since 1962. He’s aware of the dangers but not too concerned. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cyanotoxins affect the nervous system, and symptoms of exposure can vary from skin irritation to neurological problems. The effects vary depending on exposure, whether through skin contact, inhalation or ingestion, as well as duration and the specific cyanotoxin involved. 

“I’ve swam in it many a time,” Ervin said. “You come out green, you come out with it attached to you, but I’ve never seen people go to the emergency room and say, well I’ve been swimming in the water. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen but I’m saying I’ve never seen it.”

He said the warnings have more to do with making sure people err on the safe side. 

There’s no automatic reporting of any adverse health effects from an algae bloom to the state Department of Health and Human Services. When the department does get reports, they get passed along to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to the division, thus far, no human or animal illnesses have been attributed to harmful algae blooms in the state. Cyanotoxins have never caused a human death in the United States but have caused the deaths of pets, livestock and other wildlife, according to the CDC.

From blooms and back again

Ervin said he hasn’t seen any bad blooms this year, and the blooms so far have been quickly dispersed by wave action and wind movement. But he noted some years are worse than others.

“I can remember back in the ’70s and even into the early ’80s the entire river was green,” Ervin said. “I mean it was nasty.”

Paerl began his work in North Carolina in 1978. The first big project he worked on was figuring out how to control blooms in the Albemarle.

“They were having pretty large blooms like they’re having now that were causing problems,” Paerl said. “Not only this issue of surface scum but also toxicity associated with the blooms.”

As for the cause, Ervin singled out a fertilizer plant in the Hertford County town of Winton that dispersed phosphates into the river.

“You know a lot of places make the proclamation that the algae blooms were caused by hog waste runoff and fertilizer runoff, but we’ve never had that in this area until actually the fertilizer plant was built,” Ervin said. “And then those phosphates ran into the water, and of course they eventually had to close that plant.”

Paerl said their study at the time also concluded phosphorus inputs, and to some extent nitrogen inputs, entering the river had to be reduced.

“After we made that recommendation and the state put a tighter noose on phosphorus inputs coming into the system, sure enough, the blooms abated,” Pearl said. “We can all pat ourselves on the back for having come up with the right formula for controlling the blooms, but lo and behold, 20 to 25 years later we’re now back into a bloom situation on the Chowan.”

The 2015 blooms on the Chowan river and Albemarle sound were extensive, Powell said, and blooms have occurred in varying degrees, duration and locations in the area of the sound every summer since.

“When the algae blooms popped up again in 2015, after an absence of 30, 35 years, it was a real shock to everybody,” Powell said. “Because we hadn’t seen them for a long time and we thought the water quality was pretty good.”

Paerl, Ervin and Powell all agreed, 2015 was the Albemarle’s worst since the late 1970s.

Nathan Hall, an assistant professor with the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences, acknowledged there were in fact blooms occurring prior to 2015, and even between the 1980s and the 2000s. 

“However, the general consensus is that the bloom situation has gotten worse, and it’s backed up by the state’s chlorophyll a data that has doubled at many stations in the past 20 years,” Hall said. 

Paerl said that as far as the “early days” of Chowan River blooms go, excessive nutrient inputs from an upstream fertilizer plant in Tunis and a pulp and paper mill on the Virginia side of the river were largely to blame. 

“As far as agriculture goes, one of the main culprits from agricultural runoff is actually nitrogen,” Paerl said.

Paerl said he wouldn’t solely blame agriculture for the nutrients. While he said there is more general agricultural activity in the basin, there is also gradual urbanization. 

“If you drive across the bridge there, the Chowan bridge to Edenton, you’ll see there’s more condos along the water there, and you know everyone likes to have green grass all the way down to the edge of the water, and to do that you’ve got to apply more fertilizers,” he said.

“So I would not point the finger at only agriculture, it’s combined human pressure on the system that’s happening,” Paerl said.

“When inputs from these plants were greatly reduced, the blooms dissipated, so this was considered a success story with regard to nutrient management,” Paerl said. “It is less clear why the resurgence in blooms has occurred, but it is likely a combination of gradual increases in nutrient loading and climatic changes.”

This includes more extreme climatic conditions like increased episodic storms, related runoff and protracted droughts. 

Ervin speculated that increased rain could be contributing to the blooms and also wondered if disturbances such as dredging on the river could be stirring up nutrients deposited in the riverbed during the days when the fertilizer plant was operating. 

“There is an urgent need to get a better understanding of what the combination of environmental drivers is that is leading to the resurgence of blooms,” Paerl said.

Uncharted waters for spreading blooms

Paerl expects a similar solution as in the 70’s – nitrogen and phosphorus inputs need to be reduced. But that reduction may need to be greater than before, as other conditions such as climatic events and weather patterns have become more favorable for blooms. 

“The bar has been set higher, so to speak,” Paerl said. 

The issue in getting over this bar, however, is funding. 

“No one has really done these experiments yet to actually determine what those reductions need to be,” Paerl said.

Paerl and his colleagues have anticipated this resurgence as a result of water warming associated with climate change and the associated increase in extreme precipitation events. Similar resurgences have occurred nationwide, for example, in Lake Erie and the Mississippi River.

He said Lake Erie’s last big blooms had also been resolved in the 1970s. This summer, he is on a team funded to study the causes of the reappearance of blooms there.

Paerl and his colleagues recently proposed studies in grant applications, but they were unable to get the funding.

“It’s frustrating because you know we’re pretty geared up to look at this issue, we’ve written several proposals to pursue it. I’ve warned them for at least two years that this was going to happen again and now it’s happened, so that’s where we’re at,” he said.

For now, researchers at the institute are lending their expertise to the ARC&D Council, while they conduct a grant-funded study begun in 2017. The council is based in Edenton and heavily relies on citizen scientists to monitor and determine the causes of blooms. So far, the study has found blooms are occurring in areas of slow-moving, shallow water. 

After no appearance last year, there was a large bloom earlier this summer covering about 1,600 acres in the lower Little River. Powell attributed this to a dry spring, early summer and slow water movement during a hot spell. The bloom didn’t last long, Powell said, but it was pretty extensive.

“They popped up in some new areas that we haven’t seen them before,” Powell said, citing both Little River and the Perquimans River.

A community’s call for help

The ARC&D Council has endorsed a “Water Quality Call to Action,” which individuals, organizations and municipalities are joining to ask state officials to do more for their struggling waterways. 

“The algal blooms we are seeing here in the warmer months are sure signs of a sick river,” according to a statement on the Pasquotank County government website. “These algal blooms are a threat to fisheries, recreation, property values, human health, and our regional economy.”

The resolution asks the state legislature to secure funds to strengthen “critical” drainage and water quality infrastructure in the area, specifically seeking increased monitoring. It suggests monitoring would be conducted through local governments, organizations like ARC&D, universities and citizen scientists. It also asks for financial incentives to landowners for maintaining buffer areas of swamp forest and funds for local governments to annually clear debris from creeks, rivers and canals.

Eight counties around the sound, the Pasquotank Soil and Water Conservation District and the Albemarle District of Soil and Water, which covers five counties, have adopted and sent to legislators the resolution. 

This story is provided courtesy of North Carolina Health News, a nonprofit news service covering health and environmental issues in North Carolina. 

ORIENTAL – Fifteen minutes.

That’s roughly the amount of time Richard Flaherty spent in 2 to 3 inches of flood waters helping a neighbor the day after Hurricane Florence made landfall last year.

Twenty-four hours later, Flaherty’s left leg had been amputated above the knee. His odds of survival were 50-50 before his leg was removed.

“That’s when my prayers started immediately that he was going to be on the good side of 50,” said his wife, Penny Flaherty.

Within three days following the amputation in CarolinaEast Medical Center in New Bern, Richard Flaherty, then 77, was back in the operating room. This time, doctors removed a chunk of flesh and muscle from his right calf.

Bacteria known as Vibrio vulnificus, which he came into contact with in the floodwaters Sept. 15, 2018, had migrated.

Penny Flaherty remembers well what the doctor who amputated her husband’s leg said when he saw Richard three weeks after that initial operation: “You’re my miracle man.”

“I think it is,” a miracle, Penny Flaherty said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in five people with the infection die, sometimes within a couple of days after the bacteria enter the body.

In the midst of hurricane season, which runs June 1 – Nov. 30, Penny Flaherty wants to warn others by sharing her husband’s story.

“This should promptly be put out there before hurricane season,” she said.

While V. vulnificus is a concern following hurricanes, the bacteria are not directly related to pollution, but occur naturally in warm waters such as bays, estuaries and rivers close to the ocean during the summer months.

About 80 percent of vibrio infections occur between May and October, according to the CDC.

The CDC estimates vibriosis causes 80,000 illnesses each year in the U.S. About 52,000 contract it as the result of eating contaminated shellfish. Vibrio parahaemolyticus is the most commonly reported species and is estimated to cause 45,000 illnesses a year in the U.S.

Between 1999 and 2003, 27 North Carolinians were infected by V. vulnificus, according to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. Seventy percent of those cases were wound infections, many as a result of someone cutting or scratching themselves while handling crabs or having an open wound, cut or sore and coming into contact where there were high levels of the bacteria in brackish waters.

A Wilmington man died Sept. 25 last year after cutting his leg during hurricane cleanup and getting floodwater into the wound. That same day, New Hanover County officials issued a press release warning about the risk of vibrio.

Richard Flaherty did not have so much as a scratch on his ankle when he walked into the floodwaters last September, his wife said. But, he has thin skin, she added, and a history of skin cancers resulting from radiation exposure during his time in the Air Force. Those factors may have made him more susceptible to the bacteria.

Those who cannot avoid coming into contact with flood waters are urged to take the following precautions:

• Wear clothes and shoes that protect you from cuts and scrapes when in brackish or salt water.
• Wear protective gloves.
• Wash wounds and cuts thoroughly with soap and water if they have been exposed to brackish, salt, flood waters, or even raw seafood or seafood juices.
• Cover your wound with a waterproof bandage if there’s a possibility it could come into contact with brackish or salt waters, floodwaters or raw seafood or seafood juices.
• If you develop a skin infection, tell your medical provider if your skin has come into contact with brackish or salt waters, floodwaters or raw seafood or seafood juices.
• Always wash your hands with soap and water after handing raw shellfish.
• Avoid contaminating cooked shellfish with raw shellfish and its juices.
• Have the following vaccines: Hepatitis A, Td (Tetanus & Diphtheria), and Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis).

The symptoms of infected wounds include pain, swelling and redness that may rapidly spread or blister.

“It looked like it could have been a spider bite, maybe a snake bite.”

Penny Flaherty

“It looked like it could have been a spider bite, maybe a snake bite,” Penny Flaherty said of her husband’s wound, which started as a little red mark on his right ankle.

Emergency medical technicians who responded to her 911 call on the evening of Sept. 15 gave her husband Benadryl and Tylenol and instructed him to take those medications every few hours, she said.

When Penny Flaherty started to administer the medications to her husband at 5 a.m. the following day, the red spot had spread to blood-filled, oozing blisters, she said.

“I was so stunned that I called 911 immediately,” she said. “He was in a lot of pain and his temperature was about 103.”

Emergency responders assisted her husband down the stairs from the front door of their home and into an ambulance, she said. Richard Flaherty was diagnosed with V. vulnificus at the hospital.

Pamlico County officials do not have a record of anyone contracting the bacteria last September, according to Chris Murray, Pamlico County’s Emergency Management director and fire marshal.

“We are very aware of waterborne illnesses,” he said. “We’re very versed in it and aware of it.”

Richard Flaherty spent almost 22 days in the intensive care unit. He was discharged from the hospital after 41 days.

There’s been nearly six months of wound care and physical therapy. The Flahertys’ bedroom in their home across the street from the Neuse River in Oriental has been converted to something more of hospital room.

They’ve dealt with red tape while seeking help to cover some of the costs for everything from his wheelchair to physical therapy teaching him how to walk on a prosthetic leg.

They continue to travel to Durham every two weeks for immune infusion treatments, something he has been receiving for three months now, Penny Flaherty said.

“I have been the ever-present nurse on duty 24/7,” she said. “My care for him is what I do. That’s my full-time job. We’re making changes almost every week about something. But there’s things that will never change and things he will never do again. We both cry a lot. We laugh a lot.”

North Carolina, Colorado and Michigan, three states with water contaminated by poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are the focus of a three-year study to better understand the extent of contamination.

A team of researchers will look at to what degree these man-made chemicals accumulate in foods such as vegetables, fish and eggs harvested in an affected community. Also, the team is to collect data to better predict how the PFASs move through soil into groundwater. The goal is to answer the question, “When PFAS contaminate a drinking water source, is it enough to just treat the water people drink? Or do state and local agencies need to do more to limit residents’ exposure?” according to an announcement earlier this year by Michigan State University.

Chris Higgins, a PFAS expert and professor of civil and environmental engineering at Colorado School of Mines, is leading the project.

“What we’re trying to do is at least start to tackle that question of how important are those other routes of exposure that are not coming from the drinking water, in terms of the overall exposure to these chemicals,” Higgins told Coastal Review Online in an interview.

Along with Michigan State University, Higgins will be working with researchers from North Carolina State University, Duke University and the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

The $2.46 million study called PFAS-UNITEDD: Poly- and Perfluoroalkyl Substance – U.S National Investigation of Transport and Exposure from Drinking Water and Diet is being funded with $1.96 million from the Environmental Protection Agency National Center for Environmental Research. There is a $262,500 cash match from the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory’s Challenge Grant fund through the General Assembly and additional in-kind contributions have been provided by industry partners Jacobs, CDM Smith and others.

The three states in the study have different sources of contamination.

Here in North Carolina, Chemours’ Fayetteville Works has been identified as a source of PFAS contamination in the Cape Fear River, the drinking water source for Wilmington. In Colorado, firefighting foam used at a nearby military installation likely contaminated groundwater and soil with PFAS in three towns south of Colorado Springs. And PFAS contamination has been identified as a byproduct of industrial activity at several sites in Michigan.

Higgins said that with this project, state and local community decision makers can be provided with information on what to do when these compounds are discovered.

“The real focus, and the thing I think is most exciting about this project, is trying to answer the question that a lot of folks have been asking, which is, ‘If you stop the exposure via contaminated water, is that enough to reduce the exposure to background levels in the population?’” Higgins said.

He said scientists understand that contaminated drinking water is the dominant source of exposure.  “However, there are other routes you can be exposed,” including using contaminated water to irrigate a garden. “I think that’s a great example because the compounds are being taken up by the crops, you’ll eat them and be exposed to them that way.”

Higgins said that the grants are for three years and work officially began May 1. The team is currently working on the first step, which is to have the plans approved for the research, a part of the terms of the grants.

The team aims to get as much done as quickly as possible in those three years but probably won’t have preliminary results for at least year. “It’s going to take time to set up these studies, there’s a lot of people involved, and it will take time,” he said.

Higgins emphasized that this project will not consider the health effects of these chemicals, rather it will look at understanding how residents are being exposed. “Is eliminating it in drinking water the only thing you need to do, or do you need to consider these other pathways?”

Detlef Knappe, a professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at N.C. State, explained that in North Carolina, the recently identified PFAS, such as GenX and Nafion byproducts, have been emitted into the air and water for decades.

“For some of the compounds, nothing is known about their migration through soil into groundwater and their uptake by plants and animals that serve as sources of food,” Knappe said in a statement. “This study will allow us to develop information that will help answer important questions.”

Knappe told Coastal Review Online that the hope is to be able to predict how and how quickly contamination spreads. “How fast do (PFAS) travel from the land surface through soil into groundwater and how fast they travel once they are in the groundwater?”

He said researchers also expect to gain a greater understanding about the presence of both traditionally studied and poorly understood PFAS in food.

“This will allow us to determine whether food is an important route of PFAS exposure in addition to drinking water,” he said. “This information is important for understanding how long it will take to remediate contaminated groundwater sites. We know that poorly understood PFAS are present in Colorado, originating from firefighting foam, and in North Carolina, originating from Chemours.”

Knappe was tapped to be part of the project because of his extensive research on PFAS, such as GenX and other fluoroethers in North Carolina drinking water. It was Knappe’s work that in 2016 brought to light the presence of GenX in untreated drinking water drawn from the Cape Fear River and noted the difficulty in removing the compound via standard water treatment.

“Also, our ongoing GenX exposure study, which is led by Jane Hoppin, is providing an important foundation for this project because we are studying the levels of traditionally studied and poorly understood PFAS in North Carolinians, who have been exposed to these PFAS for decades near the Fayetteville Works manufacturing plant and in the Wilmington area,” Knappe said.

Hoppin, an associate professor of biology at N.C. State, and John Adgate, chair of Colorado school of Public Health’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, are leading the GenX exposure study with funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Oregon State University is leading a companion study funded by the Environmental Protection Agency that will look specifically at PFAS toxicity and which compounds are most worrisome for human health. There is also to be an advisory board composed of PFAS experts, state decision makers and stakeholders from PFAS-affected communities, according to the announcement.

Hoppin explained that she is the principal investigator for the study project to assess PFAS exposures including GenX among Wilmington and Fayetteville residents.

“A similar study in Colorado was funded the month after ours was and we had been eager to compare our results and to combine, if appropriate, to have a larger sample size to evaluate PFAS exposure,” she told Coastal Review Online. “When the EPA announced the call for proposals, it was the opportunity to allow us to work together and build both local and national knowledge on this topic.”

Hoppin said that while Colorado and Michigan both have drinking water sources impacted by PFAS, the chemicals present may differ from those in North Carolina, where both groundwater in the Fayetteville area and surface water in Wilmington are contaminated.

“Many of the chemicals found in the Wilmington drinking water are unique to the manufacture of fluorochemicals, while other PFAS are those present in people around the globe. By comparing the exposure patterns of three distinct populations, we will potentially be able to learn more about PFAS as a chemical class and be able to predict how new chemicals will move through the environment,” she said. “We are planning to compare the fingerprints of PFAS in blood across the cohorts. Other aspects of the study will evaluate how chemicals move through the environment and whether PFAS are present in home grown fruits and vegetables.”

Because the chemicals in North Carolina are unique to North Carolina, Hoppin said, it is important to learn whether these chemicals behave the same way as other chemicals. “We will be able to learn how similar and how different these chemicals behave in the environment and in our bodies.”

The Michigan study will be led by co-principal investigator Courtney Carignan, assistant professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Michigan State.

“Michigan launched a comprehensive monitoring program for PFAS in public drinking water and has discovered over 30 sites with elevated concentrations and over 100 with PFAS detections,” Carignan said in an interview. “The Michigan cohort will focus on one of the sites, likely Parchment.”

The public water supply system of Parchment, Michigan, in July 2018, became the first system in the state with PFAS results exceeding the EPA’s Lifetime Health Advisory level of 70 parts per thousand of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, according the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.  The suspected source of contamination is the Crown Vantage Property, site of a former landfill used to dispose of papermaking waste, a historic wastewater treatment plant, former settling lagoons and a former mill property.

As an environmental health researcher who works with PFAS-exposed communities, Carignan said the study was designed to answer some of the residents’ most frequently asked questions.

“Community concerns extend beyond drinking water to include locally grown, produced and captured foods such as garden produce and fish,” Carignan said. “Our study will measure levels of PFAS in those foods and model exposure for both children and adults. Results will be shared with the community and health department and will also be useful to other communities dealing with PFAS contamination.”

Susan Gordon, a member of the advisory board and former manager of a community farm near Colorado Springs that closed due to PFAS contamination, said that past PFAS research had focused on drinking water as a pathway.

“There are a lot of questions around other ways that community members may have been impacted,” Gordon said in a statement. “As a farmer who was significantly impacted by PFAS, no one could answer my questions about the possibility of exposure through the vegetables we grew on the farm and the animals we raised. The fact that Dr. Higgins and his team and the EPA are looking at this is hugely important, because all potential pathways for exposure need to be addressed. Hopefully this research will provide additional scientific justification for adequate protective regulation.”

WILMINGTON – Before 2017, few people in southeastern North Carolina were familiar with terms like GenX or the acronym PFAS.

In the two years since the results of a study of the presence of these chemicals in the Cape Fear River was made public, GenX and other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have become household names.

The discovery of these chemicals in the Cape Fear River, the drinking water source for tens of thousands in the Cape Fear Region, was just the beginning – a scratch on the surface of an issue that has many questions with too few answers.

A group of 20 researchers from seven North Carolina universities known as the PFAST Network Research Initiative has set out to change that.

Over the next year researchers with the PFAST – the “T” stands for testing – initiative will analyze water samples from each drinking water source in the state, determine the risks of PFAS to private water wells, study which filtration methods best remove PFAS from drinking water, determine how PFAS travels through air emissions and gain a better understanding of how these chemicals impact human health and the environment.

To do this, a series of research teams have been created to tackle the job of finding answers and, in some cases, solutions to the mountain of looming questions about PFAS.

About 200 filled the seats of the Lumina Theater in the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Fisher Student Center Friday afternoon for to hear about the preliminary findings, and objectives and goals of each of the five teams. The PFAST Network, University of North Carolina Wilmington and North Carolina Coastal Federation hosted the forum, Emerging PFAS Contaminants in the Cape Fear Region: University Collaborations on Environmental, Drinking Water and Health Effects.

North Carolina State University professor Detlef Knappe, a co-investigator of the GenX exposure study that went public in summer 2017, painted a sobering description of the issue.

“We regulate, in the context of drinking water treatment, 100 chemicals,” he said.

PFAS has about 1,000 chemicals.

They are synthetic chemicals that are resistant to heat and are water, grease and stain repellent – making them highly desirable to consumers.

PFAS are in a number of consumer products: carpets, carpet cleaning products, food packaging, furnishings, cosmetics, outdoor gear, clothing, adhesives and sealants, firefighting foam, protective coatings and nonstick cookware.

PFAS are not usually listed on product information, Knappe said, so we’re unaware we’re buying products with these chemicals that are persistent and toxic.

One such PFAS is GenX, the commonly used term for perfluoro-2-propoxypropanoic acid, which is a chemical compound produced to make Teflon. Teflon is used to make nonstick coating surfaces on cookware.

The Chemours Fayetteville Works facility has been releasing GenX and other PFAS into the Cape Fear River since the 1980s.

A GenX exposure study released last November found four PFAS unique to customers of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority. Blood samples taken from more than 300 New Hanover County residents revealed GenX was not one of them. Researchers involved in that study cautioned the results do not mean GenX is nonexistent in people who drink water sources from the lower Cape Fear River.

Knappe, one of the researchers involved in that study, said Friday that levels of PFAS in the region’s drinking water have begun to quickly drop, something he attributed to the actions of local officials and community outpouring.

“Today, PFAS levels in the Wilmington drinking water are much, much lower than they were two years ago,” Knappe said.

Though at lower levels, these chemicals still exist in drinking water sources.

The job of Team 1 is to sample and analyze PFAS in all public water supplies in the state.

Researchers from Duke University, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina Charlotte will attempt to answer the question: Is my water safe to drink?

“This is really a difficult question to answer,” Knappe said.

There are regulated contaminants and unregulated contaminants, the latter of which there is no national standard so water utilities cannot say whether water containing these chemicals is safe to drink.

Team 1 will collect about 350 water samples from all 191 municipal surface water intakes and all 149 municipal drinking waters systems treating groundwater in North Carolina to measure PFAS. Later this year, another round of samples will be collected from systems where PFAS have been detected.

Nearly 60 samples have already been collected, including one from a water treatment plant in Maysville, a town of about 1,000 residents in Jones County.

“These small systems fly well often below the radar,” Knappe said. “These systems know much less about the quality of their water than some of the larger systems like Wilmington.”

The sample analysis, conducted at Duke University, found elevated levels of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOS, and perfluorhexane sulfonate, or PFHxS.

“What we learned is that they are most likely impacted by some firefighting foam that is in their groundwater,” Knappe said. “We’re very sure it’s related somehow related to firefighting activity.”

This revelation has prompted officials in the small town to begin thinking about solutions to improving water quality.

Water sample analyses will be posted on PFAST Network’s website.

In another analysis, this one being conducted by Team 2, private well water will be studied.

Team 2’s goal is to uncover how PFAS is transported through aquifers and predict which private wells are at risk of contamination.

Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson, a professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, said that 1,200 well water samples have been tested around the Chemours facility.

Some of those wells contain levels of contaminants well above the health standard while others do not. Researchers hope to figure out what’s driving this patchwork of contaminated versus noncontaminated wells and determine how long it will take to flush contaminants out of the groundwater.

“Air turns out to be an important pathway for travel of these PFAS contaminants,” MacDonald Gibson said.

The team’s preliminary findings show that a well’s proximity to the Chemours facility and a well’s location relative to wind direction are major factors influencing the levels of GenX in those wells, she said.

Going forward, the team’s goals are to be able to predict which wells are at risk, identify the factors influencing those risks, develop an online tool for well owners to use to predict those risks, and understand the duration in which it will take to flush contaminants like GenX from the water.

Researchers from UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte, N.C. State and Duke that make up Team 3 are delving into identifying the best ways to remove legacy PFAS, or long-lasting substances in the environment, and other substances from drinking water.

Heather Stapleton, an associate professor in environmental chemistry at Duke, explained that the structure of legacy PFAS allows them to go through water filtration systems at public utilities without being removed.

Team 3 researchers are examining 29 types of PFAS, 10 types of high-pressure membrane filtration systems and three types of water, including surface water, groundwater and deionized water.

Preliminary results show that a nanocomposite membrane and saltwater membrane removed 99.8 percent of the chemicals.

One researcher on the team studying the effectiveness of in-home filtration methods has so far found that reverse osmosis is the best at removing PFAS. Refrigerator filters and pitcher filters removed anywhere from 36 percent to as much as 73 percent of the 12 PFAS examined in the study.

“We basically see 100 percent removal for all the PFAS chemicals we’ve looked at,” Stapleton said.

The team hopes to complete its research by January 2020, with recommendations on the types of materials to use in large-scale water treatment plants to optimize the removal of PFASs.

A key question of Team 4 will involve breaking down which contaminants are present in ambient air in the state, in wet deposition – rain, sleet, snow or fog – and dry deposition, which is in the form of gases and dust particles.

This proposed research may provide information about the atmospheric reactions, transport and deposition of PFAS to surface and ground waters tapped as drinking water supplies.

Team 5, according to Jamie DeWitt, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at East Carolina University, has several complex research objectives to better understand the effects of PFAS on human health and the Cape Fear River’s environment.

“This is a very complicated team because we have a lot of different questions we’re trying to ask,” DeWitt said.

What happens to our bodies as we drink, breath and ingest PFAS compounds into our bodies?

The small, independent teams within Team 5 will study a variety of things, including whether PFAS accumulate in wildlife, how the chemicals affect a person’s immune system, how plants take up PFAS and various sources of PFAS entering drinking water, such as landfills and wastewater treatment plants.

WILMINGTON – Coal ash found in the sediment at the bottom of Lake Sutton suggests multiple, unreported and unmonitored spills have occurred for years at Duke Energy’s former coal-fired plant near Wilmington, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Duke University.

Sediment samples collected from the lake in 2015 and again last year after Hurricane Florence detected contaminants including arsenic, selenium, thalium and copper – metals found in coal.

“They have similar levels of presence of coal ash solids,” said Duke University’s Avner Vengosh, a professor of geochemistry and water quality who led the research. “Given that we found evidence in the sediments collected from 2015, it’s suggesting it’s not only related to Florence, but it was apparently a long-term process.”

The contamination may have been from floods or other accidental releases as well as past dumping practices, according to the study, Evidence for unmonitored coal ash spills in Sutton Lake, North Carolina: Implications for contamination of lake ecosystems.

Less than a week after Hurricane Florence made landfall Sept. 14, 2018, in Wrightsville Beach, Duke Energy reported that about 2,000 cubic yards of soil and ash – enough to fill about two-thirds of an Olympic-sized swimming pool – spilled from the landfill at L.V. Sutton Power Station.

A little more than a month later, Vengosh and his team conducted a comprehensive sampling of bottom sediments from seven sites in the lake and three sites in the nearby Cape Fear River.

They believed they might find traces of coal ash in the lake, he said.

“I’m totally surprised because the magnitude of contaminants we’re finding is pure coal ash,” he said. “It is surprising. It was not expected to find that level of contaminants. We thought we might find traces, but not at that level.”

The levels discovered in the lake bottom sediment are similar to or higher than the levels of contaminants found in stream sediments collected after the 2008 Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash spill into the Emory and Clinch rivers, the largest coal ash spill in history, and the 2014 Dan River spill near Eden, in Rockingham County, Vengosh said.

The Lake Sutton sediment samples were compared to sediment bottom collected from Columbus County’s Lake Waccamaw, which is not associated with coal ash disposal.

Duke Energy spokesman Bill Norton said in an email that the results of the study were neither new nor unexpected.

“It is ludicrous to compare decades-old ash at the bottom of a manmade wastewater facility to anything found in conventional lakes and rivers,” he said. “This wastewater facility did exactly what it was designed to do, serve as a buffer between our former coal plant and the Cape Fear river to keep the public and environment safe. We’ve shared similar sediment results going back to the mid-90s with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, so these findings are not at all surprising. Most importantly, the results are not relevant to anyone’s health. We have decades’ worth of surface water tests and fish tests, all shared with regulators, that demonstrate Sutton Lake is well within water quality standards and the Sutton fishery is healthy and thriving.”

“This wastewater facility did exactly what it was designed to do, serve as a buffer between our former coal plant and the Cape Fear river to keep the public and environment safe.”

Bill Norton, Duke Energy

Norton said the company samples water quality and chemistry from the lake every other month, conducts fish testing every three months, and samples sediment annually “among other studies.”

“These studies continue to demonstrate that the waters and fish populations are well-protected and the public remains safe from coal ash impacts,” he said.

River sediment collected downstream from Sutton Lake last October showed “relatively low” metal concentrations compared to those found in the lake, according to the study. Researchers note that further studies need to be conducted to fully evaluate the possible migration of coal ash solids downstream.

The Sutton power station operated as a coal-fired plant for more than 40 years before being shut down in 2013 and converted into a 625-megawatt natural gas plant.

Lake Sutton was formed in 1972 as a cooling source for the former power plant.

Over the years, the 1,100-acre lake has become a popular fishing spot.

The lake’s year-round mild water temperatures make it one of a few places where largemouth bass may be caught throughout the winter.

Sutton Lake, which has been open to the public since it was created, is also popular for recreational boaters.

At least two studies published within the last five years examining selenium in sediment bottom and fish in the lake found selenium in the fish.

Selenium is an element found in coal ash that can cause deformities and impair growth and reproduction in fish and other aquatic life.

Test results from a 2015 Duke University study showed 85 percent of all fish muscle samples examined from Sutton Lake contained selenium levels above the Environmental Protection Agency’s threshold.

Prior to that study, Dennis Lemly, an environmental consultant specializing in ecotoxicology and a former researcher biologist with the U.S. Department of Forest Service, collected in 2013 and assessed juvenile fish from the lake during a five-month period.

His assessment showed that discharges from the plant were causing selenium poisoning in young fish and reducing their chances of survival.

“We have strong evidence that contaminants we are finding in the fish are derived from the coal ash and apparently from the spill of coal ash solids in the bottom of the lake,” Vengosh said.

Norton said that the company’s many years of fish monitoring “indicates a healthy, self-sustaining and balanced fish community.”

“Historical routine documented inspections of the Sutton ash basins demonstrate that, with very brief exceptions during a couple major flooding events, all basins have operated as expected,” he said in the email. “Even during those events, no substantial quantities of ash were released to Sutton Lake.”

According to Duke Energy’s website, ash has been excavated from seven of its basins, including two in North Carolina in Asheville and Mooresboro. About 22 million tons of ash has been excavated since the company began closing basins in recent years, the site states.

Excavation of basins at the company’s Dan River facility in Eden, one in Mount Holly and at the plant near Wilmington will be completed “in the coming months.”

The energy company will stop sending ash and wastewater to “nearly all basins” by mid-year, according to information provided on the website.

“To accomplish this, the company constructed dry bottom ash handling systems, lined water treatment basins and new line retention basins at a number of operating coal plants,” the website states.

Despite the closures, Vengosh warns that the contaminants from coal ash are legacy pollutants, meaning they remain long after they were first introduced in the environment.

“A coal ash spill is not a one-time contamination,” he said in a press release. “It builds up a legacy in the environment. Even if you close the site, the legacy and threat remain, as our research has revealed at Sutton Lake and other coal ash spill sites such as Kingston, Tennessee. Collectively, these finding imply that the distribution and impact of coal ash in the environment is far larger than previously thought.”

If coal ash is in the sediment in Sutton Lake, it stands to reason the same may be true for other cooling ponds and waterways near coal ash basins, he said.

“It’s kind of a bigger question,” Vengosh said. “How much coal ash is being exposed to the environment. What are we going to do about it? Those are pretty big questions that need to be addressed.”

Sen. Harper Peterson and Rep. Deb Butler announced Monday a joint press conference to be held Tuesday morning at Lake Sutton to discuss the study’s findings.

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

WILMINGTON — When wind and rain slam Wilmington, the racket takes Rose Fanning straight back to the frightening nights she endured during hurricanes Matthew and Florence.

Fanning, 60, talked about her experiences recently at a Welcome Meal at the city’s Grace United Methodist Church. It’s a weekly offering that brings together diverse kinds of people for food and fellowship.

“It was overwhelming,” she said. “It was traumatic — the rain and the surge and the thunder and the lightning and telephone poles coming down in the street.”

Fanning was among thousands of people touched by catastrophic storms in Eastern North Carolina — Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018. A group including students from  University of North Carolina Chapel Hill nursing school spent a week in March helping out in eastern counties. They spent part of a day working where Fanning was having lunch, one of the projects of Wilmington’s Anchor church.

Participants in these efforts, whether at a church, clinic or the Anchor’s freewheeling bike shop, seemed determined to steer away from concepts of charity that can create barriers between the helpers and the helped. More creative and empathetic approaches are welcomed here.

“Part of the power and the purpose of this is that this is not a meal for people, but with people,” said Tal Madison, 60, senior pastor of Grace, taking a plate when most others had been fed. “You might have someone who’s very secure in his business, or someone who slept under a bridge last night.”

Storms hit hard

People who don’t have shelter and those with low incomes show striking, lingering effects of the storms, according to professionals from UNC Chapel Hill and University of North Carolina Wilmington, city clergy and neighborhood volunteers.

“Depression, asthma, diabetes and hypertension often become uncontrolled related to the stress and environmental effects of hurricanes and flooding,” Jean Ann Davison, a family nurse practitioner and clinical associate professor at the UNC Chapel Hill nursing school, wrote in an account of the trip. “And health outcomes can be impacted for years during the recovery period.”

It’s taken an evolving mix of public, private and nonprofit efforts to make a dent in the widespread health and human problems aggravated by the storms. Tamatha Arms, an associate professor of nursing at UNCW, said at the lunch that families she’s encountered continue to suffer financial stress as well as a long list of physical and mental issues.

Blood sugar over 600

“We’ve seen people who have PTSD,” Arms said. “They were people who stayed during the storms, and wished they hadn’t.

“They can experience anxiety, hypervigilance, and nightmares where they wake up in a panic.”

Davison and the nursing students saw more than 200 people at screenings coordinated with meals and health fairs in Lumberton, Wilmington, Burgaw and Dunn. Some of the people they saw had such alarming symptoms that they were sent immediately for treatment.

“We had one woman come in with a blood sugar of over 600,” Davison said in an interview after the trip. “No. 1, they can’t get their medication or they lost their glucometer.

“Your blood sugar gets out of control because you aren’t eating well, and maybe the food you are eating is unhealthy food,” she continued, laying out the steps for someone’s blood sugar to spiral out of control. “They don’t have transportation so they can’t get into see their provider, or the provider may be closed down.”

Nurses said the clients said they were feeling hopeless and asked for prayers for their depression and anxiety.

Another of the diners at Grace, Walter Bannerman, 43, has been sleeping in a tent in an encampment where a number of other unsheltered people stay at night.

“I don’t like rooming houses because they are drug-infested,” Bannerman said after he finished lunch. “You can’t stay clean.”

‘Living in nature’

Staying in the tent can be rough in cold winter or hot summer, he said, but it generally suits him well. He often encounters his forest-dwelling neighbors.

“You got the possums, the coyotes, you got deer,” Bannerman said. “I like it because it’s like living in nature, under God.”

Madison, the pastor at Grace, said the weekly meal has been going on for nearly two years and has cost the church nothing but the use of a fellowship hall and kitchen. Donations, including some from area restaurants, have covered the rest. The Anchor, under the leadership of pastor Philip Chryst, provided the vision for the gathering.

“We serve about 80 to 100 people a week,” Chryst said at the church.

The Anchor, which holds Sunday services in a barge on the Cape Fear River, is also a supporter of Switchin’ Gears, a bicycle shop located in a renovated commercial building in an older neighborhood not far from Grace Church.

Switchin’ Gears does steady business under the leadership of founder and director Dusty Casteen. It also serves as a focus and hangout for people in the up-and-coming neighborhood.

“We try to use a bicycle to start to forge a relationship with people,” Casteen, 38, said as he diagnosed a problem with a customer’s ride. “We’re transforming bikes to try to transform people.”

A steady stream of people and dogs flowed through open doors of the shop. A sign on the building front reads “Miracles Happen Here.” Casteen pointed out that ownership of wheeled transportation means a person who could only function within a few walkable miles can travel 15 miles or so to reach a job, or a medical appointment.

Customers including Bannerman who lend a hand at the shop get $10 credit toward a bike for every hour worked. At one point the Switchin’ Gears crew charged nothing for bikes, but found that the practice could do more harm than good.

Working off bikes

“It kind of evolved,” Casteen said. “First we were giving bikes away, but it turned out people were pawning them for drugs.

“When they work for it, they can pawn it or keep it, it’s kind of up to them.”

Davison and her crew from UNC Chapel Hill bought and donated 100 feet of chain and locks to the shop after hearing that some clients had had their unsecured bikes stolen.

People from the Anchor and the bike shop also set up a shelter at a nearby church to house people during exceptionally cold weather. They learned that giving visitors sleeping bags to take with them, instead of offering a bed with sheets, helped prevent an infestation of bedbugs at the shelter. Casteen, who’s from Wilmington, noted that he acquired his street knowledge first hand.

“I was on heroin for 17 years,” he said. “I got a lot of perception into how to help people.”

How was he able to overcome his addiction?

“I started in Georgia and walked all the way to Maine on the Appalachian Trail,” he said. “That’s how I found God. That really changed my life more than anything, to be honest.”

This story is provided courtesy of North Carolina Health News, a nonprofit news service covering health and environmental issues in North Carolina. 

WILMINGTON – Questions remain about the environmental and health concerns from exposure to unregulated industrial chemicals recently detected in the Cape Fear River. A forum is planned in late May to give the public a chance to meet the scientists trying to answer those questions.

The forum, Emerging PFAS Contaminants in the Cape Fear Region: University Collaborations on Environmental, Drinking Water and Health Effects, is set to begin at 1 p.m. May 31 in the University of North Carolina Wilmington Fisher Student Center’s Lumina Theater. A reception is to follow, 4:30-6 p.m. at Clock Tower Lounge in Fisher Student Center. This event is free for the public to attend, but registration is required. The Orton Foundation helped fund the forum.

The event has been designed to give scientists working together through a multi-university research program called the North Carolina PFAS Testing Network that focuses on monitoring per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, the opportunity to share summaries of their research projects, methods, timelines and work. The PFAST Network, University of North Carolina Wilmington and North Carolina Coastal Federation are hosting the forum.

The program is made up of 20 researchers from North Carolina State University, Duke University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Wilmington, University of North Carolina Charlotte, East Carolina University and North Carolina A&T University.

The North Carolina Policy Collaboratory is funding the PFAST Network with the $5 million awarded by the General Assembly during fiscal year 2018-19 to study the occurrence, impacts and removal of PFAS. According the PFAST Network, this research model is the first of its kind in the United States.

During the forum, there will be an introduction to the PFAST Network Research Initiative. The agenda also lists that speakers will give updates on the research monitoring of PFAS and provide a summary of research from five PFAST Network research teams, investigating the extent and effects of PFAS in the air and water, the potential PFAS removal technologies, PFAS sources, where PFAS end up in the environment and potential health effects of PFAS exposure.

“We’re excited to be co-hosting this forum with the PFAST Network and UNCW. With so much still unknown about GenX and other PFAS, we hope this event will help inform local residents about the sources and extent of these contaminants in our environment, drinking water, and air,” said Kerri Allen, the federation’s coastal advocate based in the Wrightsville Beach office. Allen is slated to give opening remarks at the forum.

“The PFAST Network brings together scientists from six universities across the state, and this forum will give community members an opportunity to hear from them directly about what is being done to understand and learn from the exposure,” she continued.

Allen added that at the reception after the forum, residents and community leaders will have an opportunity to speak one-on-one with the researchers involved in this effort.

Environmental engineer and North Carolina State University professor Detlaf Knappe and his colleagues in 2013 and 2014 detected high levels of industrial chemicals, including GenX, in the Cape Fear River, the primary source of drinking water for Bladen, Brunswick New Hanover and Pender counties, and at Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Sweeney plant, according to N.C. State.

Knappe and his team worked with Environmental Protection Agency scientists and the results were reported in Environmental Science and Technology Letters in November 2016. State officials began investing the issue in June 2017 after media reported the findings.

“Industrial wastewater discharges can contribute to the presence of unregulated contaminants in our drinking water,” Knappe told Coastal Review Online.

“Residents in the Wilmington area became acutely aware of this fact almost two years ago, when the presence of GenX and other PFAS became widely known through an article in the Wilmington StarNews,” he continued. “The resulting public outcry quickly led to changes in an upstream wastewater discharge that resulted in a rapid drop in PFAS concentrations in Wilmington area drinking water. Identifying these poorly studied PFAS required intensive efforts by researchers at EPA and NC State University.”

In the time since, North Carolina departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services studied the man‐made and unregulated chemical used in manufacturing nonstick coatings that began being produced in 2009 at the Chemours’ facility in Fayetteville as a replacement for Perfluorooctanoic acid, PFOA, according NCDEQ.

Knappe said that discovering GenX and other PFAS in the Wilmington area generated broader concerns about the presence of PFAS in drinking water sources of other North Carolina communities and these concerns led to the legislative mandate to study the possible presence of PFAS in drinking water sources across the state.

“The resulting appropriation led to the formation of the PFAST Network, a multi-disciplinary team of researchers at universities across North Carolina that is tasked with developing the science to assess the presence of PFAS in North Carolina drinking water sources by means of non-targeted analysis and to answer other important questions, such as how are PFAS that are emitted to the air transported and deposited back to the land, which water treatment processes are effective for PFAS removal, how do PFAS accumulate in plants and fish, and what is the toxicity of poorly studied PFAS,” he said.

PFAST Network has a four-member management team and seven research teams: Team 1: Water Sampling & PFAS Analysis, Team 2: Private Well Risk Modeling, Team 3: PFAS Removal Performance Testing, Team 4: Air Emissions & Atmospheric Deposition, Team 5: Applied Research Opportunities, Team 6: Risk Communications, and Team 7: Data Science & Management.

Ralph Mead, professor in UNC Wilmington’s chemistry and biochemistry department, said that he is co-lead, along with Barbara Turpin at UNC Chapel Hill of Team 4 and they are investigating how and to what extent PFAS emissions are carried by the wind and end up on land and in water in North Carolina.

“We aim to improve characterization of airborne PFAS in North Carolina and estimate atmospheric PFAS deposition into the Cape Fear River watershed,” he said. “This research is transformative and will provide various stake holders with essential data regarding PFAS atmospheric transport, atmospheric transformation and ultimately human exposure.”

HYDE COUNTY – In another of a series of ecosystem indignities for Lake Mattamuskeet, opening day of boating season on Friday was accompanied for the first time with posted signs warning of harmful algal blooms.

Commonly known as blue-green algae, cyanobacteria can produce toxins that can cause illness in humans and animals, including skin rashes, digestive disorders and respiratory distress.

The signs, white with a bold red stripe at the top with the words “WATER WARNING,” advise people that harmful algae is present in Lake Mattamuskeet and to avoid contact with the water. The notices also warn against drinking the water and to keep pets and children away.

Pete Campbell, manager of Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge, said that algal blooms have been an issue in the lake for the last few years, especially on hot days, and the conditions that cause the blooms have not been alleviated.

Campbell said the public should be aware of the potential health risks, as well as the ongoing efforts to restore the health of North Carolina’s largest natural lake.

“The message is you don’t have to avoid enjoying the lake, but take precautions,” he said. “We felt it prudent.”

Although the signs also say “animals may die” if the water or toxic algae is consumed, Campbell said he is unaware of any reports of pet or wildlife deaths from past blooms.

Swimming has never been allowed in the lake, Campbell said, but even incidental splashing or wading should be rinsed with clean water.

But it’s safe to eat fish caught in the lake, according to the refuge manager. Fish are plentiful in the lake, he said, including catfish, crabs, largemouth bass, black crappie and, to a lesser extent, white perch, sunfish and carp.

Studies have shown no bioaccumulation of toxins in fish, he said, and there are no documented cases where people have become sick from eating fish caught at Lake Mattamuskeet.

Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic, single-celled aquatic organisms, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. In freshwater, a harmful algal bloom can develop quickly and is more likely in warm, still waters with abundant amounts of nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen. Signs of algae contact include skin rashes, itchiness and sore eyes, ears or nose.

Although the forested area around the lake is also a favorite destination for deer and black bear hunting, by and large Mattamuskeet is renowned for its waterfowl hunting, as well as unique birdwatching opportunities.

Campbell said that the recent government shutdown limited the refuge’s annual aerial survey of waterfowl, but it is evident that plenty are visiting.

“They’re still coming,” he said. “They’re taking advantage of our impoundments.”

But the water quality effects on wildlife are a concern of the refuge, he said.

“There’s never an instantaneous change when it comes to waterfowl,” Campbell said. “We’ll keep monitoring.”

The cyanobacteria issue is the latest symptom of the precipitous decline in Lake Mattamuskeet’s water quality.

Serious problems have been evident for at least 20 years, when the submerged aquatic vegetation, or SAV, on the lake’s west side started dying off, resulting in spiraling ecological consequences.

Turbidity increased and clarity decreased, hindering sunlight reaching new growth of SAV, which soon disappeared altogether. Without SAV to consume nutrients draining into the lake, pH levels and chlorophyll increased and phytoplankton became dominant. Surveys taken in 2017 on the east side of the lake found zero SAV.

In 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency added Mattamuskeet to its state list of impaired waterways.

Lake Mattamuskeet, situated on the Hyde County mainland, is 6 miles wide, 18 miles long and typically averages about 2 feet in depth.

Surrounded by farms and timberland, the 40,000-acre lake is famous for attracting hundreds of thousands of migratory waterfowl every year, most notably the tundra swans in the winter.

But with no SAV – an important food source – the birds are mostly bypassing the lake for nearby private and refuge impoundments, which are intentionally flooded agricultural lands or moist soil areas with native plants created to attract waterfowl. The graceful white swans also still visit the lake for sanctuary.

Much of the nutrient-rich water from both the farmlands and impoundments drains into the Mattamuskeet. In addition to intricate drainage canals to and from the lake, the lake itself depends on water control systems to balance water levels.

But increased rainfall in recent years has created enormous challenges to all the drainage, and exacerbated Mattamuskeet’s already substantial problem with water quality, Campbell said. With deeper water, even less light can reach the lake bottom, hindering recovery of the SAVs, and blocking the passive operation of the water control gates.

“The lake had been unable to flush through our gate system,” Campbell said.

The gates don’t open as frequently because the water pressure is higher on the sound side of the canal. So, what you have is the same amount of water … and less water being able to leave the lake.”

Scientists have been monitoring and studying the lake intently since at least 2012, and it became evident that the lake required a comprehensive approach in order to recover its SAV, the best indicator of a healthy waterway.

In 2017, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Hyde County established a partnership and hired the North Carolina Coastal Federation to develop a restoration plan.

After 18 months working with an 11-member, community-based stakeholders group, the federation and the partnership submitted Dec. 7, 2018, the final draft of the Lake Mattamuskeet Watershed Restoration Plan to North Carolina Division of Water Resources for review.

Although its contract work is completed, the federation is continuing to assist in the restoration efforts, said Michael Flynn, the group’s northeast coastal advocate.

“The plan has been a priority of the Coastal Federation,” he said.

Ongoing or planned research includes restoration of the SAV; the effects of impoundments on water quality; control of invasive carp; and active watershed drainage and management.

“The No. 1 problem is excessive nutrients in the lake, which contribute to algal blooms,” said Wendy Stanton, refuge biologist at Mattamuskeet.

Two toxins – cylindrospermopsin and anabaena – have been detected in the cyanobacteria present at Mattamuskeet, Stanton said.

But she stressed that no one is pointing fingers.

“The lake is what it is,” she said. “It took a long time to get that way, and it’s going to take years and years to restore it. It’s a long-term process.”

In addition to numerous research efforts being conducted by academic, government and nonprofit environmental organization scientists, there are also programs available to private landowners to help implement best management practices to improve water quality and enhance wildlife habitat.

A priority in the management plan is to develop a drainage association to continue to move forward with the needs of the community, Stanton said. Another possibility under consideration is creating another outflow canal to the north of the lake.

“The bottom line is we have got to improve the water quality in that lake,” Stanton said. “One thing that’s so refreshing and so amazing is how everyone came together. Everyone wants the lake to be healthy.”

This story was co-published in partnership with North Carolina Health News

Members of a new state panel boarded a church bus Tuesday morning in Wilmington, intent on exploring the environmental atrocities of the past and determined to keep history from repeating itself.

Veronica Carter stood at the front of the bus, serving as a guide on a roughly 25-mile, three-hour tour for the 16-member North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board.

The board’s primary objective is to protect and provide a voice for people living in underserved and underrepresented communities across the state — communities that are, by and large, poor and black.

Perhaps nowhere else in the state are the reminders of past environmental disasters in these communities more vivid or as shameful as they are near Wilmington.

Shortly after the bus rolled out, Carter, a retired Army major and a board member, called attention to Wilmington’s 1898 Memorial Park, which commemorates blacks who died or were run out of town in November of that year when a white mob overthrew Wilmington’s biracial government.

“African Americans in this city have never recovered,” Carter bellowed in her Army voice before the bus turned onto a paved road lined by trailers and small houses, some still bearing blue tarps and other scars left nearly six months ago by the winds and record-setting rain of Hurricane Florence.

This is the Flemington community, Carter told the group, referring to the poor, largely black community off U.S. 421 in New Hanover County that had unknowingly been drinking well water laced with arsenic, boron, cobalt and other contaminants for decades.

The toxins came from an unlined pit where Duke Energy had stored coal ash, the residue of a coal-fired power plant that operated here from 1954 until 2013, when Duke opened a $600 million natural gas plant nearby.

Duke was fined a record $25.1 million for the contamination, a figure that was later reduced to $7 million in a settlement with the state. Duke also paid more than $3 million to have public water lines run to the Flemington community in 2016.  None of the money, Carter told the group, went to pay medical bills for residents who may have been harmed by the contamination.

“These small communities never have a chance,” said Carter, an environmental activist and board member with the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

Duke is now excavating the coal ash and putting it in nearby lined pits that will be capped when the work is complete. A deadline for completion has been set for later this year.

Sutton Lake

Sutton Lake sits a stone’s throw from the Flemington community. The 1,100-acre reservoir was formed by Duke’s predecessor, Carolina Power & Light, in 1972 to cool its power plant.

An earthen dam at the lake breached during Hurricane Florence, flooding coal ash pits and spilling some of their toxic contents into the Cape Fear River. State regulators say the spill did not harm the river.

Environmentalists say Sutton Lake is contaminated, too, an opinion backed by science but one that remains up for debate.

A study in 2017 by Duke University found high levels of selenium in fish in Sutton and two other North Carolina lakes that had been receiving coal ash from power plants.

According to the study, early life exposure to selenium can cause deformities, impaired growth and reproduction, and in extreme cases death in fish and aquatic invertebrates. Because selenium accumulates in the food chain, it also can be toxic to birds that eat aquatic animals containing high levels.

Of the three lakes studied, Sutton had the highest concentration of selenium, with 85 percent of all fish muscle samples containing levels above what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe.

Board members departed the bus at Sutton Lake’s public access area, where Carter said a dock is usually thronged by people fishing, not for recreation but for subsistence. For many, Carter told the group, fish from the lake is their primary  source of protein.

Some board members asked why there are no signs at the dock or the public boat ramp warning people that the fish may be contaminated.

It’s an old story, responded Dana Sargent, deputy director of Cape Fear River Watch. No one — not the state or local governments — knows who would be responsible for placing the signs.

Contamination in Navassa

Board members asked question after question as the bus headed to its next destination, the town of Navassa, where the majority of its 1,895 residents are black and poor. Many are the descendants of the Gullah Geechee people, who arrived here to work in the town’s rice plantations.

The bus stopped outside Reaves Chapel, a dilapidated clapboard church built after the Civil War that once served as a house of worship for the Gullah Geechee.

Efforts are underway to restore the church, which sits in a woods that are about to give way to two new subdivisions containing 6,000 homes — three times as many homes as Navassa now has people. Board members remarked that the subdivisions could lead to more problems for the Navassa natives, including gentrification, higher property values and a dilution of voting strength.

It’s the cumulative effects of environmental contamination that Carter and other board members worry about most. Navassa is a poster town for those impacts. The town has four inactive brownfield sites, land that cannot be developed because of industrial contamination lying under the surface. Carter told the group that there are more brownfield and federal Superfund sites in Navassa than any other municipality in the state.

The bus rolled past some of the brownfield sites before arriving at the former Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. plant, which used to preserve wood with creosote in unlined pits from 1936 to 1974. The creosote, a probable carcinogen, has seeped as deep as 100 feet into the ground, Carter told the group.

The EPA deemed the property a Superfund site and added it to its National Priorities List in 2010. Efforts are now underway to turn some of the land into public space, which could include a park with trails and an amphitheater, a river walk and a rice field for demonstration purposes of the town’s heritage. The remainder of the land remains unuseable.

Carter, who lives in the neighboring town of Leland, said she has heard from many people living in Navassa whose relatives had died at an early age from cancer. Although there is no way to quantify whether contaminants caused the diseases, Carter said, “you know we think in our heart of hearts that was the problem.”

Board Urged to Act

The bus arrived back at Cape Fear Community College about 1 p.m. The tour served as a prelude to the board’s third meeting since it was formed last May.

After concluding the mundane matters of a new board, including the names of subcommittees, the panel heard from two of the DEQ’s top-ranking officials, Sheila Holman, assistant secretary for the environment, and John Nicholson, DEQ’s chief deputy secretary.

Holman unveiled a new mapping tool, which she and other DEQ officials said will enable local planners to better determine the suitability of proposed industrial sites and inform residents of the potential environmental effects those industries could cause. The tool is expected to become available for public use April 1.

The board also approved statements about their concerns over coal ash and industrial-scale animal farms. The statements will be provided to DEQ officials.

But perhaps the most telling part of the board’s mission came during the public comments period at its conclusion. About a dozen speakers stood up, most praising the board for its work and expressing deep concerns about GenX or coal ash.

Frank Holleman, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Chapel Hill office, urged the board to voice objection to Duke Energy’s plans to excavate coal ash pits from only eight of its 14 coal-fueled power plants. Many of those plants have converted to natural gas.

Holleman noted that South Carolina and Virginia have required energy companies in those states to remove the coal ash and place it in lined and covered landfills. North Carolina needs to do the same, he said.

“This is an opportunity for the state and the governor of this state to do something about it,” Holleman said, urging the board to speak up. “There is no better body to take action than this body.”

The Rev. Gregory Hairston told the board that people are becoming ill from the 12 million tons of coal ash stored in Stokes County, where he lives.

“I try to encourage you because we feel we are not getting a fair shake,” Hairston said. “It’s time that we had a voice, and we feel that we don’t have a voice in our state … We demand and we request that you be a forceful voice for us.”

Board Hears Complaints, Too

The board also heard complaints from residents.

“You’re understaffed, you’re under budget, I get it,” said Ashley Daniels, a member of Cape Fear River Watch and the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. “But if you are saying you want to include the community, you have to do better.”

Daniels complained that there is too little notice of board meetings, and too little time to prepare for them. Carter agreed. She asked that the next meeting, set for this summer, be held later in the day so more people could attend.

John Wagner of Chatham County complained that the board “is moving too slow.”

“I know you all have lives, but you are the board,” Wagner said. “Our house is on fire.”

Leslie Cohen said that, as a candidate for a state House seat last year, she spoke to thousands of people whose No. 1 concern is contamination of their drinking water. Many people cannot afford to buy bottled water or filtration systems, she said.

“We need you,” Cohen told the board. “Every citizen of North Carolina needs you.”

WILMINGTON – The proposed consent order between Chemours and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality would be the quickest way to stop pollution emanating from the company’s Fayetteville Works plant, officials with environmental groups that joined the order say.

Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette and Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Geoff Gisler defended why they joined a consent order that would require the company to pay a $12 million penalty, reduce air emissions of GenX immediately and clean up and decrease per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance, or PFAS, contamination in the Cape Fear River.

“What this order does is attack all of those sources of pollution,” Gisler said as he pointed to a diagram projected onto a large screen showing how compounds produced at the plant get into the river. “What this order does do is it turns off the spigot.”

Gisler and Burdette fielded questions during a public meeting Wednesday night on the campus of the University of North Carolina Wilmington, explaining their reasons for joining the consent order that, if approved by a Bladen County judge, would grant the nonprofit Cape Fear River Watch equal enforcement power as DEQ.

The proposed consent order does not have the support of the local utility authority or some elected officials, who argue the agreement fails to address Cape Fear River sediment and drinking water contamination issues.

New Hanover County Commissioner Woody White recently asked fellow commissioners to join the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, or CFPUA, in opposing the agreement by adopting a resolution stating as such.

White addressed several concerns in an email to county officials, including the fact that neither the utility, county nor city were involved in the settlement negotiations.

He questioned whether the settlement could adversely impact the utility’s lawsuit against Chemours, whether River Watch’s compliance oversight would be a conflict of interest in relation to fundraising, and argues the agreement fails to hold Chemours accountable for knowingly discharging PFAS into the Cape Fear River for more than three decades.

Burdette and Gisler were asked during Wednesday’s Q&A session about the concerns raised by White and the CFPUA.

“It is, in fact, our job to protect water quality,” Burdette said. “(The order) does not give us oversight above and beyond what the state has. (White) may have thought it appeared to do that, but it does not do that.”

Gisler said the agreement does not foreclose any future remediation Chemours may have to address nor will it impact future lawsuits brought against DuPont.

“Our focus in these cases was stopping the pollution,” he said. “They were, by design, intended to focus on what’s happening now.”

Cutting off the pollution source and keeping it on site is an essential part of solving the problem, but it is not the entire resolution to the problem, he said.

River sediment, for example, is not addressed in the agreement.

“Contaminate in sediment is a difficult thing,” Burdette said. “The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority has indicated that they have concerns about the sediment and they have a lawsuit to address that. We could spend two decades trying to figure out the exact specifics of sediment or we could stop the pollution that’s leaving that site and affecting our drinking water now.”

The 36-page consent order lays out how much pollution must be reduced within specific timeframes.

Chemours would be required by Dec. 31 to reduce facility-wide air emissions of GenX by at least 92 percent from 2017 total reported emissions.

This requirement would be included in future air permits granted by the state.

The agreement also mandates that Chemours provide the state with tests for all PFAS the company knows about so that DEQ can test for those compounds.

Discovery of any new PFAS would have to be reported to the state as well as any new process that may cause new compounds to be discharged from the plant.

“There’s a number of steps being taken to manage the groundwater contamination,” Burdette said.

Chemours would continue to collect its polluted wastewater and truck it offsite and cooling ponds would be lined.

The company would have to provide filters to residents who rely on groundwater near the facility.

Sampling plans are still being hashed out, but the order sets up a process for sample and remediation plans, Gisler said.

The agreement does not address possible adverse health effects to those exposed to the chemicals in their drinking water.

Gisler and Burdette anticipate that class action lawsuits will likely be filed against the company pertaining to health-related issues.

The consent order, Burdette said, is the very first step.

“It stops contamination from leaving the site and entering the river, which is the water we drink,” he said. “Our real goal here, the Cape Fear River Watch mission, is protecting and improving the Cape Fear River. I think what is important is we’re pushing for a quick stop to the source. I think that it will be a real blow to this community if we don’t do what this consent order will do. I certainly don’t think it’s the last step.”

Burdette encouraged the audience to submit comments on the proposed order to DEQ.

WILMINGTON – Blood samples taken from more than 300 New Hanover County residents contain man-made chemicals unique to their drinking water source, but GenX is not one of them.

Results of blood tests from a GenX exposure study reveal four per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, specific to customers of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, according to the North Carolina State University researchers who conducted the tests.

Their findings, unveiled during a public meeting on the campus of Cape Fear Community College in downtown Wilmington Tuesday night, do not mean GenX is nonexistent in people who drink water sourced from the lower Cape Fear River.

“It means that we didn’t see it above the limit of our method,” said Detlef Knappe, one of the research team’s co-investigators.

The researcher’s method reporting limit was 2 parts per billion of GenX, explained Nadine Kotlarz, a postdoctoral research scholar at N.C. State.

GenX is the commonly used term for perfluoro-2-propoxypropanoic acid, a chemical compound produced to make Teflon, which is used to make nonstick coating surfaces for cookware.

That and other chemical compounds have been released into the Cape Fear River by the Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility since the 1980s.

“GenX was not found in blood even though we did see it in 50 parts per trillion in tap water,” she said.

What they did find in blood samples are four PFAS that are unique to the lower Cape Fear River.

PFAS are a group of man-made chemicals used in consumer products that can be released into the environment.

In this case, Nafion byproduct 2, PFO4DA and PFO5DoDA, which are types of perfluoro acid, and hydro-eve, a propanoic acid, were found in blood samples collected from 345 participants in November 2017. That was the same month the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, ordered Chemours to stop discharging wastewater with GenX into the river.

Of the blood samples, 99 percent contained Nafion byproduct 2, 98 percent showed PFO4DA, 87 percent had PFODoDA, and 76 percent contained hydro-eve.

“As far as well can tell these PFAS are unique to Wilmington,” Kotlarz said.

The levels of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, found in the GenX study blood samples are higher than the national average.

Levels of PFOA found in blood samples collected throughout the United States have decreased from 5.2 parts per billion in 1999 to 1.5 parts per billion in 2015.

Blood samples collected from New Hanover County residents show the level at 4.4 parts per billion. Samples taken again from 44 participants of the study six months later showed slightly lower levels of PFOAs, but still higher than the national rate.

What this means to the health of the thousands of New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender county residents who rely on the lower Cape Fear as their drinking water source remains unknown.

GenX and other per-fluorinated and polyfluorinated compounds are poorly studied. Little is known about how these chemicals break down in the environment and any associated health risks.

Jane Hoppin, the study’s principal investigator, associate professor in N.C. State’s Department of Biological Sciences and deputy director of the university’s Center for Human Health and the Environment, said there some health outcomes that have been associated with these chemicals.

A study of 45,000 adults exposed to PFOAs from a DuPont and Chemours plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, showed increases in cholesterol, thyroid disruption, testicular and kidney cancer, and alteration to vaccines.

The GenX study in Wilmington aims to answer what health risks, if any, the PFOAs found in the blood streams of those tested pose.

Blood, urine and tap water samples were collected about a year ago from 345 participants living in the lower Cape Fear River basin. Of those, 56 are children older than 6.

More than half of the participants have lived in Wilmington at least 10 years, Hoppin said.

Lifelong Wilmington resident Sonya Patrick is not one of the study’s participants, but she attended Tuesday’s meeting to hear the results.

Like so many residents here, Patrick is frustrated that so many questions remain unanswered about the exposure of these chemicals to the human body.

“The answers were very vague,” Patrick said after the meeting. “Even though there may not be evidence of (GenX) it doesn’t mean it’s not present. This is people’s health we’re talking about. We still don’t know how this is overall affecting our health. I’m glad at least to know that there is more research that’s going to be done.”

Upcoming tests of urine samples will include measuring thyroid function and lipids.

“We’ll be able to understand more as we move forward,” Hoppin said.

Some residents have taken steps to try and remove the chemicals from their drinking water through filters.

Knappe said that all of the chemical compounds found in the blood samples can be removed from active carbon. He recommended residents follow manufacturing guidelines on replacing active carbon filters, which is typically every six months.

The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority in October 2017 filed a federal lawsuit against Chemours and DuPont, alleging the companies knew the threats posed by the chemicals when it began manufacturing C8 and later replacing that with GenX at its Fayetteville Works site.

The utility alleges Chemours violated the Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation Recovery Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Solid Waste Disposal Act and claims more than $75,000 in damages.

In May, CFPUA’s board of directors authorized treatment enhancements at the Sweeney Water Treatment Plant to reduce per-fluorinated compounds, or PFCs, which include GenX, in treated water.

Brunswick County plans to fund essentially half of $99 million in water plant upgrades through a loan program administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that likely will reduce financing costs by millions of dollars.

EPA announced this month that Brunswick was among 39 applicants nationwide — and the only one in North Carolina — selected to apply for Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, or WIFIA loans.

The Brunswick County Board of Commissioners in May approved construction of a low-pressure reverse-osmosis, or RO, plant at its Northwest Water Treatment Plant.

That decision followed a study comparing options to remove GenX and other fluorochemicals in the Cape Fear River, source of the plant’s drinking water.

The contamination came to light in June 2017, following media reports that researchers had discovered GenX and a host of similar substances emanating from the Chemours chemical plant on the Bladen-Cumberland county line near Fayetteville.

Chemours officials said the GenX in the river was a byproduct of a manufacturing process that had been ongoing since about 1980.

GenX and other fluorochemicals elude conventional municipal water treatment, so they also turned up in drinking water sourced from the Cape Fear by Brunswick and other utilities serving more than 200,000 people in southeastern North Carolina.

Late last year, under pressure from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Chemours suspended all discharges to the river, capturing its wastewater from off-site disposal.

The state’s investigation also broadened to encompass Chemours’ air emissions, thought to be responsible for contamination that turned up in hundreds of private wells miles from the plant.

Last month, Chemours broke ground on a $100 million project aimed at reducing those emissions to 1 percent or less of 2016 levels.

‘It Will Greatly Benefit the Ratepayers’

The Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014, or WIKIA, authorizes EPA to provide federal loans or loan guarantees to organizations ranging from corporations and joint ventures to state and municipal governments to fund for drinking and wastewater projects.

A key feature is an interest rate equal to the U.S. Treasury rate at the same maturity: Participants can borrow at the same rate as the federal government. In addition, borrowers can customize repayment schedules, taking as long as 35 years to repay. Brunswick can finance as much as 49 percent of the project cost through the WIKIA program.

“The county is looking for opportunities to finance the project at the lowest possible rate for the benefit of our water customers,” Brunswick County Manager Ann Hardy said in an interview Tuesday.

“We’re not only applying for the WIKIA funding. We’re also seeking state revolving funds and any grants that might be available,” she said. “These federal and state programs that we’re able to possibly use to finance the cost of the RO plant will provide us better financing terms, lower interest rates and a cheaper cost structure than going out into the bond market with a revenue bond.”

The county won’t know its rate until the loan is secured, but Hardy said: “Typically, it’s a savings of a percentage (point) or two, maybe more” compared with a revenue bond. Over the life of the loan, that should result in millions of dollars in savings.

While construction and operating expenses may not change, the decreased financing costs should help the county keep rate increases below what they might be otherwise.

“I think it will greatly benefit the ratepayers,” Hardy said.

‘Robust Technology for Unidentified Contaminants’

Brunswick chose reverse osmosis based on a recommendation from engineering and construction firm CDM Smith, which compared options that also included granular activated carbon and ion-exchange media.

The firm’s recommendation, following a pilot test of a scaled-down RO system, stated that reverse osmosis removed more fluorochemicals more consistently than other options.

It also would be effective at removing most 1,4-dioxane, an industrial chemical used in solvents, paint strippers, greases and waxes that is classified by EPA as “likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” That contaminant has turned up at relatively high levels in Brunswick’s drinking water in tests conducted in recent years.

CDM Smith also wrote that reverse osmosis “is the most robust technology for protecting against unidentified contaminants.”

Construction of the reverse-osmosis upgrades is estimated to cost $99 million. Annual operations and maintenance are expected to run $2.9 million.

The county already had planned to spend $38 million to expand the plant’s capacity and help fund a second line to convey raw river water to the Northwest plant, which serves about 70,000 customers, including those of other utilities.

The second line not only will provide redundancy in case of a break in the current line and capacity to meet anticipated growth, it also is needed because RO typically uses more water than other treatment methods. Depending on the system, as little as 85 out of each 100 gallons of raw water treated would be available for drinking.

Filtering GenX, Then Discharging It

In addition to securing funding, Brunswick also must apply to discharge wastewater under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, which in North Carolina is administered by DEQ.

That process “began in February and has proceeded with no ‘red flags’ from regulators. Bidding and construction of the project is expected to begin in June of 2019,” the county wrote in its announcement of the expansion.

John Nichols, Brunswick’s public utilities director, said Tuesday the county plans to submit the application in the next few days.

Those discharges likely will include the fluorochemicals such as GenX removed during treatment.

The current NPDES permit for the Northwest plant states it discharges its wastewater to Hood Creek, part of the Cape Fear River basin.

Coincidentally, although no other water utilities are downstream of Brunswick’s discharge, other municipal treatment plants upriver, which receive wastewater from local manufacturers, are thought to be sources of the 1,4-dioxane contaminating Brunswick’s drinking water.

“(The discharge) can only include what’s being taken out of the river,” Hardy said. “You’re taking out at one point and only putting back in what you take out of the river. You’re not adding anything new to the river.

“Our primary concern is that Chemours stop discharging GenX into the river,” she said. “If they stop, then there’s no GenX to put back in.”

Nichols said county staff has met with regulators a number of times regarding its plans, including the discharge.

“We did not get any negative reaction,” he said. “We asked them if they saw any fatal flaws or major issues, and none came up.”

DEQ did not respond to an email with questions regarding the application and the discharge.

Holding the Polluter Responsible

Brunswick isn’t the only water system looking at multi-million-dollar upgrades to deal with Chemours’ contamination. The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which provides water to most of New Hanover County’s residents, is moving forward with plans to add granular activated carbon beds to its Sweeney Water Treatment Plant.

CFPUA initially considered RO but set it aside because of concerns about costs, waste-disposal challenges and other considerations.

Sweeney already has ozonation, biofiltration and UV disinfection systems, features found at only a handful of water utilities in North Carolina, and can remove most 1,4-dioxane from water it treats.

For its part, CFPUA has applied to DEQ for a $46.9 million grant to fund its construction.

In addition, Brunswick and CFPUA are suing Chemours for damages they say resulted from the contamination in the Cape Fear River. Each has maintained that, ultimately, Chemours rather than utility customers should pay for whatever measures are needed to remove fluorochemicals from drinking water. Any resolution to those claims, though, likely is years away, longer than officials were willing to wait to address their communities’ drinking water issues.

“First and foremost,” Hardy said, “the county is looking to hold those responsible for placing the chemicals in the river financially responsible. And we’re seeking to recover that through our suit against Chemours.”

Those suits have been combined into a single action. Jim Flechtner, CFPUA executive director, said the utilities are awaiting a ruling on a motion by Chemours to dismiss the suit.

A number of lawsuits claiming damages to area residents also have been consolidated.

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

MOREHEAD CITY — When Brett Froelich saw Hurricane Florence taking aim at the North Carolina coast, he saw an opportunity.

So, even as Florence’s winds were screaming past the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences where he is an associate professor, Froelich was planning on how to get test kits out to physicians and other health care providers who would be providing care after the storm.

Froelich studies the kinds of bacteria that are present in water stirred up by hurricane winds and surges. The target of his current research is a species of the nasty pathogen known as vibrio, which is in the family of bacteria that includes cholera.

“We’re not too worried about cholera. We have excellent sanitation and things like that,” he said reassuringly. “What we are worried about are a couple of other species, Vibrio vulnificus and Vibrio parahaemolyticus.”

Those two species of vibrio live in shellfish and also in the waters that host other shellfish. People who eat raw shellfish inoculated with either of these bacteria can get pretty sick.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates between 52,000 and 80,000 cases of food poisoning each year are attributable to vibrio.

But another problem is when people come in contact with either of the vibrio species through an open wound.

“Say they cut themselves on a rock, or they poke their finger while baiting a hook or something like that and some of the salt water gets in there,” he said. “The bacteria can then get into that wound and cause a life-threatening infection.”

During Hurricane Katrina, there were 22 confirmed cases of Vibrio vulnificus-based wound infections, said Froelich’s colleague, Rachel Noble, a professor at IMS.

“There were five deaths that happened from those,” she said.

Dangerous floodwaters

Vibrio infections happen more often in summer months when the water is warm and the bacteria are able to multiply. The good news is that the bacteria are very susceptible to treatment if a person with a red and oozing wound receives treatment early.

“If a patient were to come in, and they say, ‘Look, I got cut and it looks infected,’ and the doctor gave them antibiotics they’d probably be fine,” he said. “But if they got infected, and then think, ‘Well, let me sleep on it and see how it looks tomorrow,’ the next day it might be too late.”

V. vulnificus left untreated has a 50 percent fatality rate.

“That’s even with aggressive medical treatment, which usually involves intravenous antibiotics, amputation of infected limbs and things like that,” Froelich said.

That’s what happened to a Wilmington man, who died after cutting his leg during hurricane cleanup and getting floodwater into the wound. He died on September 25 after having his infected leg amputated.

NC Health News could not confirm that V. vulnificus was the cause of his infection, but New Hanover County deputy health director David Howard said the pathogen is a big concern for his department. His agency put out a press release on the 25th warning local residents about the risk of vibrio.

Howard said if people “have to come in contact with floodwater, say cleaning up the house, wear boots or waders, gloves.”

In 2017, 64 people in North Carolina were reported to have acquired vibrio infections, five of them were V. vulnificus, but Froelich believes that number might be higher, and that’s why he saw an opportunity in Florence.

Marine bacterial infections inland

When a patient shows up at a doctor’s office with an angry, infected wound, most of the time, the doctor won’t culture the bacteria that are in the wound but will simply give antibiotics. The good news is that vibrio is very responsive to antibiotics and will easily get killed off.

But Froelich wants to get the doctors near the coast and inland to culture those wounds in the wake of Florence to get a better idea of the prevalence of these infections.

“The storm surge pushed water up the estuary and up the river, bringing with it that salty water,” Froelich said. “When the water is less salty that (vibrio) can proliferate, but they also require some salt. So they can’t survive in fresh water.

“If you go way up into the river, normally all the way up to New Bern, you wouldn’t find these things at all. But with the storm surge, it pushed the salt water that far up and extends the risk way upriver.”

Even as Florence was dumping rain on the coast, he scrambled to assemble kits containing sterile swabs, culture media, instructions, gloves and a consent form. Then he drove around, distributing the kits to providers as far inland as New Bern.

Froelich worried that people are at risk further inland who might think they’re safe from encountering coastal pathogens. He said that the large storm surges extend the places that vibrio can be found and places not normally considered a risk area now are.

“People who are just walking through standing water [there] might have a wound or get a wound and then these bacteria can infect them without them ever having gone into the coastal waters,” he said. “Basically, people who are technically on land can get a marine bacterial infection.”

He said the vibrio can enter a wound as small as an ant or mosquito bite.

“Little cuts you didn’t know you had, ones you can’t even see, that’s all it takes,” he said.

Long lasting

What makes vibrio even more of a horror movie pathogen is its persistence. Froelich explained that if soil containing vibrio dries up, it enters what’s called a “viable but non-culturable state.”

“It essentially just really, really, really slows down its metabolism to almost nothing and then once conditions improve, that is to say, enough water, enough salt and then the temperature is right, they come back out,” he said. “Because they grow so fast, they can double every 20 minutes and can react like that to changing conditions.”

He said in his lab they had an old test tube sitting in the back on the shelf, forgotten for close to 20 years.

“When we got to it, the tube was nothing but dried-up salt crystals. We took that, added water to it, shook it up, got them to grow,” he said.

There is one upside: fully salty ocean water isn’t as welcoming to vibrio, so, as coastal waters flush out the fresh water coming downstream, the risk on beaches diminishes. As of this weekend, most precautions on the ocean side of the state’s barrier islands have been lifted. But people who wade in brackish, part-salty water will have to continue to be on guard.

This story is provided courtesy of North Carolina Health News, a website covering health and environmental news in North Carolina. Coastal Review Online is partnering with North Carolina Health News to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

North Carolina regulators have proposed that Chemours cut all GenX emissions at the Fayetteville Works facility by 97 percent by Friday, a feat the company insists is impossible short of shutting down the plant.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality unveiled that deadline in June as part of a court order it said was under consideration and for which it sought public input. About 100 people responded by email, most of them expressing support for DEQ’s proposals or urging more stringent measures.

DEQ has not said whether it plans to proceed with the order. Questions submitted on Wednesday for this report went unanswered.

The proposed court order centers on the role Chemours’ air emissions play in fluorochemical contamination of groundwater, including about 160 private wells where tests have shown GenX at levels exceeding the state’s 140-parts-per-trillion provisional health goal.

GenX and other fluorochemicals also have been detected in a pocket of water beneath the 2,150-acre Fayetteville Works site, “contributing to contamination of groundwater (including off-site groundwater) and adjacent surface water bodies, including Willis Creek, the Georgia Branch and the Cape Fear River. According to Chemours’ analysis, flow of onsite groundwater directly to the Cape Fear River is the most significant current source of contaminant loading in the river,” the state wrote in the court order.

The company also has charged that the 97 percent reduction is “not based on a claimed public health need.”

Instead, Chemours contends, that’s the emissions reduction believed necessary to prevent additional GenX groundwater contamination greater than 10 ppt.

That 10 ppt level is the smallest concentration that can reliably be measured: the practical quantitation limit, or PQL. Because no groundwater standards exist for GenX, under state law any amount at or above the PQL is a potential violation. Chemours learned that last September when DEQ issued its first notice of violation against the company after GenX and other fluorochemicals turned up in water samples drawn from monitoring wells at Fayetteville Works. Subsequent notices of violation also cited the PQL provision.

Chemours hopes to remedy that situation through an application submitted to DEQ in April to establish an interim groundwater standard for GenX of 70,000 ppt.

Regulators Focus on Air Emissions

DEQ’s efforts to address Chemours’ GenX-related pollution began in June 2017, concentrating on pollutant-laden wastewater discharged to the Cape Fear River. By November, DEQ had suspended Chemours’ discharge privileges, and the company began capturing all of its wastewater and trucking it to Texas for disposal. Discharges have continued from two other companies at the site: DuPont and Kuraray.

In an Aug. 3 conference call to discuss quarterly earnings, Chemours CEO Mark Vergnano told analysts the company expects to spend $35 million this year “related to process water treatment at our Fayetteville facility, in addition to associated remediation and legal costs.”

A few months into their investigation, regulators’ attention had begun to turn to groundwater, first in monitoring wells at the Fayetteville Works and eventually private wells in an expanding radius around it. At least some level of GenX has been found in more than 500 wells.

Chemours initially estimated its GenX emissions totaled about 66.6 pounds per year, but subsequent estimates steadily increased.

“Current data, as reported by Chemours, indicates that Chemours emitted approximately 2,199 pounds of GenX compounds in 2017,” according to the state.

To better understand the extent of contamination from Chemours’ airborne fluorochemicals, DEQ tested rain. For example, among a number of samples gathered between Feb. 28 and March 2, one taken 5 miles northeast of the plant showed GenX at 810 ppt.

On April 6, DEQ’s Division of Air Quality gave Chemours 60 days’ notice that the state intended to modify its air permit. State regulators wrote they “had no knowledge that Chemours was emitting GenX at current rates reported by Chemours” in December 2016 when they issued the company’s air quality permit.

DEQ offered Chemours two options to resolve the situation: Demonstrate that current GenX air emissions do not contribute to groundwater contamination or come up with a plan that persuades the state emissions will be slashed to a level that won’t pollute groundwater.

Will Wells Ever Be PFAS Free?

A few weeks following that notice, Chemours outlined a $100 million pollution-abatement plan. Interim measures include two carbon adsorption units completed in May and upgrades to scrubbers expected in October.

Ultimately, Chemours plans to have a thermal oxidizer, generating tremendous heat to pry apart fluorochemicals’ stubborn chemical bonds. Assuming construction starts Oct. 1 as planned, the thermal oxidizer will start up by the end of 2019. Altogether, the company has said, its efforts will reduce emissions to a comparative trickle, less than 1 percent of 2017 levels.

Already, early signs indicate its efforts may be making a difference.

“We have submitted monthly status reports to the DEQ, which do show we have achieved better emissions reduction results with our carbon adsorption beds than initially anticipated by this point in time,” Chemours spokeswoman Lisa Randall said Wednesday.

Concentrations of GenX measured in rain appear to be diminishing, recently to undetectable levels, a trend regulators mentioned in August during a community meeting on fluorochemicals in Fayetteville organized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Based on what DEQ presented at the EPA listening session, it sounded to me like the current abatement of air emissions with GAC is achieving greater reductions than anticipated and that GenX levels in rain were non-detect after the GAC was installed,” said Detlef Knappe, a professor at North Carolina State University and a leading researcher on fluorochemicals in water. “In a way that’s not surprising, because early on in the GAC service life, PFAS are effectively removed. The question is, for how long?”

GAC, or granular activated carbon, is the filter media in Chemours’ carbon adsorption units. PFAS is an acronym for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, the class of chemicals that includes GenX and the other fluorochemicals in pollution from Chemours.

Even assuming emissions continue to drop, though, it’s unclear how long wells will remain tainted. For those with wells having GenX concentrations exceeding 140 ppt, Chemours is offering to install GAC filters.

In an interview earlier this summer, Fayetteville Works plant manager Brian D. Long said: “I’m not able to really articulate” when contaminated wells will be free of GenX.

“You know, the fluorine molecule is a pretty tough molecule, and it’s a compound that does persist in the environment. Over time, as the water is drawn out of those wells through the GAC unit, it (GenX) is going to be removed. Maybe it’s a function of how much water is pulled through that. I don’t know how long it’s going to stay.”

Chemours Seeks GenX Groundwater Standard

On a related front, Chemours petitioned DEQ in April to establish an interim maximum allowable concentration, or IMAC, for GenX in groundwater. The company suggests an IMAC of 70,000 ppt, using essentially the same reasoning that last week failed to persuade the state’s Science Advisory Board to recommend changing the state’s 140 ppt health advisory for drinking water.

IMACs establish potentially enforceable concentrations in North Carolina groundwater for substances not covered by government rules. DEQ lists 60 IMACs in a file (Microsoft Word document) on its website.

DEQ did not respond to questions regarding the status of Chemours’ petition, and Chemours said it was unaware of any change.

Published in partnership with NC Health News

COASTAL NORTH CAROLINA — North Carolina fishermen work long hours, and many fish alone. When harvesting shrimp, they can stay out on the water four to five days at a time.

Broken bones and lacerations are common. Fishermen are disproportionately affected by skin cancer. Most complain of back pain and others lose limbs, even as many don’t have health insurance.

Some die by drowning.

One hurricane or unexpected cold front can move their crop. The stakes are high.

But they don’t think much about these things and they didn’t see why a health care reporter was interested in talking to them, even as they admitted health care concerns have changed how many approached their fishing careers.

For Glenn Skinner, 45, fishing is freedom. It’s in his blood. He’s a fourth-generation fisherman from Carteret County who has been on fishing boats since he was 4 years old.

“That’s the way most people get into it,” he said. “I have farmers and fishermen on both sides of my family. I was going to do one or the other.

“I chose the water.”

He’s had to take other jobs and fished part time over the years to make ends meet. But he says he would rather be on the water. Now his teenage daughter is even talking about going into his line of work.

“My dad just kind of turned me loose. I couldn’t get into too much trouble. And I loved it,” he said. “That’s what draws me to it now. I can go out there. I’m my own boss and make my own rules and my own hours. Other than following state regulations, I’m pretty much free to make my own decisions and do what I want. Not many jobs can say that.”

Health of N.C. Fishermen

Researchers with the N.C. Agromedicine Institute at East Carolina University collect health data on North Carolina’s farmers, loggers and fishermen. The institute recently released a small pilot study with some initial data, but there have been few studies on the state’s fishermen. The study results have yet to be published online.

The institute was founded about 20 years ago by physicians at the North Carolina Cooperative Extension at N.C. State University, North Carolina A&T State University and East Carolina University.

The study included responses from 39 fishermen and four spouses living in 13 of North Carolina’s 20 coastal counties. The majority said their health status was “good,” but about a quarter reported either “fair” or “poor” health.

A little more than 20 percent reported having skin cancer; more than 30 percent reported hypertension.

Skinner said he had never worn sunscreen in his life.

“Nobody told me growing up that it was necessary. Day in and day out, you burnt and you peeled. We are paying for that now,” he said noting that many fishermen his age are getting skin cancers removed.

About 60 percent of fishermen who responded for the study said they deal with depression and anxiety on a monthly basis. About 75 percent said they deal with cuts and lacerations every month. More than 80 percent reported having headaches monthly.

“People think farmers and loggers are difficult (to reach). Those two are a walk in the park compared to fishermen, because they are not available,” said Robin Tutor-Marcom, director of the institute. “When they are in port, they are unloading catch, and stocking up to go back out.”

Skinner, who is also the executive director of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, said he remembers folks from the Agromedicine Institute reaching out. He added that they likely had a hard time tracking down a lot of fishermen because they are “fiercely independent” and “don’t get involved with anything except for fishing.”

Injury Risk

When asked about injuries, another lifetime fisherman, Bradley Styron of Cedar Island pointed to the remaining half of his thumb and talked about another time a boat trailer crushed his foot.

But Styron said he’s one of the luckier ones.

He spoke of a time when he was on the water and a man got caught up in the gear and was cut in half. He saw another man lose a leg. And his son-in-law drowned while fishing.

“You kind of have an obligation to yourself to protect yourself as much as possible because that’s how you make a living,” he said. “You don’t have sick days or disability.”

“You kind of have an obligation to yourself to protect yourself as much as possible because that’s how you make a living.”

Bradley Styron, Commercial fisherman

More than 90 percent of survey respondents reported back pain on a monthly basis, while 30 percent said they have back pain daily. And almost all said they experience stress on a monthly basis.

Almost half of those who responded said they fish alone. About 70 percent reported having no health insurance. And 85 percent fish more than 40 hours a week. About 95 percent don’t wear a personal floatation device.

The Agromedicine study concluded that isolation, regulatory pressures, personal behaviors and lack of health insurance increase fishermen’s risk for adverse health outcomes. Tutor-Marcom said that while the study is small, she believes it “speaks volumes” and is working to expand it.

There are already a limited number of medical providers in the coastal communities, which are mostly rural. And many times, fishermen only come off their boats from Friday to Sunday when there are few medical services available, said Tutor-Marcom.

“How do we get health care into the fishing villages? There needs to be services available when the fishermen are in port,” she said. “Their emphasis is on meeting the catch limit. And there is a narrow window to meet that. So it means they are often fishing in bad weather, at night, or going for extended periods of time without sleep.”

Leaving the Industry

The number of licensed commercial fishermen has steadily declined in North Carolina.

In 2017, there were 4,968 licensed fishermen, according to the N.C Department of Environmental Quality. That’s down from 6,990 in 2000.

Skinner said the decline can be attributed to increased regulations, higher fuel prices and a lack of health insurance and other benefits.

“It got to the point where it wasn’t cost efficient to go out at one time,” Skinner said. “Fuel was about $4 a gallon. And the price of shrimp and fish didn’t go up at the same time.”

He said while regulations are their biggest concern right now, some people left the industry for stability and certainty.

“I think access to health care in our industry, and probably any industry made up of small business owners like ours, just having access to affordable health care is a problem,” he said. “If you have employees, you can’t afford to provide health care.”

And more and more commercial fishermen are finding jobs with benefits that allow them to fish part time.

“They can get a job in the prison system or ferry system, gain access to health care, and a lot of those jobs are two weeks on, two weeks off. So during their two weeks off, they go back to fish,” Skinner said.

“So health care, although it isn’t one of our top issues that we discuss, it probably has affected this industry in ways most of us don’t realize,” he said. “It’s forced a lot of full-time commercial fishermen into that part-time status or out of the industry.”

Isolation and Stress

Dealing with stress is part of the job for commercial fishermen.

“If we don’t work that day, we don’t get paid,” Skinner said. “If we do work that day and we don’t catch, we don’t get paid.”

When asked about feelings of stress, isolation or depression, Skinner’s response was that most “just deal with it.”

“Today was a bust, tomorrow it’s going to be better. You have to remain positive,” he said.

Styron echoed that. His parents fished, and he grew up fishing.

“When you live where we live, there aren’t a lot of opportunities. You have to deal with what nature gives you,” Styron said. “Where I live now is 30 miles from the first stoplight. That pretty much tells you that we don’t have a lot of infrastructure.

“This is just something we do. I’m not saying that there are not challenging times, there is,” he said. “But there are also challenging times selling cars.”

Skinner said he has seen a rise in alcohol and drug abuse in recent years. He also noted that opioid abuse is on the rise in most rural communities and may not be specific to commercial fishing.

“I think that’s how people deal with stress,” he said. “They take themselves out of the world for a minute. They get high, get drunk and for a little while, it’s not there anymore.”

This is how some cope with the job’s uncertainty.

“You get on that tipping point where you’ve invested everything and one weather event destroys all that and you’re threatened with losing everything you’ve got. Some people can’t handle that. That’s prevalent in our industry, the same as farming.”

This story is provided courtesy of N.C. Health News, a nonprofit news service covering health and environmental issues in North Carolina.