The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission has scheduled a series of public hearings in select cities beginning next month on proposed PFAS and 1,4-dioxane monitoring and minimization rules.

In all, six hearings have been set, three of which will focus on proposed rules for discharges of three per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances through wastewater 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.

A public comment period for each set of proposed rules will kick off on March 16 and continue until June 15.

Under the proposed PFAS rules, all major and minor industrial direct dischargers, and significant industrial users that discharge to publicly owned treatment works, would be required to monitor and implement “minimization activities required to eliminate or significantly reduce” discharges of PFOS, PFOA, and GenX within a period of anywhere between three and five years.

Discharge limits for those specific PFAS have yet to be determined.

PFAS exposure has been linked to a number of adverse health impacts to people, including thyroid disease, increased cholesterol, liver damage, and different types of cancers.

More than 3 million North Carolinians are estimated to drink tap water containing PFAS levels above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency health-based standard scheduled to go into effect in the coming years, according to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality.

Public hearings on the proposed rules for the three PFAS are scheduled as follows:

• April 7 at 6 p.m. in Ferguson Auditorium, AB-Tech Community College, 19 Tech Drive, Asheville.
• April 20 at 6 p.m. in the Archdale Building, ground floor hearing room, 512 N. Salisbury St., Raleigh. Public parking will be available after 5 p.m. at parking deck 64 across North Salisbury Street from the Archdale Building.
• April 23 at 6 p.m. in Wilmington City Hall at Skyline Center, first floor conference center, 929 North Front St., Wilmington. Parking is available in the south lot using the Brunswick Street entrance. Attendees requiring American with Disabilities Act access should park in the visitor lot.

Written comments 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.

Comments will be accepted on the proposed rule adoptions and associated regulatory impact analysis. The commission is also accepting comments on specific questions including:

• Whether it would be scientifically defensible and advisable to establish a screening threshold above the lowest reporting concentration for PFOS, PFOA and GenX that could serve as a trigger for ongoing monitoring and minimization requirements.
• Whether the applicability of the PFAS monitoring and minimization rule should be limited to industrial dischargers associated with a standard industry classification (SIC) or North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes known to be linked to PFAS use or discharge.

Hearings on proposed rules for monitoring and minimizing 1,4-dioxane, a federally deemed likely human carcinogen, in wastewater discharges into surface waters from certain facilities have been scheduled for the following dates:

• April 9 at 6 p.m. in the Catawba County St. Stephens Branch Library, 3225 Springs Road, Hickory.
• April 14 at 6 p.m. at Fayetteville Technology Community College, Tony Rand Student Center multipurpose room, 2220 Hull Road, Fayetteville.
• May 12 at 6 p.m. in the Percy H. Sears Applied Technologies Building Auditorium, Guilford Technical Community College, 1201 Bonner Drive, Jamestown.

Written comments on the proposed rules for 1,4-dixoane may be submitted via 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, N.C., 27699-1611.

The EMC will also be accepting specific comments on the proposed 1,4-dixoane minimization rules to include:

• Whether a screening threshold above the lowest reported concentration (currently 1 microgram per liter) for 1,4-dioxane would be appropriate as a trigger for ongoing monitoring and minimization planning.
• whether the applicability of the 1,4-dioxane monitoring and minimization rules should be expanded beyond the currently proposed scope of dischargers with certain standard industry classification or North American Industry Classification System codes to include all industrial dischargers.

Sign-in and speaker registration will begin at 5 p.m. at each of the hearings.

Based on attendance, speaking time may be limited to allow everyone an opportunity to be heard. The commission will accept written comments and copies of prepared remarks at each hearing.

A North Carolina court has ruled that the state’s lead environmental agency has the authority to set 1,4-dioxane discharge limits for public wastewater utilities.

The ruling reverses a 2024 administrative law judge’s determination that the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality did not follow the proper process when it established discharge limits for a handful of municipal wastewater treatment plants in the piedmont.

DEQ followed state Environmental Management Commission and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “protocols in creating the 1,4-dioxane limits and created the criteria for the purpose of protecting the health and wellbeing of North Carolinians,” Wake County Superior Court Judge A. Graham Shirley wrote in his Feb. 5 decision. “Compliance with regulations and a desire to maintain or improve public health cannot be said to be a ‘patently in bad faith’ decision.”

Shirley wrote that the agency “did not err” in considering 1,4-dioxane, a substance used primarily as a solvent in chemical manufacturing, as a carcinogen.

“Because 1,4-dioxane is a pollutant likely to cause cancer in humans, permit limits are necessary to protect North Carolinians’ drinking water and their health,” DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson stated in a release the agency published Thursday. “The court vindicates DEQ’s decision to impose limits to protect downstream communities from this harmful carcinogen.”

Discharges of the chemical substance into North Carolinians’ drinking water sources has gained attention in recent years, with downstream public water suppliers and communities calling for tighter regulations and that pollution be controlled at the source.

DEQ’s Division of Water Resources attempted to do that when, in August 2023, it issued Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit that capped its releases of 1,4-dixoane.

Asheboro sued, challenging the state’s authority to include a water quality standard for 1,4-dioxane in the permit and arguing the new limits created an excessive financial burden.

The cities of Greensboro and Reidsville joined the lawsuit. Both had been ordered to include limits in their draft NPDES permits after they received notices of violation for 1,4-dioxane discharges in November 2019.

Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant discharges into Cape Fear River basin, where some 900,000 North Carolinians receive their drinking water downstream of the plant.

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 a September 2024 ruling, then-Chief Administrative Law Judge Dr. Donald van der Vaart sided with the upstream municipalities and revoked the permit limits set by DEQ.

“The Superior Court was right to uphold DEQ’s ability to limit chemicals in our water, and my office will continue working with DEQ to make sure people have clean drinking water,” North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson stated in a release.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Kenneth Waldroup said in a statement to Coastal Review Thursday afternoon that the utility is pleased with Shirley’s decision.

“CFPUA’s raw water intake is the last on the Cape Fear River. We rely on State regulators to set and enforce reasonable discharge standards upstream of our intake to protect our region’s raw water supply,” he explained. “While CFPUA’s Sweeney Water Treatment Plant is able to treat drinking water for 1,4-dioxane, that treatment process carries an expense and our ability to treat this pollution has its limits. Reducing the amounts of 1,4-dioxane and other emerging contaminants being released upstream also reduces the financial burden on downstream customers and communities.”

Last October, Waldroup joined representatives of other public water utilities and residents in asking the EPA to uphold its earlier objection to the proposed NPDES permit excluding Asheboro’s discharge limit for 1,4-dioxane.

As of this report, the EPA had not made its final determination.

Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, said in an email that the Superior Court ruling, “is a win for public health and every downstream community threatened by Asheboro’s irresponsible leadership.”

“It’s a shame cities like Asheboro prefer squandering tax dollars defending industrial polluters rather than protecting the public’s drinking water supplies,” she said. “It’s also a devastating reminder that until North Carolina creates strong source control measures for toxic chemicals, we will always be one discharge away from the next preventable crisis.”

Earlier this year, the state Environmental Management Commission voted to push proposed monitoring and minimization rules for 1,4-dioxane and three per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, to the public this month.

Critics of the proposed rules argue they lack any real enforceability because they do not include water quality standards, specify what best management practices dischargers must follow, or how facilities must minimize their discharges.

The public comment period had yet to be announced as of this report.

In June of last year, 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.

“Asheboro, Greensboro, and Reidsville have spent years arguing for downstream communities to shoulder the health and monetary costs of the cities’ pollution,” Jean Zhuang, a senior attorney with the center’s Chapel Hill office, stated in a release. “The Wake County Superior Court saw through the cities’ arguments and restored a key tool that can be used to protect families, communities, and drinking water utilities downstream.”

According to that release, the cities have filed a motion to suspend the court’s decision and an appeal is pending.

Proposed rules that would require industrial polluters to monitor and minimize their discharges of some chemical compounds into drinking water sources may soon go out for public comment.

The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission is scheduled to vote this week on whether to approve proceeding to public notice and hearing proposed monitoring and minimization rules for direct dischargers of three types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances into the state’s surface waters.

Under the proposed rule, all major and minor industrial direct dischargers, and significant industrial users that discharge to publicly owned treatment works, would be required to monitor and implement “minimization activities required to eliminate or significantly reduce” discharges of PFOS, PFOA, and GenX anywhere between three and five years, according to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality.

Discharge limits for those specific PFAS have yet to be determined.

PFAS exposure has been linked to a number of adverse health impacts to people, including thyroid disease, increased cholesterol, liver damage, and different types of cancers.

The commission will also consider whether to proceed to public notice and hearing proposed 1,4-dioxane monitoring and minimization rules, which would target industries likely to discharge the organic synthetic chemical the Environmental Protection Agency classifies as a likely human carcinogen.

Critics of the proposed rules argue the rules lack any real enforcement because they do not include discharge limits or penalties for industries that increase their discharges.

Various committees of the commission are scheduled to meet beginning at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the ground floor hearing room of the Archdale Building, 512 N. Salisbury St., Raleigh. Those meetings will also be livestreamed on WebEx.

The full commission is scheduled to meet at the same location 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. Thursday. The meeting will also be livestreamed.

The state Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Raleigh.

Per a draft meeting agenda, the board, which advises secretaries of state regulatory agencies, will review and consider providing a formal response to the human health risk assessment for 1,4-Dioxane in Drinking Water Legislative Report released in May 2024.

The draft agenda also includes informational items for the board, including a presentation by state Division of Waste Management staff on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances data submitted by landfill facilities across the state and on the utilization of the Bernard Allen Drinking Water Fund for PFAS compounds.

The meeting will be held in the ground floor hearing room of the Archdale Building, 512 N. Salisbury St. in Raleigh.

The public may attend the meeting in person, virtually (webinar number: 2434 343 5955), or by telephone at 1-415-655-0003 US Toll, access code 243 626 85243.

An in-person public comment period will be held at the meeting. Anyone who wishes to speak may sign up upon arriving at the meeting.

The Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board includes experts in toxicology, public health, ecology, engineering, and other related fields. It’s members assist the state departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services by recommending reviews and evaluations of contaminants, acting as consultants on DEQ’s determinations to regulate contaminants, and helping the agencies identify contaminants of concern and determine which contaminants should be studied further.

Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant has once again discharged elevated levels of 1,4-dioxane into a creek that drains into a river within the Cape Fear River Basin, according to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

The plant detected a concentration of 651 parts per billion, or ppb, of the chemical compound, one the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has categorized as a likely human carcinogen, in a sample it collected Nov. 7 from Hasketts Creek, according to a DEQ release.

Hasketts Creek drains into the Deep River, which converges with the Haw River to form the Cape Fear River.

Using the EPA’s toxicity calculations for lifetime exposure, DEQ “has determined that the average monthly concentration of 1,4-dixoane in the Asheboro discharge safe for downstream water supplies is 22 ppb or less,” the release states.

The department’s Division of Water Resources took additional sampling and is waiting to confirm results. Division officials have notified downstream drinking water utilities, which provide drinking water to some 900,000 North Carolinians.

Earlier this year, downstream water utilities were notified that sampling results by the state and Asheboro revealed 1,4-dixoane levels were more than 10 times higher than the average established as safe for downstream water supplies.

DEQ’s announcement Friday comes a little more than three weeks after the EPA hosted a public hearing in Asheboro regarding the agency’s objection to the city’s proposed permit that excludes an effluent discharge limit for 1,4-dioxane.

All but one person who spoke at that hearing urged the EPA to uphold its objection to the proposed National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit issued by the division.

DEQ issued an NPDES permit to the plant in August 2023 that included effluent discharge limits for 1,4-dioxane.

The city sued and, in September 2024, the North Carolina Office of Administrative Hearings struck the limits from the permit.

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

“Monitoring is ongoing at wastewater treatment plants in the Cape Fear River Basin to track 1,4-dixoane,” according to the release. “Significant reductions have occurred at some wastewater treatment plants through a collaborative effort with the Environmental Management commission (EMC), DEQ and municipal operators. DEQ will continue to work with the EMC to seek additional ways to achieve reductions in 1,4-dioxane discharges.”

On Thursday, the EMC voted to push to a later date hearing proposed monitoring and minimization rules for 1,4-dixoane and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from industrial users and dischargers.

The commission is not scheduled to meet again this year.

Sampling data is posted on the division’s website.

The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission’s Water Quality Committee may take action next week on proposed monitoring and minimization rules for three PFAS and 1,4-dioxane.

The proposed rules targeting the three per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, called PFOA, PFOS and GenX are on the committee’s Nov. 12 meeting agenda. The committee is also expected to take action on proposed rules for 1,4-dioxane.

The proposed rules are not on the agenda of the full commission, which is scheduled to meet on the following day. Commissioners will select a chair and vice-chair during the meeting.

The proposed rules would require industries that directly discharge compounds into surface water and all significant industrial users that discharge to publicly owned treatment works to monitor their releases of PFOA, PFOS, GenX, and 1,4-dioxane.

Meetings will be held in the ground floor hearing room of the Archdale Building, 512 N. Salisbury St., Raleigh.

The public may attend in-person, by computer, or by telephone.

The Nov. 12 committee meetings will begin at 9 a.m. and may be joined online at https://ncgov.webex.com/ncgov/j.php?MTID=m226fb96f0777719d55b063d1c572423b using meeting number/access code 2439 988 8950.

To join the full commission meeting at 9 a.m. Nov. 13 visit https://ncgov.webex.com/ncgov/j.php?MTID=m3a68c6333a6a2633b6526360bfae676b. Use meeting number/access code 2435 258 8225.

The password for both days is NCDEQ (62337 when dialing from a phone or video system.

To join by phone, dial +1-415-655-0003 US Toll.

Agendas and supporting documents are available on the commission’s website.

Brunswick County has rescinded its lawsuit against the contractor it hired to expand and upgrade the county’s Northwest Water Treatment Plant with a system capable of removing forever chemicals from drinking water.

The county announced Thursday that it had withdrawn its lawsuit on Aug. 25 against Oscar Renda Construction and surety Zurich American Insurance Co. and Federal Insurance Co., noting in a release “the County reserves the right to refile a lawsuit in the future.”

The release did not include an explanation behind the county’s decision, one made a month after the county terminated its contract with the Oscar Renda and filed the suit citing breach of contract and repeated construction delays.

“The surety will be on-site over the coming weeks to identify the remaining project tasks as part of the new schedule development,” according to the release. “The surety has also hired a management group to provide additional oversight of the project.”

An update to the project schedule is expected to be provided to the county “in the next few weeks, which will be shared with the community as soon as possible.”

The original $167.3 million cost of the project is not expected to change, and there are no plans to increase water rates because of the project delays, according to the county.

The plant is being installed with a low-pressure reverse osmosis, or RO, system capable of removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and 1,4-dioxane, all of which are chemicals that are being discharged by upstream industrial polluters into the Cape Fear River, a major drinking water source in the region.

Work also includes expanding the amount of water the plant can treat by an additional 12 million gallons per day. When the project is finished, the plant will have the capacity to treat more than 36 million gallons of water per day using RO.

County officials note that the county reserves the right to deduct liquidated damages because of the contractor’s delays.

“The delays do not mean that all work has stopped at the project site, but rather that key project milestones have not been met and that the overall project completion date has continued to move into the future,” the release states. “Brunswick County will continue to take all actions necessary to protect the best interests of our residents who have waited far too long for a solution to removing PFAS from our drinking water.”

Brunswick County has filed a lawsuit against the contractor the county hired to upgrade and expand its Northwest Water Treatment Plant.

The county on July 25 terminated its contract with Oscar Renda Contracting and filed suit, citing breach of contract and repeated delays on the expansion, which is to include a reverse osmosis, or RO, system capable of removing PFAS and 1,4-dioxane.

The Brunswick County Board of Commissioners on July 21 amended a contract with CDM Smith Inc. for about $1 million to continue overseeing the site while county officials search for a new contractor, Port City Daily reported.

The lawsuit follows an announcement the county made in mid-June informing residents that the initial anticipated completion of the more than $122 million project was being pushed because the contractor had repeatedly failed to meet its performance milestones.

The RO system is designed to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and 1,4-dioxane from the plant’s water source, the Cape Fear River. Such manmade, chemical compound pollutants have for years been discharged into the river by upstream industries and municipal wastewater treatment plants.

The project also includes doubling the water treatment plant’s capacity from 24 million gallons per day to 48 million gallons per day.

Brunswick County is seeking damages that include covering costs associated with hiring a new contractor and remediating insufficient work on site, legal fees associated with the lawsuit, and liquidates damages to the tune of $5,500 a day going back to June 30, according to Port City Daily.

County spokesperson Amber Merklinger told the newspaper in a statement that the county was “actively exploring the best legal methods to find a new construction contractor to continue the project as quickly and realistically as possible.”

“Brunswick County is committed to making sure the expansion and reverse osmosis project at the Northwest Water Treatment Plant is completed exactly as planned and designed,” Merklinger stated. “This action was necessary to protect the best interests of our residents who have waited far too long for a solution to removing PFAS from our drinking water.”

The long-awaited reverse osmosis system designed to remove PFAS from Brunswick County Public Utilities’ drinking water supply will not be operational in the time frame originally announced.

County officials announced that, because the project contractor has repeatedly failed to meet its performance milestones, expanded capacity and the reverse osmosis, or RO, treatment system at the Northwest Water Treatment Plant will not be up and running by the start of summer, which officially begins Friday.

“We recognize that this is not the news that people wanted to hear, but it is an important and very much needed step to getting this project over the finish line,” Brunswick County Manager Steve Stone said in a news release. “This is the largest project in Brunswick County’s history, and we have to make sure it is done right. Our community has waited too long already to get a solution to removing PFAS from our water supply, and we felt this was the best step to getting our RO treatment system online as soon as possible.”

The upgraded treatment system will remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, including GenX, and 1,4-dioxane from the plant’s water source, the Cape Fear River.

The plant’s capacity is being doubled from 24 million gallons per day to 48 million gallons per day.

Work is continuing at the project site, but the completion date of that work “has continued to move into the future,” according to the release.

The county has directed the contractor and the surety to “ensure prompt completion of the work” and requested that the surety “take over the work and complete the performance” of the contract.

“Through this process, County staff, professional consultants and surety representatives will evaluate the remaining tasks in the project, develop a new completion schedule, and identify contractors as needed to finish the final tasks to ensure completion of the overall project as timely and effectively as possible,” according to the release.

The county does not have an estimated date of when it will receive a new project schedule, but anticipated receiving one “during the summer.” That schedule will be published as soon as it is available and the county will provide an update on the estimated completion of the remaining project milestones.

The delay is not expected to impact the original project cost of $167.3 million. The county plans to deduct an estimated $3.5 million in liquidated damages from that cost because of the delays. That amount may change “based on present or future factors,” according to the release.

The county does not plan to increase customer rates because of the delays.

Reprinted from our longtime collaborator, North Carolina Health News, to complement our ongoing series on federal budget and staff cuts and the dismantling of programs and services affecting life and lives here on the North Carolina coast.

People who have been struggling to clean up decades of industrial pollution in the lower Cape Fear River basin are expressing their dismay and anger at a federal delay announced Wednesday on a crackdown on so-called forever chemicals that have fouled their drinking water.  

That day, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to extend the timeline for water utilities to reduce the maximum safe levels for human consumption for a select group of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS.

In 2024, under the Biden Administration, the EPA finalized the first-ever enforceable standards for six PFAS compounds: PFOA, PFOS, HFPO-DA (GenX), PFBS, PFNA and PFHxS. At that time, water utilities had until 2029 to comply with the new standards. 

A year later, the Trump Administration’s newly appointed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency would uphold standards set for PFOA and PFOS — legacy PFAS that persist in the environment despite no longer being manufactured. But Zeldin also announced he would rescind and re-evaluate rules for the other four, including GenX. 

GenX is the common name for the substance produced at the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant; it was discharged into the river’s water for decades until researchers revealed their presence in 2017. 

Additionally, the new federal timeline gives utilities until 2031 to comply with the standards, extending the original 2029 deadline.

“We are on a path to uphold the agency’s nationwide standards to protect Americans from PFOA and PFOS in their water,” Zeldin said in a news release. “At the same time, we will work to provide common-sense flexibility in the form of additional time for compliance.”

While Zeldin’s statement appeared aimed at reassuring the public that the EPA is taking control of the situation, to critics, it sounded like a betrayal — signaling, in their view, a retreat from more robust protections from substances that have become known as “forever chemicals” because of their persistence in the environment.

‘Not forward-thinking’

“Overall, PFOA and PFOS are chemicals of the past, though they are still present in drinking water sources. So removing them will get a lot of others,” said N.C. State University epidemiologist Jane Hoppin in an email. “But the other four are chemicals of the future, particularly GenX, so removing these rules would not be forward-looking.”

In 2017, Hoppin headed a team of researchers and launched the GenX Exposure Study, which revealed that most of the people from the Cape Fear River Basin who participated in the research have PFAS in their blood.

There are thousands of unique PFAS in the environment, according to experts. They’re present in multiple products to help make them slippery and resistant to oils, water and solvents, including some cosmetics and apparel, microwave popcorn wrappers, dental floss, firefighting gear and some firefighting foams.

PFAS exposure is associated with a range of adverse health effects, such as increased cholesterol levels, kidney and testicular cancer, pre-eclampsia in pregnant women and decreased vaccine response in children, among other conditions.

“The EPA is caving to chemical industry lobbyists and pressure by the water utilities, and in doing so, it’s sentencing millions of Americans to drink contaminated water for years to come,” said Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook in a statement.

Cook’s organization has worked throughout the country to document environmental problems.

“The cost of PFAS pollution will fall on ordinary people, who will pay in the form of polluted water and more sickness, more suffering and more deaths from PFAS-related diseases,” he said. 

Kelly Moser, senior attorney and leader of the Water Program at the Southern Environmental Law Center, echoed this sentiment. “When this administration talks about deregulation, this is what they mean — allowing toxic chemicals in drinking water at the request of polluters,” she said in a release.

Living with PFAS

It has been a tumultuous eight years for thousands of North Carolinians living in the Cape Fear River Basin since the presence of  the forever chemicals was first announced in 2017. Among those affected are residents whose drinking water wells are contaminated, likely because of PFAS that were incinerated at the Fayetteville Works plant and drifted far and wide in emissions from the factory. 

Despite a 2019 consent order — established among Chemours, Cape Fear River Watch and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality — aimed at assisting residents with PFAS-contaminated wells, living with PFAS is a daunting challenge.

Jamie White, administrator of the Facebook group “Grays Creek Residents United Against PFAS in our Wells and Rivers,” which works to raise awareness about PFAS contamination, expressed the group’s frustration after the EPA’s latest announcement.

“Well, it shocked us all, first off — and when I say all I speak for the group,” White said during a call with NC Health News. “Number one, we have worked for eight years to get the limits lowered, to bring awareness to everybody, because our wells are contaminated.”

“(The EPA) extended the public water facilities another two years (before) having to have the chemicals cleaned out of their water systems — another two years of contaminating the public,” she said.

Jane Jacobs (EagleHeart), a tribal leader of the Tuscarora Nation, an Indigenous community with many members in the Cape Fear River Basin, criticized the lack of action to protect vulnerable communities.

“My children, my grandchildren, need to be protected from all of the poison, not some of the poison,” Jacobs said. “If somebody was pointing a gun at my kid right now, am I going to protect him from one bullet or all of the bullets?”

Jacobs also highlighted the disproportionate impact on her community. 

“Being a bipoc community, we face a lot more environmental hardships than most people do,” she stated. “We have to drink the tap water. We don’t have money for filters, so for the people in my community, this affects us 10 times worse because we don’t have the money to protect ourselves.”

Looking ahead

While many expressed disappointment over the EPA’s decision, the environmental community remains hopeful that more stringent rules could eventually prevail at the state level — though it may take time. 

One significant obstacle is the Environmental Management Commission, which is responsible for developing regulations to safeguard, preserve and improve the state’s air and water resources. Since 2022, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has been working with the commission to establish regulations for PFAS and 1,4 dioxane — a cancer-causing pollutant that’s also been found to be widely discharged by industrial companies and ultimately flow into the Cape Fear River.

However, a series of delays have stalled progress, preventing the process from advancing to the public comment period — the next step toward establishing maximum contaminant levels for PFAS at the state level.

The most recent Environmental Management Commission meeting, on May 7, ended in another delay after the Office of State Budget and Management raised concerns about the proposal’s fiscal analysis.

Possible remedies

Despite the setbacks, several people at the meeting expressed relief, including Haw Riverkeeper Emily Sutton.

“There’s not actually any checks or enforcement to make sure that the plans that are drafted are effective, and so this (plan) doesn’t do anything for our downstream community members,” Sutton said. 

She also criticized the fiscal analysis requested by the Office of State Budget and Management.

“The fiscal analysis that they’ve asked for also is flawed. It doesn’t include information about the financial impacts for downstream communities who are bearing the burden of this pollution. (The fiscal analysis) is looking at how much this is going to cost polluting industries. That’s not our concern. Our concern is the health of our community members.”

Southern Environmental Law Center’s Moser agrees that the commission’s proposal falls short of the outcome environmental groups demand. 

“The EMC is siding with polluters and considering adopting rules that were written by polluters,” Moser said. “That could allow industrial facilities to release PFAs indefinitely into North Carolina’s drinking water sources and even increase the toxic water pollution that they are putting into our waterways.”

Sutton and Moser and their colleagues are closely monitoring Senate Bill S666 — the Water Safety Act — proposed by North Carolina Senate Majority Leader Michael Lee, R-New Hanover. If passed, the bill would deliver the state-level regulatory action environmentalists are pushing for.

“ (The proposed bill) directs the EMC to set regulatory limits on PFAs, and that is what our hope is,” Sutton said. “We don’t trust that this commission will hold polluters accountable, and unfortunately, the Department of Environmental Quality has to abide by what they are directed by the EMC.”

Moser pointed out that a potential remedy exists to address the water pollution problem: “It’s more important than ever that states like North Carolina, EPA and wastewater treatment plants use their current authority under the Clean Water Act to require that industry stops their pollution at the source before discharging it into our waterways.” 

The Environmental Management Commission is scheduled to meet again in July, while the EPA is expected to update federal PFAS standards by late 2025, with finalization anticipated by spring 2026. Amid these ongoing challenges, Jacobs offered a rallying cry to fellow environmentalists: “We just need to keep pushing. We need to keep fighting.”

Part of a series about the effects federal budget and staff cuts and the cancellations of programs and services are having in coastal North Carolina.

This story has been updated to include comments from EMC Chair JD Solomon

Federal and state efforts to limit the public’s exposure to “forever chemicals” through drinking water sources seemed to be gaining traction just a year ago.

In a historic move in April 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency set limits on six per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, including PFOA, PFOS and HFPO-DA, most commonly referred to as GenX.

About three months after the federal drinking water rules were adopted, North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources introduced proposed groundwater and surface water standards on eight PFAS.

Related: Zeldin says PFAS limits may get tougher, downplays layoffs

But, as of this week, the Trump administration says it intends to rescind and reexamine rules on four PFAS, including GenX, and extend the deadline for public water utilities to comply with rules on PFOA and PFOS by two years.

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 man-made chemical compounds are often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they 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.

The EPA’s announcement Wednesday of its plans to scale back PFAS limits comes on the heels of a recent decision by members of the state-appointed commission responsible for adopting rules that protect, preserve and enhance air and water resources to again defer moving forward monitoring and minimization discharge plans for PFAS and 1,4-dioxane into the state’s surface waters.

Critics of those proposed plans argue the rules, as written, lack any real subsistence in reducing the releases of chemical compounds into the state’s waterways.

And in a new year with a new administration at the helm of the federal government, the impetus for regulation may turn up the pressure on state governments to limit discharges of “forever chemicals” into drinking water sources.

State Division of Water Resources officials were heading in that direction in July 2024 when they presented water quality standards for eight PFAS to committees of the N.C. Environmental Management Commission.

The standards would be used to limit permitted releases of PFAS into groundwater and surface waters, set health thresholds for providing alternative water supplies to residents on private wells whose drinking water exceeds contamination limits, and establish goals for cleaning contamination.

The commission’s groundwater and waste management committee agreed to recommend groundwater health standards for only three PFAS, including PFOA, PFOS and GenX. That proposal went to public comment later in the year.

The commission’s water quality committee deferred a motion to send the surface water rule package on all eight PFAS to the full commission and, since its July 2024 meeting, has also pared down its focus on PFAS to PFOA, PFOS and GenX.

Based on that committee’s vote earlier this month, the commission isn’t expected to see a proposed draft rule on PFAS or 1,4-dioxane earlier than its July meeting.

In an emailing responding to questions from Coastal Review on Thursday morning, EMC Chair JD Solomon said the commission anticipates receiving the hearing officer’s report on the proposed groundwater rules at that same meeting.

Draft rule ‘doesn’t have sufficient teeth’

The current proposed rules for surface water bear little semblance to those the Division of Water Resources presented last July.

The set of rule drafts presented to the water quality committee in March were largely written from input provided by the North Carolina Water Quality Association, a statewide organization that represents public water, sewer, and stormwater utilities.

The water quality standards included in the initial draft rules the division created last year have since been deleted. Without those standards, the state lacks ability to enforce limits on dischargers of PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, critics say.

One of those critics of the current proposed draft rules is Environmental Management Commissioner Robin Smith.

“I think that consistently there has been a concern that, in the absence of a water quality standard, even a minimization plan isn’t enforceable,” Smith told Coastal Review in a telephone interview earlier this week.

Following last week’s commission meeting, Smith raised several concerns in an email that she sent to fellow commissioners.

“My concern is that (the current draft rule) doesn’t have sufficient teeth,” she said. “If you read through the full draft, there’s just nothing there other than the minimization contents, like a table of contents for what the minimization plan would have to be. There are no standards for determining whether what a system submits in their plan is adequate or not.”

In his email, Solomon explained that the regulatory impact analysis, or RIA, which is an evaluation of the potential costs and benefits associated with a proposed regulation, did not sufficiently identify cost-benefits associated with the proposed rules.

Last September, the water quality committee voted to move forward with a proposed monitoring and minimization plan and “continue discussions with federal agencies to make sure the benefits portion of the numeric standard were realistic,” Solomon said.

“The monitoring and minimization approach is seen as a proactive measure by EPA because it addresses potential contamination before it gets into our human and natural systems communities,” he wrote. “Allowing potential contamination into our public water bodies and public sewer systems is also much more costly to clean up.”

But the proposed monitoring and minimization plan would fail to enforce consequences for industries if they increase their pollution, said Southern Environmental Law Center Attorney Hannah Nelson.

“DEQ worked really hard to put together a comprehensive set of water quality standards that would have required polluters to reduce their pollution at the source and they spent a lot of time putting those rules together,” she said. “We don’t see that same thing happening with this set of rules. Instead, the analysis supporting this rule making completely ignored impact to downstream drinking water utilities. They don’t address that because, if they did, we would see that this rule is all about protecting industry and it’s not about protecting the people of North Carolina.”

In an April 17 letter to state environmental officials, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority’s executive director admonished the revised draft rule for 1,4-dioxane.

“After months of research, our consultants determined, as a matter of law, that there is no legal basis by which to create mandatory, legally enforceable 1,4-dioxane minimization requirements without supporting water quality standards for surface waters,” wrote the utility’s Kenneth Waldroup in the letter addressed to Solomon and Division of Water Resources Director Richard Rogers.

“Given that the EMC determined many years ago that 1,4-dixoane adversely impacts the protected use of groundwater, we respectfully point out that the EMC neglects its statutory duty to protect surface waters from the same pollutant. Pollution mitigation plans that have no required or enforceable reduction targets will not garner any tangible results but instead be no more than an action in name only providing empty promises to the people of North Carolina,” the letter states.

There are six known 1,4-dioxane polluters upstream of the drinking water supply for Sanford, Fayetteville, Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties, and municipalities that buy drinking water from Sanford.

Waldroup has said that the utility will have to invest millions of dollars to remove 1,4-dioxane, a likely carcinogen, from its raw drinking water source: the Cape Fear River.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority has already spent millions in upgrades and ongoing treatment of PFAS discharged into the Cape Fear River from, among other upstream polluters, Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant.

GenX is specific to the Bladen County facility, which is roughly 74 miles upstream of Wilmington.

Since news broke nearly eight years ago that Chemours had knowingly discharged PFAS directly into the river, air and groundwater for decades, the company has spent millions to reduce its PFAS emissions to comply with a 2019 consent order between the company, DEQ and Cape Fear River Watch.

The Cape Fear utility and other public water utilities in the region are calling for regulations that would ultimately shift the cost of reducing PFAS and 1,4-dioxane discharges to the industries that produce those chemical compounds.

“We seek meaningful regulation that acknowledges and rewards the reductions made to date, prevents backsliding, and requires uncooperative industrial dischargers to mirror the work of dutiful municipal partners,” Waldroup wrote.

The Clean Water Act includes “anti-backsliding” provisions advocates say prohibits repealing or weakening the drinking water standard.

“Unfairly” blamed

Water quality committee members pointed the finger at Division of Water Resources staff as the reason for the latest delay in getting proposed rules out for public comment.

Smith, who is not a member of the water quality committee, took issue with that assertion, saying in her email that committee members were “unfairly blaming” division staff.

“DWR was not responsible for the fact that the Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) did not approve the Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIAs) for these two sets of rules before the May EMC meeting,” she wrote.

Instead, “significant changes” to the rule drafts and the draft regulatory analyses that were presented to the committee in March “led directly to OSBM questions that delayed approval of the RIAs and remain unresolved.”

Changes to the draft rules were made at the direction of a group of commissioners, including the chair and vice chair of the water quality committee, chair of the groundwater and waste management committee, and Solomon. Solomon did not respond to an email request for comment.

During the water quality committee’s May 7 meeting, Rogers said staff had “been engaged in taking direction from a subcommittee of this committee” over the last month.

“We have taken that direction and applied it directly to the draft rules that y’all have before you today,” Rogers said.

Exactly which commissioners had been meeting with staff had not been made clear until the May 7 meeting, Smith told Coastal Review.

“It’s not necessarily inappropriate to have a subcommittee or a working group, a small group of EMC members who work on something between committee meetings, but one of my concerns about this process has been there’s never been any transparency about the fact that was going on and who was involved,” she said. “I do think we need to reach some common understanding of how we’re working on these rules, but that also clearly affects the public, and I’m also not sure we’re on a path toward making great progress in July, depending on how willing some of these water quality committee members are to making changes to satisfy OSBM.”

Solomon said that DEQ staff “asked for a more collaborative approach” with the commission for the monitoring and minimization draft rule.

“Coordination and communication with DEQ divisions is charged to the chair and vice-chair of the relevant EMC committee, and in this case the WQC chair and vice chair interacted with DWR to move this draft item onto the committee agenda for debate and discussion,” he said. “No action has been taken on the draft monitoring and minimization rule, or the RIA, by the WQC or the EMC. Based on OSBM’s response to the draft RIA, the benefits aspect of the draft rule is the primary issue. My direction as EMC chair is to bring the updated draft documents before the committee in July.”

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.

Cape Fear River Watch is inviting the region to use the power of the pen to express their passion for clean water to state rulemakers.

The organization’s “Postcards Against PFAS” is set from 5:30-8 p.m. Tuesday at Waterline Brewing, 721 Surry St., Wilmington.

Those who attend will have the opportunity to write postcards and emails to the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission, or EMC, and Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover.

The EMC’s water quality committee is to consider at its meeting in Raleigh on Wednesday whether to send to the full commission a proposed rule to establish monitoring and minimization requirements for dischargers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The full commission, whose role is to protect, preserve and enhance the state’s water and air resources, is scheduled to meet the following day.

Related: Committee to consider draft plans for 3 PFAS, 1,4-dioxane

Three PFAS – PFOA, PFOS and GenX – are anticipated to be included in the draft rule. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than 12,000 PFAS, which are chemical compounds used in the manufacturing of a host of consumer goods, exist.

A draft rule presented to the EMC’s Water Quality Committee last March was largely crafted from input provided by the North Carolina Water Quality Association, whose members are from public water, sewer and stormwater utilities.

There are hundreds of industries in North Carolina that pay wastewater treatment plants to take their industrial waste. Those treatments plants do not remove PFAS.

Cape Fear River Watch is asking participants at next week’s event to urge Lee to muster his fellow legislators to pass three PFAS-related bills that call for reductions in PFAS discharges, studies associated with PFAS contamination, and prohibiting firefighting foams containing PFAS for firefighter training or testing. Those include House bill’s 569 and 570, and Senate bill 666.

The Environmental Management Commission’s water quality committee is to consider sending to the full commission proposed rules to manage 1,4-dioxane, and three types of PFAS during its 1:30 p.m. May 7 meeting in Raleigh.

The full commission is to meet at 9 a.m. May 8 and is to consider proposed amendments to Tar-Pamlico wastewater discharge requirements, proceeding to public comment on air curtain incinerator draft rule changes, and a few rules going through the periodic review process.

The public can attend any of the meetings in person, all in the Archdale building, or listen in by computer or phone. Directions on how to join the meeting virtually, agendas and supporting documents are available on the commission website. 

The water quality committee is to consider draft rules on monitoring and minimizing programs for PFOS, PFOA and GenX, which are types of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and draft rules for 1,4-dioxane, all human-made chemicals that are likely carcinogens or associated with health issues.

The water allocation committee meeting at 9 a.m. May 7, and the following air quality committee meeting at 10:15 a.m. will both focus on informational items and rules in different stages of the periodic review process.

During the groundwater and waste management committee’s 11:30 a.m. May 7 meeting, commissioners are expected to hear updates on a landfill PFAS sampling initiative, and the expanded private drinking water well sampling for PFAS under the 2019 Chemours consent order.

The Environmental Management Commission oversees and adopts rules for several divisions of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, including the Divisions of Air Quality, Land Resources, Waste Management and Water Resources. 

Third in a series

A chemical manufacturer that discharged pollutants directly into the Cape Fear River for decades has asked a judge to keep thousands of documents out of the public eye.

Attorneys for Chemours and its predecessor company DuPont requested the court keep under seal mostly internal communications between company employees about “non-public facts” that largely pertain to chemical production, according to the motion filed Feb. 28 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

“The court has recognized that this exact type of information is competitively sensitive because, in the hands of a competitor, it could be used to disadvantage Defendants,” Chemours’ attorneys argue.

Their appeal to the court aims to shield from the public between 5,000 and 10,000 pages of documents the plaintiffs’ lawyers submitted in their case against the companies, according to an attorney representing public utilities and local governments downstream of Chemours’ Bladen County plant.

“We do not believe there is a good basis for the vast majority, if not all, of those documents to be under seal,” said attorney Bill Cary of Brooks Pierce Law Firm.

The firm represents Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, Brunswick County, Lower Cape Fear Water & Sewer Authority, and Wrightsville Beach, which sued the companies in October 2017.

The lawsuit aims 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 drinking water source 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 man-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 developmental issues and increased risk of some cancers.

Included in the 25,000 pages Brooks Pierce has submitted to the court is a history of dealings Chemours’ West Virginia-based Washington Works Facility has had with PFAS, Cary said.

“Many of the documents that they have identified as wanting to be sealed are already on the public record, which means that there is no reason to seal them,” he said. “They’re already public knowledge. They are either part of the (Environmental Protection Agency) public record or they have been exhibits in other files.”

The Washington Works’ plant historically used synthetic compounds perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, commonly referred to as C8, and GenX, in its manufacturing processes. The plant produces resin used to make the semiconductors that power cellular phones, computers and other electronic systems.

For decades, the plant’s owners knowingly discharged C8 into the Ohio River, the drinking water supply for an estimated 5 million people. High levels of the chemical were found in public drinking water supplies and private drinking water wells downstream of the facility, prompting government intervention and a slew of lawsuits.

Earlier this year, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, a statewide nonprofit, filed a federal lawsuit seeking a temporary court order for Chemours’ Washington Works facility to reduce its discharges of GenX into the Ohio River. The lawsuit alleges the company is exceeding its permitted discharge limits.

As part of a 2019 consent order with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and Cape Fear River Watch, Chemours has spent millions taking steps to reduce its emissions of PFAS into the Cape Fear, the ground and the air. The consent agreement also charges the company with testing 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.

The brunt of costs associated with removing PFAS from raw water sources has fallen on downstream drinking water suppliers, including Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, or CFPUA. The utility has spent millions in upgrades to filtrate PFAS out of the drinking water it provides to customers in the Wilmington area. The average customer bill includes a $7.50 charge associated with the utility’s filtration system.

A CFPUA spokesperson referred questions to Cary.

An upgrade and expansion of Brunswick County’s Northwest Water Treatment Plant totaling more than $120 million is expected to go online late this spring. The project includes the installation of an advanced low-pressure reverse-osmosis treatment system to remove compounds including PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, the latter of which is a likely carcinogen that is also being discharged into the Cape Fear River by upstream polluters.

“The health of the Cape Fear River is of importance to everybody in the watershed and they should be informed about it,” Cary said.

Emily Donovon, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, said in a telephone interview earlier this week Chemours and DuPont had spent decades “hiding” its discharges of PFAS into the Cape Fear River at the expense of residents living downstream of the Fayetteville Works plant.

“We’re not just talking about monetary expenses,” she said. “We’re not talking about utility costs. We’re talking about the fact that people are dying. People have died. People died not knowing if what that company did and that facility did caused their illness to accelerate or cause them to get sick in the first place. We deserve to know everything that this company did. Out of basic human decency, we deserve to be able to see those files and we deserve to be able to know exactly what was going on. History needs to know this.”

Clean Cape Fear on Thursday afternoon posted an online petition for members of the community to sign in support of unsealing the documents.

Cary described information in the documents the companies want to remain sealed as “embarrassing” internal documents that include communications among Chemours employees.

“Or I would be embarrassed if I was Chemours,” he said.

An attorney with Miami-based Shook, Hardy and Bacon, LLP, the law firm representing The Chemours Co. FC, E. I. Du Pont De Nemours and Co., and The Chemours Co., did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

In their request to keep documents sealed, the attorneys argue Brooks Pierce violated electronic filing rules, writing, in part, that the plaintiff’s “indiscriminate inclusion of large swathes of immaterial documents” place “an undue burden on Defendants in responding and preparing this motion.”

Chemours’ attorneys go on to write that it would be impractical to redact the “enormous volume” of documents Brooks Pierce included in its Jan. 17 motion for summary judgment, or a request of the court to rule for one party against another party without a full trial.

Brooks Pierce has until April 14 to respond to the motion.

“We will respond to the motion that day,” Cary said.

In 2023, CFPUA filed a separate lawsuit in Delaware’s Court of Chancery to stop DuPont, Chemours and their related spinoff companies from financial restructuring, a move that would allow the companies to avoid liability for damages resulting from PFAS contamination. The case has been stayed pending the outcome of the 2017 lawsuit.

Second in a series

WILMINGTON – Without a state-set limit for 1,4-dioxane, a public utility that serves an estimated 200,000 people here will have to invest millions of dollars to remove the federally deemed “likely carcinogen” from its raw drinking water source.

The projected cost for Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, or CFPUA, to make additional upgrades to its Sweeney Water Treatment Plant is in the area of $17- $24 million, authority Executive Director Kenneth Waldroup said.

Annual additional costs associated with treating the chemical being discharged into the Cape Fear River upstream of the city are between $1 million and $3 million.

Such costs could be avoided if upstream polluters would reduce the amount of 1,4-dioxane from their effluent by 60-65%, Waldroup said.

But prospects that industry will voluntarily reduce discharges of the chemical are slim.

And efforts to get the state’s rule makers – both the North Carolina General Assembly and the Environmental Management Commission – to set a water quality standard for 1,4-dioxane are not making much headway. The commission is charged with adopting rules to protect the state’s air and water resources.

CFPUA will continue advocating for solutions, Waldroup said to a crowd of about 100 people Saturday.

The World Water Day event, hosted by Clean Cape Fear in partnership with St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian Church’s women’s ministry team, highlighted ongoing problems downstream water users face from upstream polluters.

It’s an issue that spans the country, where an estimated 6-10% of 66,000 drinking water systems throughout the country must figure out how to treat certain chemical compounds from their raw water sources.

The Cape Fear River is the drinking water source for tens of thousands of residents in the Cape Fear Region, one rocked nearly eight years ago when the public was first informed Chemours’ Fayetteville Works Facility had been discharging PFAS into the river, air and ground for decades.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are more than 14,000 of these chemical compounds, which are used to make a host of everyday consumer goods from food packaging to water-resistant gear.

PFAS exposure has been linked to a number of adverse health impacts to people, including thyroid disease, increased cholesterol, liver damage, and different types of cancers.

More than two years have passed since CFPUA completed a multi-million-dollar upgrade to its Sweeney plant, which included the addition of a filtration system to remove PFAS, including GenX, from its raw water source.

Today, the average CFPUA customer bill includes a $7.50 charge Waldroup referred to Saturday as the “Chemours correction surcharge,” one associated with the utility’s annual operation costs associated with the filtration system upgrade.

That upgrade entailed the installation of eight granular activated carbon filters.

The system effectively removes PFAS for which the EPA in the spring of 2024 made the move to set enforceable limits on nearly a half-dozen individual compounds in public water systems.

The cost the utility incurs each year to remove PFAS is about $4.3 million, Waldroup said. The utility’s legal fees have surpassed $10 million in its ongoing lawsuit against Chemours and parent company Dupont to pay for costs and damages related to the companies’ actions.

A trial is not expected until next year.

CFPUA monitors up to 70 types of PFAS, including GenX and other chemical compounds specific to Chemours. The utility is now looking at ultra-short chain PFAS, Waldroup said. Those are compounds with carbon chain lengths of 3 or fewer carbon atoms in sequence

The utility is able to treat “some” 1,4-dioxane from its raw water source, he said, but the activated carbon system does not remove the chemical.

He explained that there is a debate in the scientific community as to the appropriate exposure rate of 1,4-dioxane, specifically whether that rate is 35 parts per billion, or 0.35 ppb. The federal drinking water health advisory level is 0.35 ppb.

“The difference is a one in 10,000 cancer risk a 70-year lifetime exposure and a one in a million,” Waldroup said. “As the downstream water provider, we think one in a million is the right standard.”

Known polluters

In January, CFPUA and other water utilities, including Pender County Utilities, were notified by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality that a city-operated wastewater treatment plant in Randolph County discharged substantially high levels of 1,4-dixoane into a tributary of the Cape Fear River that month.

The notice came months after a state chief administrative law judge last September revoked 1,4-dioxane limits included in Asheboro’s discharge permit. DEQ appealed the judge’s decision and is awaiting a ruling.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, or SELC, on Wednesday notified Asheboro and its industrial customers, StarPet and Waste Management’s Great Oak Landfill, it plans to sue for failing to stop 1,4-dioxane from “flowing into the drinking water supplies for about 900,000 North Carolinians,” according to a release. The intended lawsuit is being filed on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch and Haw River Assembly.

“Asheboro and cities like it have the ability and responsibility to stop this illegal 1,4-dioxane pollution before it contaminates people’s drinking water,” SELC senior attorney Jean Zhuang stated in the release. “Emboldened by its fight to dismantle North Carolinian’s drinking water protections, Asheboro’s 1,4-dioxane pollution has skyrocketed in recent months. Asheboro’s industries don’t want to pay to treat their own chemical pollution, so the city is protecting their profits over the health and safety of North Carolinians downstream and making their untreated, toxic industrial waste a costly problem for communities who get their drinking water downstream.”

Asheboro discharges upstream of the drinking water supply for Sanford, Fayetteville, Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties, and municipalities that buy drinking water from Sanford, according to the release.

Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant is one of six known 1,4-dioxane upstream polluters, Waldroup said. Of those, the Alpek Polyester USA plant just upstream of Chemours is the highest source of 1,4-dixoane release into the Cape Fear River, he said.

In May, the Environmental Management Commission is expected to be presented with a draft rule to establish monitoring and minimization requirements of PFAS dischargers in the state. The proposed rule was written largely from input provided by a utility association, which has drawn backlash from one of its own members – CFPUA – and environmental groups.

Hannah Nelson, a Southern Environmental Law Center staff attorney and speaker at Saturday’s event, called the proposed rule “offensive” to residents who live downstream of industry polluters.

“This rule was written by polluters and it shows,” she said. “There is no requirement under this draft rule for polluters to reduce PFAS pollution. Polluters will use this rule to hide behind it.”

The commission has instructed DEQ to put together a similar proposed rule for 1,4-dioxane, Nelson said.

That does not prevent DEQ from requiring industries include pretreatment programs in their discharge permits and placing the burden on the polluters, she said.

And the onus of establishing rules that hold the polluter, not water utilities and their customers, may fall even more on the state under the Trump administration, which recently announced plans to dismantle the EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

The EPA’s Research Triangle Park campus is home to labs that study PFAS contamination, air pollution and industrial emissions.

North Carolina also has a group of academic researchers within the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory’s PFAS Testing Network who specifically perform PFAS-related studies in the state. The General Assembly has appropriated tens of millions of dollars for the Collaboratory.

Dr. Jeffrey Enders, a senior research scholar and research assistant professor with North Carolina State University, shared last Saturday the results of a study he conducted on PFAS in sea foam collected along the state’s southern coastal shorelines.

A majority of the 10 foam samples he studied had been 10,000 – 10 million parts per trillion of total PFAS.

People are advised to avoid contact with sea foam on area beaches.

Next in the series: Polluter asks court to keep records under seal

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.

Clean Cape Fear is hosting a World Water Day event to address continuing threats of PFAS and 1,4-dioxane pollution from upstream dischargers into the Cape Fear River.

The program is in partnership with the women’s ministry team at St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian Church and is being held at the church in Wilmington from 2-4 p.m. March 22. There is no cost to attend. Space is limited.

There will be a panel discussion from features speakers working to address upstream threats of the chemicals that are being discharged into the river, which is the drinking water source for tens of thousands of residents in the Cape Fear region.

Panelists for “Going Upstream: The Environmental State of our Waterways” include Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Ken Waldrop, senior research scholar and Research Assistant Professor Dr. Jeffrey Enders from North Carolina State University, and Southern Environmental Law Center staff attorney Hannah M. Nelson.

Discussion will include federal per- and polyfluoroalkyl standards and possible changes to those under the Trump administration, an update on how the utility is addressing PFAS and 1,4-dioxane in Wilmington’s tap water, new research on PFAS in sea foam on local beaches, and a policy update on state regulations pertaining to upstream discharges.

Speakers will make short presentations before the panel opens a question-and-answer session with the audience.

For more details visit Clean Cape Fear’s Facebook page or the church’s website.

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.

A reverse osmosis system designed to remove PFAS from Brunswick County Public Utilities’ drinking water supply is projected to be operational by late spring.

Construction at the Northwest Water Treatment Plant, which includes the integration of an advanced low-pressure reverse osmosis system is 85% complete, according to the county website.

The plant’s capacity is also being double from 24 million gallons per day to 48 million gallons per day. The expanded capacity is expected to become available in early spring.

The upgraded treatment system will remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, including GenX, and 1,4-dioxane from the plant’s water source, the Cape Fear River.

Brunswick County Public Utilities customers have been waiting years for the new treatment system to come online after news broke in 2017 that Chemours Chemical Co.’s Fayetteville Works Plant had been discharging PFAS into the river for decades.

Low-pressure reverse osmosis is “considered the most advanced and effective method” to treat and remove PFAS, according to the website.

The county is financing the more than $122 million project, but hopes to recoup at least some of those funds from Chemours.

The utility has joined others in the region in a lawsuit against DuPont and Chemours, charging they are “responsible for the millions of dollars” the county is spending to install the new treatment system. The lawsuit is ongoing.

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.”

The Environmental Management Commission, when it meets this month, is to consider approving a public notice and hearing on proposed revisions to wastewater-discharge rules put in place to reduce fish kills, harmful algal blooms and other longstanding water quality problems in the Pamlico estuary.

The commission’s committees are to start meeting at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 13, and the full commission is set to meet at 9 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 14, both in the ground-floor hearing room of the Archdale Building in Raleigh.

The public is welcome to attend the meeting in person, by phone or livestream. Instructions for how to join as well as the agendas and supporting documents are on the commission website.

The commission oversees and adopts rules for several divisions of the Department of Environmental Quality, including the divisions of Air Quality, Land Resources, Waste Management and Water Resources.

The commission in 1989 designated the entire Tar-Pamlico River watershed as nutrient-sensitive waters because of the problems choking its marine life.

In 1990, the Division of Water Resources and the commission signed an agreement with the Tar-Pamlico Basin Association, a group of point-source wastewater dischargers. The current version of the agreement expires next year.

A point-source discharge is “any single identifiable source of pollution from which pollutants are discharged, such as a pipe, ditch, ship or factory smokestack,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The commission adopted in 2001 the Tar-Pamlico Nutrient Strategy, a set of rules designed to regulate nutrient pollution from wastewater, stormwater and
agricultural nutrient sources.

Officials say that the agreement’s renewal would continue work toward nutrient point-source reduction objectives and provide a clear regulatory path.

Also on the slate for the two-day session, the air quality committee is scheduled to meet first on Nov. 13, followed by water allocation, water quality and groundwater committees.

Each committee is expected to consider approving steps of the rulemaking process for a handful of permit changes. The water quality committee is to hear updates on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, source reductions and minimization plans based with a focus on the steps Michigan has put in place, and on 1,4-dioxane.

Advocacy groups are asking the Environmental Protection Agency to revoke the state’s authority to regulate water pollution because of legislature interference.

The Southern Environmental Law Center filed Wednesday a 65-page petition requesting the federal agency withdraw North Carolina’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, authority because lawmakers have been “unlawfully stripping” North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality of its ability “to protect its waterways, drinking water sources, and communities from harmful pollution.”

The federal Clean Water Act implemented the NPDES permit program in 1972 to address water pollution by regulating point sources that discharge pollutants to waters of the United States.

“DEQ operates the NPDES program in compliance with the Clean Water Act as delegated to the State by EPA. Our staff is dedicated to carrying out our delegated authority in a manner that protects the resources and residents of North Carolina,” DEQ officials said Wednesday in response to a request for comment.

The petition, filed on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch, the Environmental Justice Community Action Network, MountainTrue, and the Haw River Assembly, “documents how the North Carolina General Assembly has systematically undermined the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Management Commission to the point that the state can no longer effectively protect its waters, including through the following actions.”

The petition also argues that the General Assembly has caused North Carolina to violate the Clean Water Act requirements and the memorandum of agreement between the state and EPA that governs how the state administers its NPDES program.

“The people of North Carolina deserve clean water, yet the state legislature is preventing the state from limiting toxic pollution of our waterways and drinking water,” Mary Maclean Asbill, Southern Environmental Law Center North Carolina offices director, said in a statement. “Legislative-induced failure is not an option when it comes to protecting North Carolina’s water and communities, so we are asking the Environmental Protection Agency to step in.”

The petition asserts that the legislature has systematically acted to block NCDEQ from effectively implementing its NPDES permit program and from protecting residents from water pollution, including chemicals like per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and 1,4-dioxane.

“For instance, the legislature has amended the state laws governing the appointment and composition of the State’s Environmental Management Commission (“EMC”) and Rules Review Commission (“RRC”) such that these commissions have been effectively captured by a supermajority in the legislature that is hostile to environmentally protective regulation. Together these commissions are blocking the agency’s development and use of numeric water quality standards for PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, impeding its implementation of the narrative standards,1 and threatening to take permitting authority away from agency experts,” the petition states.

The petition continues that the legislature has enacted legislation that gives the Office of Administrative Hearings final decision-making authority over NPDES permits, “thereby stripping DEQ and the EMC of the roles assigned them by the Memorandum of Agreement and threatening DEQ’s ability to issue protective permits.”

The legislature has enacted laws prescribing specific permitting conditions for discharges from fish farms and wastewater discharges into small creeks and streams. “These laws unlawfully usurp the State’s environmental agencies’ authority to evaluate permit applications and issue permits tailored to the discharger and receiving waterbody. These laws also prevent the public from participating in the permitting process, and they violate the backsliding provisions of the Clean Water Act,” according to the petition.

And, the legislature-enacted state budget “has perpetually and systematically underfunded DEQ for over a decade, resulting in a backlog of expired NPDES permits and a lack of agency capacity to adequately develop and enforce protective NPDES permits.”

The law center agues that the “legislature has gone too far. To protect North Carolinians, EPA should withdraw North Carolina’s NPDES permitting program unless these issues are resolved and the State is returned to compliance.”

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.

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.

State officials are expected to ask the panel of experts making up the Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board for direction on existing PFAS health risk data during the meeting at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Raleigh.

The board that guides the departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services will be asked to look at and compare exposure assessments from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, compounds.

Exposure assessments, which include measuring the amount, frequency and duration of exposure, are one way to find out if a community could have been exposed to a certain type of substance in their environment, according to the CDC.

The public is invited to attend the meeting in the Archdale Building, 512 N Salisbury St., Raleigh, or listen online through WebEx. Webinar number is 2437 875 2089 and password is NCDEQ. There will be an in-person public comment period during the meeting with an opportunity to sign up upon arrival.

Related: NC scientists receive tools for tracking new compounds

Other items on the draft agenda include an update on a PFAS rulemaking package, and peer-reviewed studies published since the board’s 2023 recommendation on PFMOAA, which is a PFAS unique to North Carolina.

The board also will discuss human health risk data for 1,4-Dioxane in drinking water. The substance 1,4-Dioxane is a solvent used in the manufacture of other chemicals, and is a trace contaminant of some chemicals used in cosmetics, detergents and shampoos, per the CDC.

The Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board includes experts in toxicology, public health, ecology, engineering, and other related fields who assist the departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services. To learn more about the board and hear recordings of past meetings, visit the website.

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.

When the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission meets this month, members are to hear recommendations concerning a new law to amend the state’s wetland rules.

The committees will meet from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 10. The full commission meeting is to start at 9 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 11. The public may attend the meeting in the Ground Floor Hearing Room of the Archdale Building in Raleigh in person or join the meeting by computer or phone.

In the 2023 North Carolina Farm Act, the commission was directed to amend the state’s wetland rules to be consistent with the federal “waters of the United States” or WOTUS, revised in 2023 because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that isolated wetlands are not protected under the Clean Water Act.

The agenda also includes a discussion on their case against the Rules Review Commission’s for “unlawful objection to EMC’s proposed rule amendments codifying its pre-existing narrative standards for the carcinogenic toxin 1,4-Dioxane,” and an update on the revision to a discharge permit from seafood packing and rinsing, aquatic animal operations, and similarly designated wastewaters for aquaculture.

Meeting information, including draft agendas and additional materials can be found on the commission website.

The Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board will hear during its in-person meeting scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday in Raleigh a toxicology summary for PFAS and updates on recent studies for the long-lasting chemicals.

The meeting is to take place in the Archdale Building’s ground floor hearing room at 512 N. Salisbury St. The public can sign up to comment at the meeting.

The draft agenda is available online as well as information on how to join by WebEx or by phone.

Department of Environmental Quality staff will present a synopsis of the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, toxicological summary shared during the Nov. 9 Environmental Management Commission meeting, and the status of the consent order toxicology studies and other known PFAS studies underway at other agencies.

Related: State on ‘aggressive’ timeline to meet PFAS water standards

Also during the meeting, DEQ Assistant Secretary Sushma Masemore will request the board’s assistance to prepare a legislative report that assesses human health risks of 1,4-Dioxane in drinking water as outlined in the state law, “An Act To Provide Further Regulatory Relief To The Citizens Of North Carolina.”

The Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board currently includes 13 experts who assist state departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services with recommending reviews and evaluations of contaminants, acting as consultants on DEQ’s determinations to regulate contaminants, and helping the agencies identify contaminants of concern and determine which contaminants should be studied further. 

Environmental groups this week have filed a petition asking that the state be required to make industries with discharge permits install equipment that will keep pollution out of rivers and streams.

The Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf Cape Fear River Watch, MountainTrue, and Yadkin Riverkeeper has petitioned the N.C. Environmental Management Commission to rule that the state Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, to mandate industrial permittees install available technologies in order to stop pollution at the source.

“DEQ’s inconsistent application of the law leaves communities in North Carolina vulnerable to harmful industrial water pollution,” SELC Senior Attorney Patrick Hunter said in a release. “The Environmental Management Commission has an important opportunity to confirm DEQ’s longstanding legal obligation to consistently apply the protections of the Clean Water Act to communities across the state. Consistent application of the law will better protect North Carolinians from harmful pollutants like toxic PFAS, or forever chemicals, and 1,4-dioxane.”

Industries that discharge pollutants are required under the Clean Water Act to obtain a permit. Permits have to include existing technologies that can reduce and omit pollutants from entering the environment.

The groups filing the petition argue that DEQ “bypasses” that technology-based requirement “in the majority of permits it issues for industries that discharge pollution directly into local waterways.”

“Our rivers and streams are not dumping grounds and we expect industrial dischargers to minimize the amount of pollution they put into streams that are used for swimming, fishing, and drinking water across the state,” Gray Jernigan, general counsel for MountainTrue, said in the release. “Today, we’re asking DEQ to consistently apply technology-based requirements under the Clean Water Act to protect downstream communities and fish that people rely on for sustenance.”

DEQ has applied technology-based controls in permits for Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant in Bladen County and Colonial Pipeline, the latter of which led to an 86% reduction in the amount of benzene Colonial may discharge into waterways, according to the release.

Chemours, under a Consent Order with DEQ and Cape Fear River Watch, has installed an underground barrier wall to keep per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from seeping from the plant through groundwater and into the Cape Fear River.

Emerging compounds including PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified as a probable carcinogen, have been found at various levels throughout the Cape Fear River. The river is a drinking water source for tens of thousands of North Carolinians.

“Proper application of technology-based controls has led to significant water quality protections in our community,” Yadkin Riverkeeper Edgard Miller said. “We commend DEQ for applying technology-based controls in the Colonial Pipeline permit and we hope that a ruling by the Environmental Management Commission will ensure those protections are extended across North Carolina for all its residents.”

The commission has been asked to require DEQ to evaluate current pollution control technologies for all industrial facilities in the state and set limits based on technologies that are available at the time permits are issued.

“Our petition asks DEQ to apply the same laws it applied at Chemours to other industrial dischargers within the Cape Fear watershed and across the state,” Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette said. “Technologies are available that can dramatically reduce industrial water pollution. Communities in North Carolina are depending on DEQ to issue permits that require industries to use those technologies to better protect water quality and communities.”

When the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission meet next week, members are to consider a proposed rule amendment that will add parameters “Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)” and “Organic Fluorine” to the Laboratory Certification Rule.

The meetings are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in the ground floor hearing room of the Archdale Building in Raleigh. Face coverings are optional for staff and attendees. There will be limited seating, and the public may also attend via remote access.

The laboratory certification rule determines certification criteria for laboratory facilities performing any tests, analyses, measurements, or monitoring.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality said it expects to require many permitted facilities to test for PFAS in the near future. Permits require analyses to be performed by certified laboratories such as the Wastewater/Groundwater Laboratory Certification Branch, which currently does not have the authority to certify for the parameter known as PFAS. This parameter must be added to the rule. The analysis of organic fluorine provides an aggregate measurement of chemical substances that contain carbon-fluorine bonds, according to meeting documents.

Also on the agenda is a request to proceed to public comment with 11 proposed reclassifications in Watauga River Basin.

The groundwater and waste management committee will meet 9:30-11:30 a.m. Jan. 11 followed by the water quality committee from 12:30-3 p.m. No meetings are scheduled for the air quality and water allocation committees.

During the groundwater and waste management committee meeting, a Division of Waste Management representative is expected to provide an overview of the five sections within division: brownfields, hazardous waste, solid waste, Superfund, and underground storage tanks, and provide 2023 updates for the division. The Division of Water Resources will provide an overview of the groundwater quality standards to the committee as well.

Water quality committee members are expected to hear a semiannual progress report on 1,4 dioxane in the Cape Fear River Basin from Division of Water Resources staff.

The Environmental Protection Agency required public water supply systems throughout the United States to monitor for the presence of contaminants, including 1,4-dioxane, between 2013-2015. Results indicated that 1,4-dioxane was most prevalent in North Carolina in the Cape Fear River Basin. NCDEQ has conducted more sampling to better determine the concentrations of 1,4-dioxane, and their potential sources within the basin. The EPA established that 1,4-dioxane is a probable human carcinogen.

The Environmental Management Commission is responsible for adopting rules for the protection, preservation and enhancement of the state’s air, land and water resources. The commission oversees and adopts rules for several divisions of NCDEQ, including the divisions of Air Quality; Energy, Mineral and Land Resources; Waste Management; and Water Resources.

More information is available on the Environmental Management Commission webpage.

 A discussion on 1,4 dioxane has been added to the agenda of the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission’s special meeting next week on a petition for rule-making to limit carbon dioxide, or CO2, pollution from the state’s electric power sector.

The meeting is at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the Ground Floor Hearing Room of the Archdale Building at 512 N. Salisbury St., Raleigh.

The July 13 meeting was announced last month after an Air Quality Committee voted June 15 during a special meeting to advance the petition to the full commission, as previously reported. The addition of 1,4 dioxane to the agenda was announced Friday in a reminder from the Department of Environmental Quality about the special meeting.

The petition for rule-making was filed in January with the state Division of Air Quality on behalf of the Clean Air Carolina and the North Carolina Coastal Federation by the Southern Environmental Law Center. The petition requests that the Environmental Management Commission establish a rule to limit carbon dioxide pollution from the electric power sector in North Carolina.

The commission also will consider if they should undertake an additional review of discharges of 1,4 dioxane, both generally and related to the recent exceedance of the targets contained in the special order by consent approved for the city of Greensboro’s T.Z. Osborne Wastewater Treatment Plant in March.

A colorless liquid or solid at temperatures below 53°F, 1,4 dioxane can harm the eyes, skin, lungs, liver, and kidneys and may cause cancer, according to the CDC.

Face coverings are not required if fully vaccinated to attend the meeting in person. To hear the audio and view presentations online, use the link WebEx link https://bit.ly/3hN2a5x and password NCDEQ. To listen to the meeting by phone, dial 1-415-655-0003 and use access code 161 204 1508

Additional information, including the agenda and supporting information, may be found on the EMC’s website.

The Environmental Management Commission is responsible for adopting rules for the protection, preservation and enhancement of the state’s air, land and water resources. The commission oversees and adopts rules for several divisions of the Department of Environmental Quality, including the divisions of Air Quality; Energy, Mineral and Land Resources; Waste Management and Water Resources.

After Greensboro reported to the state Thursday afternoon that high levels of 1,4-dioxane had been detected in wastewater discharge, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority announced later that day plans to immediately begin more frequent water sampling.

Greensboro staff reported the discharge of 1,4 dioxane into the Haw River in the effluent from the TZ Osborne Wastewater Treatment Plant to the North Carolina Division of Water Resources.

Greensboro staff alerted the authority late Thursday afternoon that 1,4-dioxane had been detected at approximately 615 parts per billion in discharge sampled Wednesday. The discharge flows to the Cape Fear River, where it would be expected to undergo significant dilution before reaching the utility’s intakes at Kings Bluff.

The EPA has identified 1,4 dioxane, a clear liquid that is highly miscible in water, as a likely human carcinogen. It has been used as a solvent stabilizer and is currently used for a wide variety of industrial purposes.

The Sweeney Plant, which treats water from the Cape Fear to produce drinking water for about 80% of utility customers, is among the few facilities equipped to treat 1,4-dioxane. Ozonation and biological filters at Sweeney typically achieve about two-thirds removal of 1,4-dioxane from raw water during treatment.

Utility staff began immediately sampling raw and treated water daily to monitor concentrations of 1,4-dioxane. Test results typically take two weeks. The utility has requested a more urgent turnaround from its contract lab and expects results early next week.

The utility has long conducted regular monitoring for 1,4-dioxane, with test results published online.

A solvent stabilizer, 1,4-dioxane is considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to be a “likely human carcinogen.” Although 1,4-dioxane is not regulated, the EPA has established a drinking water concentration representing a 1-in-1 million cancer risk level for 1,4-dioxane of 0.35 parts per billion.

Plans for legislation to deal with riverine flooding and improve flooding resiliency are moving forward in the North Carolina General Assembly this month, with a major review of policy and funding needs planned for next week.

Last week, Sens. Danny Britt, R-Robeson, and Jim Perry, R-Lenoir, co-chairs of a new committee set up to tackle the issue, announced that they are working on a new flood mitigation and resiliency bill to develop a comprehensive, statewide approach.

In an interview Monday with Coastal Review, Perry said the committee will work during the next month gathering information and looking at strategies, but ultimately, he and Britt want to see a focused effort on flooding with a single agency assigned to put mitigation plans into action. He said there are now “too many chefs” with multiple agencies and administrators involved and no comprehensive plan.

“Somebody’s got to take this master plan and execute it,” he said. “Right now, we’ve got a lot of information, a lot of good ideas, but we’re sort of scattered in our approach. Somebody’s got to be in charge to drive the execution or we’re going to end up with a patchwork.”

The Senate Select Committee on Storm Related River Debris and Damage in North Carolina is scheduled to hear a series of presentations at 10 a.m. April 13 in the auditorium of the Legislative Building.

The event will be live-streamed. Information on the committee and the livestream link is at https://www.ncleg.gov/Committees/CommitteeInfo/Senate/1163#.

The agenda includes an update from the leadership of the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory on an ongoing study of flood resiliency; a report on nature-based flood mitigation from North Carolina Coastal Federation Executive Director Todd Miller; a review of the Resilient Coastal Communities Program from Division of Coastal Management Director Braxton Davis; reports on flood-mitigation projects from North Carolina Land and Water Fund Executive Director Walter Clark and Division of Mitigation Services Director Tim Baumgartner; and stream debris removal updates from Division of Soil and Water Conservation Director Vernon Cox.

Although some strategies and proposals differ, there is broad consensus among legislative leadership and Gov. Roy Cooper on the need for the state to step up its mitigation and resiliency efforts.

Last month Cooper proposed $56 million for additional flood resiliency efforts along with a hefty increase in funding for the Land and Water Fund to increase grants for flooding-related projects in local communities.

Fisheries bills cast

After running into opposition in the House last year, Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, is trying again to land his marine fisheries management reform bill.

Sanderson’s bill cleared the Senate last year with virtually no opposition, but hit a snag in the House, which had its own version of the legislation. Neither became law, but Sanderson said the new bill should fare better.

Sanderson said most of Senate Bill 317, which adopts a new set of procedures for developing fishery management plans and expands inspection authority, was requested by the Division of Marine Fisheries.

The bill passed the Senate Thursday 45-3, with Perry and Sens. Vickie Sawyer, R- Iredell, and Tom McInnis, R- Richmond, opposed.

Another fisheries-related bill clearing the Senate last week was Senate Bill 296, which directs the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory to study the overall status of all fisheries regulated by the state.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, and approved 48-0, seeks to look at the health and extent of habitats for bay scallop, blue crab, eastern oyster, estuarine striped bass, hard clam, kingfishes, red drum, river herring, sheepshead, shrimp, southern flounder, spotted seatrout and striped mullet.

Boating enforcement

Sanderson also added New Bern, Bridgeton, Oriental and Trent Woods to the growing list of municipalities being granted authority over navigable waters within their municipal limits and extraterritorial jurisdictions.

Sanderson told a Senate committee last week that the towns needed the expanded authority to deal with problems caused by boaters not following the rules.

Sanderson said the state doesn’t have enough officers with the Wildlife Resources Commission and Division of Marine Fisheries to handle all enforcement needs.

“There’s just not enough of them to go around to cover all the coast,” Sanderson said. “We have bad actors that come into these towns and usually these are in marinas that are adjacent to the town or even sometimes in the waterfronts. They don’t follow the rules and they create an unsafe environment for other people who are there to enjoy the coast. This will allow a local police officer to write someone a citation if they come in and they are operating in an unsafe manner.”

Flurry of PFAS bills

A group of House and Senate Democrats are calling for a comprehensive study of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in the Cape Fear River and elsewhere, requirements for polluters to pay for cleanup and mitigation, and new drinking water standards for PFAS and several other contaminants.

The proposals are outlined in three bills introduced last week. Senate Bill 460 would create a PFAS task force for the lower Cape Fear River to look at sources and health impacts. Senate Bill 443 would require the Commission for Public Health to establish maximum contaminant levels for PFAS and compounds known as perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, or PFOS, hexavalent chromium and 1,-4-dioxane.

House Bill 444 would require those found to be responsible for discharge of PFAS, including Chemours Co.’s product GenX, to a public water system to pay for the cost to “remove, correct, or abate any adverse effects” of the contamination.

Public health and environmental justice groups in Eastern North Carolina are calling for a judicial review of a recent federal report that the groups say understates the cancer risk to consumers from a compound found in household cleaning products that contaminates drinking water supplies across the region and beyond.

The groups, Advance Carolina, Cape Fear River Watch, Center for Environmental Health, Clean Cape Fear, Democracy Green, Haw River Assembly and Toxic Free NC, say they are deeply concerned about widespread 1,4-dioxane contamination of the Cape Fear and Haw Rivers and other drinking water sources for hundreds of thousands of North Carolina residents. They said drinking water supplies in the state have among the highest levels of 1,4-dioxane in the country.

The Oakland, California-based Center for Environmental Health and the six North Carolina groups have filed a petition seeking judicial review of what they call an “inadequate and negligent” risk evaluation of 1,4-dioxane by the Environmental Protection Agency. The groups filed the petition Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

“One in five North Carolinians get their drinking water from the Cape Fear River Basin. The watershed also has some of the highest levels of 1-4 dioxane in the entire country. 1-4 dioxane represents a clear and present danger to millions of residents of the Cape Fear Basin and we cannot afford to sit back and do nothing as industrial pollutants poison our loved ones,” said Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette of Cape Fear River Watch, in a statement.

The evaluation finalized Jan. 8 is based on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the nation’s principal law for reducing the risks of unsafe chemicals.

“Trump’s EPA played eleventh hour politics with our health. They ignored the cancer risk we face everyday simply drinking contaminated water and caring for our families. If we can’t rely on our regulators to take health and environmental threats seriously, then why do they even exist? While we hope the incoming administration upholds its commitment to environmental justice, we also have to take this challenge to the U.S. Court of Appeals because the stakes are just too high,”  Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear said in a statement.

The groups note that 1,4-dioxane is in widely used household cleaning and personal care products. They said the EPA, which had initially refused to include these products in its evaluation but reversed course in late 2020, was influenced by lobbying from industry groups seeking EPA action under TSCA to block states from adopting their own regulation of 1,4-dioxane in consumer products.

“EPA obliged and rushed out a flawed and incomplete assessment finding that cleaning and personal products containing 1,4-dioxane do not present an unreasonable cancer risk to US consumers,” according to the Center for Environmental Health.

Industry groups, including the American Cleaning Institute and Household & Commercial Products Association, in December applauded the EPA’s determination that consumer products containing 1,4-dioxane do not present an unreasonable risk of injury to human health or the environment.

“Companies invest significant time and resources to formulate products responsibly, and we are pleased to see that the Agency agrees that the conditions of use they evaluated do not present an unreasonable risk,” said ACI Associate Vice President Kathleen Stanton and CPA Senior Vice President Dr. Steve Bennett in a statement released Dec. 14, 2020.

The groups said that 1,4-dioxane is a byproduct of the manufacturing process for cleaning products and detergents and not an intentionally added ingredient.

The environmental and public health groups said they intend to demonstrate that the EPA’s finding is “scientifically and legally unsupportable and greatly understates real-world exposure to 1,4-dioxane in consumer products.”

Environmental justice group Advance Carolina said minority and low-wealth communities face contaminated environments daily in their own backyards. Black Americans, specifically, face a 54% higher health burden than the overall population. In a statement, the group’s deputy director, La’Meshia Whittington called it a “horrifying reality” that communities can’t escape environmental poisoning from household cleaning products.

“We are in this fight against 1,4 Dioxane because it is the moral thing to do, and we know historically people-of-color have seen 95% of their claims against polluters denied by the EPA. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their own home, the right to a healthy environment and access to poison-free products,” Whittington said.

This story has been updated.

Water utilities in southeastern North Carolina stopped drawing from the Cape Fear River Wednesday in response to a spill of an unknown substance at the Chemours Fayetteville Works industrial site, but resumed normal operations later in the day after consistent tests results indicating no abnormalities in river water.

The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority in Wilmington and Brunswick County’s water utility announced Wednesday that the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality had notified them late Tuesday that the substance had entered the river as a result of the spill, which had been reported about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority said that during conference calls Tuesday and Wednesday, Fayetteville Works Plant Manager Brian Long told CFPUA staff that it is believed that about 30 gallons of a plasticizer called 3GO leaked from Kuraray Americas, an industrial tenant at the site. Long said the material contained no PFAS. Containment steps had been taken and the spill was no longer entering the river, according to the authority’s description of the calls.

Chemours said in a statement that its monitoring process discovered the non-PFAS substance had entered the site’s water treatment system, and company operators took immediate action to close the gates to the system outfall. Chemours also  Testing and data showed that the substance was not a compound related to the Chemours manufacturing operations. Chemours said it immediately notified the appropriate authorities of the discovery.  

DEQ said the spill was reported after DEQ staff discovered a sheen at an outfall Tuesday while conducting bi-weekly sampling. In addition to shutting down the sluice gate to the outfall to slow the flow, Chemours deployed absorbent booms.

Chemours is the permit holder for the outfall. Under the Consent Order established by DEQ, Chemours is not permitted to discharge any process water into the Cape Fear River.

Kuraray shut down its process that resulted in the spill and Chemours has been in contact with Kuraray site management to ensure that the issue is corrected before the company resumes operations. 

“Chemours is committed to being a leading steward of the environment and operating to the highest standards for safety and emission control.  We hold all site tenants and any contractors operating on our campus to the same high standard,” the company said in a statement.

The authority stopped withdrawing water from the Lower Cape Fear Water & Sewer Authority intake at Kings Bluff in Bladen County for about six hours, starting about 8 a.m. Wednesday and stopped withdrawing water from its own intake at Kings Bluff late Tuesday. The staff estimated that 8 a.m. would be the soonest the substances might reach the intake, which is about 55 miles from the outfall at Chemours’ Fayetteville Works. Samples taken at 8 a.m. and 9:20 a.m. showed no abnormalities, the authority said.

Brunswick County said the type and amount of the spilled substance did not represent a threat to the water system.

Brunswick County set up an information hotline, 910-253-2655.

News of the spill comes a day after the Cape Fear authority said it had asked DEQ for guidance after detecting elevated levels of 1,4-dioxane in raw water from the Cape Fear River for the fourth time this year.

The authority periodically tests raw water for 1,4-dioxane, which is used in industrial solvents and for several years has been detected in the Cape Fear and other North Carolina surface waters.

The latest test results showed concentrations of 1,4-dioxane of 6.3 parts per billion in untreated water on Sept. 9 and 1.3 ppb in treated water at Sweeney on Sept. 10.

Co-published with Carolina Public Press

RALEIGH — Senate and House budget proposals contrast sharply with the governor’s on how each deals with emerging contaminants.

In the years since the 2017 revelations about GenX in the Cape Fear River, legislators as a group are far more familiar with the challenges of understanding the health effects and, ultimately, regulating the growing class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

But in policies and on the bottom line, plans by the House, Senate and governor are very different.

In Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget request this year, he asked for additional money for personnel and new equipment for emerging contaminant testing and monitoring programs. Cooper said the Department of Environmental Quality needs the additional staff in order to conduct in-house and mobile analysis of emerging contaminants. The department had to shift dozens of experts from other duties to deal with the GenX and emerging contaminant research and monitoring, he said.

The governor’s total ask was about $12.5 million for the next two years to cover equipment costs and 37 new staff positions.

The lynchpin for both the emerging contaminants programs and DEQ’s budget request overall is a $30 million upgrade and renovation at the department’s main laboratory complex on Reedy Creek Road in Raleigh, where most of DEQ’s air and water quality testing is conducted.

House budget writers greatly dialed back the governor’s request for more staffing, but they included the governor’s full request for the Reedy Creek labs.

The Senate did not. Its plan includes no additional funding and focuses solely on a provision extending the studies of a PFAS testing network set up through the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at University North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Relying on the Collaboratory

The Collaboratory, which was set up via a Senate initiative in the 2016 budget, would get an additional $1 million to complete its work and file a report with the legislature’s Environmental Review Commission by Dec. 1, 2020. The main effort of the testing network has been to expand PFAS and emerging contaminant testing statewide to include all 191 public drinking water intakes and 149 water systems that use groundwater wells. Researchers say the plan is partly to establish a baseline of the extent of the compounds in areas, but they also expect to find areas with elevated levels of certain compounds.

At the initial hearing on the Senate’s budget plan in the Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, Sen. Andy Wells, R-Catawba, the committee chairman, said the decision was made to withhold funding until the Collaboratory presents its report.

“That is correct, there is no funding while we wait for this report from the Collaboratory,” Wells told Sen. Harper Peterson, D-New Hanover, after Peterson said he was surprised to see no additional funds for DEQ and the Department of Health and Human Services on emerging contaminants. Wells said the report comes first and it would be used to assist legislators to determine what to fund after that.

“I’m pretty shocked by the lack of interest and concern by the Senate in this budget recommendation,” Peterson said afterward. “I don’t think anybody denies we have an emerging contaminant crisis, not just in my district, in the lower Cape Fear River basin but throughout the state.”

He said that, in addition to the Collaboratory studies, work needed to continue at the departments. “We have a health issue. That is paramount. Public health comes first. We want to know what’s in the water.”

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, an early advocate of tighter PFAS regulations said she was frustrated by the Senate’s decision, calling it “wrongheaded” and “a step backwards” in dealing with emerging contaminants.

“We learned last year that DEQ had pulled 31 people off of other roles to cover the PFAS issue, so we’ve got a funding gap right now,” she said. “The reality is that we’ve got PFAS contamination all over the state and I don’t know how we can ignore that and I don’t know how we cannot fund the regulatory agency protecting our water, how we can’t fund them adequately to do their job to enforce, monitor and let us know when we’ve got a contamination issue.”

She said she supports the Collaboratory’s work, but their research can’t be used in enforcement actions.

DEQ officials have said that if the Collaboratory finds PFAS hotspots or other indications of contamination, the department will still have to do its own analysis in order to craft an enforcement response.

DEQ spokesperson Sharon Martin said the lack of funding could have a big impact.

“The delay puts our ability to do this vital work on hold. DEQ’s priority is the health and safety of North Carolinians and we need additional resources to protect the people of our state from the threats posed by unregulated emerging compounds,” Martin said Thursday in an email response.

The move by the Senate to lean on the work of the Collaboratory is similar to a strategy it adopted in 2018, which allocated an initial $5 million to the Collaboratory for the research project after rejecting a request by the department for more funding.

The Senate’s strategy, put together by then-Sen. Michael Lee, a New Hanover County Republican, was criticized at the time for hampering DEQ’s PFAS response. The department initially asked for $8 million, but ultimately only received $1.5 million. Lee’s plan also included a limit on the type of high-resolution mass spectrometer that the department could purchase to do the analysis.

Peterson, who unseated Lee in an election that highlighted the legislature’s response to emerging contaminants, said the message in the budget to his constituents is that the state Senate doesn’t care about their health. He said that, in addition to PFAS, the Cape Fear River has high levels of 1,4 Dioxane, Bromide and other contaminants.

“This will come back to haunt the Senate,” he said. “They’ve got their priorities upside down.”

RALEIGH – More than two dozen operators of wastewater pretreatment programs in the Cape Fear River Basin will be required to test water flowing into their plants for synthetic contaminants for three months this summer.

Pretreatment facilities treat industrial or nonhousehold wastewater before it’s discharged to a municipal wastewater treatment plant. The state Department of Environmental Quality said the inflow sampling effort is part of an ongoing management strategy to address the presence of compounds similar to GenX in surface water and bio-solids.

DEQ’s Division of Water Resources notified 25 operators of pretreatment facilities, including the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, or CFPUA, in Wilmington, the town of Burgaw and Brunswick and Columbus counties, requiring monitoring for 1,4 dioxane and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, for three consecutive months starting in June.

CFPUA announced in March that it was working with regulators to understand why levels of 1,4-dioxane had recently spiked in water drawn from the Cape Fear River.

These compounds are not covered by federal water quality standards. The Environmental Protection Agency says data indicates elevated concentrations of 1,4 dioxane and PFAS in drinking water that originated from the Cape Fear River Basin. The division’s monitoring has confirmed the presence of these compounds in surface waters within the Cape Fear River Basin.

The samples to be collected are supposed to be representative of the typical wastewater flow to each facility, according to the letter sent to operators, which also provides information on finding labs certified to perform the analysis.

All sample results are to be submitted to the division’s Pretreatment, Emergency Response and Collection Systems, or PERCS, branch by Oct. 31.

Other than the investigative monitoring, operators are not required to take any steps unless the division notifies them to do so. But if influent samples exceed the human health surface water criteria for 1,4-dioxane for the stream classification, operators are to contact their division representative to discuss that facility’s allowable discharge concentration. And if influent levels exceed a facility’s allowable discharge concentration, operators are to take steps to begin reducing or eliminating 1,4-dioxane discharges to that facility.

Used as a solvent stabilizer, 1,4-dioxane is a clear liquid that mixes with water and used for a variety of industrial and manufacturing purposes. The compound is often produced as a by-product in making soaps, plastics and other consumer products.

PFAS are most often associated with nonstick coatings, plating operations, firefighting foams and stain- and water-resistant treatments for clothing, furniture and carpeting.

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

RALEIGH – In a bipartisan response to outrage over contaminated drinking water, members of the North Carolina House of Representatives voted unanimously Wednesday to give state environmental regulators more money to prevent pollution.

A proposed $1.3 million fund would not be a huge boost to the state’s $77 million share of the Department of Environmental Quality’s budget. It would, however, be a small reversal of a seven-year trend in the General Assembly to trim state environmental protection programs.

Will it become law? Not soon, if at all, apparently.

The Senate adjourned Wednesday before the high-profile House Bill 189 even cleared the House appropriations committee, frustrating House backers.

Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, issued a statement sent to reporters Wednesday evening signaling that he opposes the bill.

But hopes were higher earlier Wednesday afternoon when Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, led a successful effort to convince all House members present to invest more money in DEQ.

The money would buy an instrument that can detect unregulated chemicals in state waters. Additionally, the money would provide staff to both operate it and attack a sizable backlog of DEQ waste disposal permit applications.

While making the sell, Davis and others stressed that the funding was likely the first step of a more elaborate government response needed to detect the compound GenX and other chemicals of concern in the Cape Fear River basin and around the state.

“We are moving forward on something that we were able to get the stakeholders to agree on as much as possible,” said Davis, whose House Select Committee on North Carolina River Quality endorsed taking action after four meetings digging into GenX contamination beginning in September.

Latest Twist in the GenX Saga

Detection of GenX pollution in and near the Cape Fear River has expanded over seven months, starting with disclosure last summer that the hard-to-break-down chemical was tainting municipal drinking water supplies in Wilmington and neighboring Brunswick and Pender counties.

Since then the compound and related perfluorinated compounds have been detected in increasing numbers of household wells near where the chemicals have been released, a Chemours-owned chemical plant compound in Bladen County. Evidence is increasing, too, that some of the pollution may have been released into the air.

Decades ago, DuPont built and ran the chemical plant that now produces GenX. Chemours, a DuPont spinoff, took over in 2015. Chemours asserts that its waste poses no health risks.

The Environmental Protection Agency is investigating whether the company violated a consent agreement sharply restricting GenX’s release into water. After Chemours failed to disclose a leak, DEQ in November announced it would revoke the company’s permit allowing wastewater discharge into the Cape Fear.

Evidence of unwelcome chemical contamination, created by likely carcinogen 1,4 dioxane and other compounds, has been found elsewhere in North Carolina, too. House members supporting the DEQ funding said that more aggressive, long-term protections against water pollution are needed.

DEQ Secretary Michael Regan, appeared briefly before the House appropriations committee Wednesday to support the bill. He argued that preventing chemical pollution is good for business as well as the protection of natural resources.

“This is a much-needed first step in longer term conversation we need to have with this body pertaining to protecting our environment and our economy,” he said.

The House bill would allow DEQ to purchase a high-resolution mass spectrometer, which can detect very small amounts of chemicals in water. DEQ has depended on an EPA lab in Research Triangle Park, as well as testing paid for Chemours to measure GenX levels in water samples. But the EPA has its own projects and cannot continue to provide that service, Assistant Secretary Sheila Holman said Wednesday.

The bill would give Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration only a portion of the requested $2.5 million for funding to prevent water pollution. The General Assembly did not grant that request last summer. During Wednesday’s appropriations committee, Democratic House members failed to win approval of an amendment that would have funneled money to the state Department of Health and Human Services as well.

Rare Bipartisan Support

After the amendment failed, supporter Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, told fellow lawmakers she was disappointed. But she also stressed that she was grateful to Davis and other Republican leaders of the House river quality committee for digging into the GenX contamination problem so diligently and backing House Bill 189.

“I never sat in a committee that had such substantial discussions as we have had,” said Harrison, a leading advocate of expanding environmental regulation.

House Bill 189 includes other initiatives requiring no funding, some of which will occur whether the bill passes because DEQ has launched them, Holman said.

The bill would require the following:

• Department of Health and Human Services staff to consult with DEQ’s Science Advisory Board when developing health goals for contaminant exposure levels.
• DEQ staff to assess how well the agency runs a federally required permitting program that decides how much pollution industrial waste companies can discharge into streams, rivers and lakes.
• DEQ staff to review existing reporting and notice requirements related to discharging pollutants released into the environment.

Another measure would instruct the School of Government at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill to assess when water utilities have any legal liability for distributing contaminated drinking water.

Michael Brown, chairman of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority in Wilmington, said he supports the bill and appreciates the bipartisan action Wednesday in the House. But he said he sees no uncertainty about the liability issue.

“The liability here is clear. It is with the dischargers and what they are putting in the river,” said Brown, whose utility has filed just one of many lawsuits pending against Chemours and DuPont over the pollution.

Not Just A Lovefest

In written comments opposing the bill, Berger noted that Senate Republicans already appropriated money to improve water quality in the Cape Fear River in 2017 by funding research and utility projects intended to remove GenX from drinking water. The Senate is waiting on data that was expected in October to decide any next steps, he said.

“What the House passed today, unfortunately, does nothing to prevent GenX from going into the water supply,” Berger said in the statement sent to reporters.

“It leaves North Carolina taxpayers holding the bag for expenditures that should be paid for by the company responsible for the pollution, fails to give DEQ authority to do anything they can’t already do, and authorizes the purchase of expensive equipment that the state can already access for free,” he said.

Gov. Cooper saw it differently. He issued a statement Wednesday sharply criticizing the General Assembly, clumping together his frustration over its failure to pass environmental and educational bills he supports.

“Today, legislative Republicans walked out on students, teachers and families concerned about overcrowded classrooms and safe drinking water,” Cooper said in the written statement. “When legislators return home today, North Carolinians in their communities should demand they take action.”

Taylor Knopf, who covers rural and mental health news for North Carolina Health News, contributed to this report.

This story is provided courtesy of North Carolina Health News, an online news service covering health and environmental issues in North Carolina. Coastal Review Online is partnering with North Carolina Health News to provide readers with more stories of interest on the coast.