The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving ahead with plans to strike down the nation’s first-ever health standards for chemical contaminants found in the drinking water sources of millions of North Carolinians.

The proposal, announced Monday, comes just shy of the one-year mark from when EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said he would eliminate and reevaluate enforceable standards for four per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, including the compound branded GenX. The agency also wants to push the deadline in which water utilities must comply with enforceable standards for PFOA and PFOS, chemicals that are no longer manufactured, by two years from 2029 to 2031.

In what it describes as a “comprehensive PFAS strategy,” the agency explains in a five-page release that drinking water systems would be given the option to opt in for the two-year extension, giving them more time to sample source water for contaminants, test new controls, and train their workforce to manage those controls.

The agency states that the proposed rule to rescind current federal standards for HFPO-DA, commonly referred to as GenX, PFNA, PFHxS and PFBS, would follow the letter of the law in establishing regulations for drinking water standards. The Trump administration argues that the Biden administration failed to follow the proper statutory requirements under the Safe Water Drinking Act when it established the drinking water standards for those four chemical compounds.

Under the proposal, the EPA would provide nearly $1 billion in new funding to states to address PFAS in drinking water and another $1 billion through the Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities program.

“The Biden administration cut corners and failed to follow the law,” Zeldin said in the release. “We are fixing that error with standards water systems can actually implement and that will hold up to scrutiny, while addressing PFOA and PFOS, two the best-studied PFAS with well-documented health impacts.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated in the release that PFAS contamination is “a serious public health challenge that demands rigorous science, clear standards, and practical solutions. Across HHS, we are advancing gold-standard research to better understand PFAS exposure, toxicity, and long-term health impacts on Americans.”

Critics of the proposed rules immediately hit back, calling the announcement a “PR stunt” to try and shade the more than 100 million people across the country whose drinking water sources have been contaminated by PFAS.

“Zeldin and Kennedy are trying to sell potions out of the back of a covered wagon,” Dr. Anna Reade, Natural Resources Defense Council Director of PFAS Advocacy said in a Monday release. “The millions of Americans demanding safe drinking water are not going to fall for their hocus pocus. By repealing and delaying PFAS standards, EPA is abandoning communities in desperate need of drinking water protections, especially those who live near polluting industries.”

News of the proposed rules particularly smacked the Cape Fear region where residents, environmental organizations and public water providers have banded together to fight for regulations that would put the onus on dischargers to keep PFAS out of drinking water sources.

Almost nine years have passed since the Wilmington StarNews broke the news that Chemours, a DuPont spinoff, had for decades been directly discharging PFAS, including GenX, from its Fayetteville Works facility into the Cape Fear River. GenX is specific to Chemours’ Bladen County plant more than 70 miles upstream from Wilmington.

Today, more than 1,000 residents living near the Cape Fear River Basin are participating in a study where researchers measure the levels of GenX and other PFAS in people’s blood.

PFAS are a group of chemicals used for their ability to repel water, stains and grease to produce a host of consumer goods like food containers, waterproof-gear and makeup.

These chemicals are ubiquitous because they do not naturally break down in the environment.

The EPA now categorizes nearly 15,000 PFAS, an overwhelming majority of which have yet to be studied for their potential effects on human health.

Some of the known human health effects of PFAS include weakened immunity, low birth weight in newborns, thyroid disease, and certain types of cancers.

“Our community was ground zero for the discovery of GenX in public tap water, impacting over half a million water users across ten counties in southeastern North Carolina,” Clean Cape Fear Co-Founder Emily Donovan stated in a Monday release. “The United Nations Human Rights Council investigated our contamination crisis and publicly named chemical companies like DuPont and Chemours, along with state and federal regulators, for failing to protect us from business-related human rights abuses. We believe today’s announcement perpetuates those abuses. It does not fix our growing PFAS contamination crisis. It stops monitoring it. You don’t cure a fever by breaking the thermometer.”

Related: Public hearings set on proposed wastewater discharge rules

Earlier this month, the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission wrapped a series of six public hearings hosted throughout the state on proposed monitoring and minimization rules for discharges of PFOS, PFOA and GenX, and 1,4-dioxane into the state’s surface waters. The EPA classifies 1,4-dioxane, which is primarily used as a solvent in industrial manufacturing, as a likely human-carcinogen.

An overwhelming majority of people who spoke at those hearings argued that the proposed rules would do little to protect drinking water sources because the rules do not set specific discharge limits or penalties for PFAS dischargers found to be in violation of those rules.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is accepting written comments on the proposed rules through June 15. Most of the thousands of written comments already submitted to DEQ concur with those made at the public hearings, according to department officials.

Public water utilities that serve residents in the Cape Fear region have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to treat PFAS from their raw water sources.

The Biden-era PFAS drinking water standards established in 2024 are in litigation in a lawsuit brought by chemical companies and water utility associations. A decision on that case, which is in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, is not expected before sometime next year.

“By abandoning and delaying enforceable limits on dangerous industrial chemicals like GenX and other PFAS, the agency is putting polluters’ profits over people and sending a clear message that corporate interests matter more than human lives,” Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney and Water Program Leader Kelly Moser stated in a release. “This reversal is a slap in the face to every community that has fought for clean drinking water. EPA’s decision isn’t grounded in science or law – it’s a political choice that endangers families throughout America.”

The EPA will accept written comments on the proposed rules for 60 days after they are published in the Federal Register. The rules will be published at www.regulations.gov under Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OW-2025-1742 and Docket ID EPA-HQ-OW-2025-9654.

The agency has also scheduled a virtual public hearing for July 7. Those who wish to speak must register online.

Questions related to the public hearing may be directed to PFASNPDWR@epa.gov.

The draft 2026 Cape Fear River Basin plan, one that highlights areas that need additional protection, restoration or preservation within the state’s largest and most populous river basin, is out for public comment.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources is accepting comments through Aug. 4 on the draft plan, which focuses on water quality data collected between 2000 and 2020.

The plan includes an overview of water use and availability in the basin, a brief discussion of changes in water quality over a 20-year period, existing management strategies and approaches for addressing point and nonpoint sources of pollution, and addresses ongoing studies and actions to manage and reduce pollution from emerging compounds, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and 1,4-dioxane.

Waters in the basin, including the Haw and Cape Fear rivers, have been found to be contaminated with these compounds.

PFAS, which are used in the manufacturing in a host of consumer goods including waterproof clothing and disposable food containers, do not break down in the environment and can build up in humans and animals. There are more than 15,000 of these substances today, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. While their effects on human health continue to be studied, PFAS exposure has been linked to adverse health effects including thyroid disease, high cholesterol, and increased risks of certain cancers, including kidney and testicular.

The EPA classifies 1,4-dioxane, a synthetic industrial chemical, as a likely human carcinogen.

The basin covers more than 9,300 square miles and includes portions of the urban population centers in the Triad as well as the Triangle, and the cities of Fayetteville and Wilmington. Major rivers in the basin include the Haw, Deep, Cape Fear, Black, South and Northeast Cape Fear.

The basin has experienced increased growth, poultry production and stormwater and wastewater discharges, all of which have boosted nitrogen and phosphorus levels that simulate plant and algal growth.

Written comments may be submitted by email to DEQ.DWR.BasinPlanning@deq.nc.gov or by mail to NCDEQ Division of Water Resources ATTN: Nora Deamer, Basin Planner 1611 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-1611.

Based on the 2022 U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture, agriculture in the basin has seen an overall decrease in cattle and swine numbers but a substantial increase in poultry production. 

Information on the division’s basin plans are available at Basin Planning Branch | NC DEQ. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related: Public hearings set on proposed wastewater discharge rules

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A North Carolina-based nonprofit is offering one lucky winner an opportunity to get away — really away — from it all for a few days.

FPTower Inc. is raffling off a four-night, five-day mission immersive eco-adventure at Frying Pan Tower for its 2026 “Save a Life” fundraising campaign to strengthen coastal rescue capabilities while supporting offshore research operations.

Participants of the raffle will be entered for a chance to win a stay on the former U.S. Coast Guard light station, which sits a little more than 30 miles off the coast from the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

Funds will be used to purchase and donate four U Safe self-propelled, remotely controlled, lifesaving buoys to the coastal communities that receive the most public nominations through raffle participation.

Each raffle ticket equates to one “coastal point.” The top four communities with the most points will receive a buoy.

“This campaign represents a direct investment in public safety,” FPTower Inc. Executive Director Richard Neal stated in a release. “By combining community engagement with lifesaving technology, we are helping coastal communities enhance rescue readiness while continuing our offshore research and maritime safety mission.”

The winner and up to three guests will be provided charter vessel transportation to and from the tower, private ocean-facing accommodations, chef-prepared meals, marine exploration opportunities, a guided tour of the historic station, and world-class stargazing.

The tower, which was completed in November 1964 and retired from active Coast Guard service in 2004, now serves as a platform for environmental research, coastal resilience initiatives, and maritime outreach.

The raffle runs through 11:59 p.m. Memorial Day, May 25. The winner will be announced at 9 a.m. May 26.

North Carolina’s Flood Resiliency Blueprint Tool now includes enhanced flood mapping and risk information for five river basins in Eastern North Carolina.

The online tool designed to help local governments, agencies and nongovernmental partners develop, evaluate and prioritize resilience actions has been updated with new nonregulatory or “advisory” flood maps for the Cape Fear, Lumber, Neuse, Tar-Pamlico, and White Oak river basins.

The need for new maps and modeling efforts were identified in the draft blueprint, which was created by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality at the direction of the General Assembly.

The updates were made through extensive coordination with local leaders, other state agencies, nongovernmental organizations, university researchers and evaluating programs in other states like Texas and Louisiana for guidance, according to an NCDEQ release.

NCDEQ Secretary Reid Wilson, in the release, stated that research from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill found that more than 90,000 buildings in Eastern North Carolina flooded at least once from 1996 until 2020, and 43% of those buildings were outside the mapped Federal Emergency Management Agency floodplain. “The General Assembly’s investment in updated modeling and mapping means that North Carolinians in five river basins now have a more accurate picture of their actual flooding risk, Wilson said.”   

The improved mapping was done in partnership with the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program, one overseen by the North Carolina Emergency Management.

“NC Emergency Management is proud to provide flood mapping support to DEQ which will produce additional flood mapping products to build resilient communities across the state,” N.C. Emergency Management Director Will Ray stated. “As part of a multi-year advisory flood data web application development project, which began in 2022, the NCEM Floodplain Management Program was able to provide data and resources to assist in this project, once again showing the whole-of-community approach to disaster preparedness In North Carolina.” 

The mapping includes numerical models that simulate surface runoff and routing on a landscape, and are available for previously unmapped or undermapped basins too small to be included on regulatory maps and extend beyond what is normally included in traditional regulatory floodplain mapping.

The maps also include areas that flood despite being many miles from the nearest stream and allow communities to explore their future risk associated with projected growth patterns and the changing climate fueling more frequent and severe storms and sea level rise.

“These new maps, available through our Flood Resiliency Blueprint Tool, mean that Eastern North Carolinians can make more informed decisions and better investments to build their resilience in the face of more frequent and severe flooding,” Flood Resiliency Blueprint Manager Stuart Brown said in a release.

River Basin Action Strategies for the five river basins are expected to be available this summer, and new maps for the French Broad River Basin available this fall, according to DEQ.

Whether its a nature hike, a stormwater tour at North Carolina’s premiere coastal university, or helping a town’s staff permanently mark storm drains, there’s something for nearly everyone during Cape Fear Creek Week.

Creek Week kicks off on Sunday and goes through March 21, offering opportunities to connect with, celebrate, and care for local waterways of the Cape Fear Region.

Throughout the week, participants are invited to play Cape Fear Creek Week virtual bingo by completing activities for a chance to win a swag bag.

The events lineup starts Sunday with a birding walk from 10-11 a.m. in Leland, where participants will be given tips on how to identify local and migrating birds. Registration for this event is through the town of Leland.

On Monday, gather beneath cypress trees in Wallace Park at 2110 Market St. in Wilmington for a scavenger hunt from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m. The Alliance for Cape Fear Trees will have resources on hand to share tips on how to properly plant and care for trees.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington is hosting that afternoon a behind-the-scenes tour of its stormwater-control measures, including rain gardens, permeable pavement systems and other sustainable features that reduce runoff and support healthier waterways. This event will be held 2-3 p.m. Monday at 4935 Riegel Road. Registration is required.

On Monday evening, discover ways to diagnose and restore wetland habitats through Habitat Fixer Uppers with Fort Fisher Aquarium, a program scheduled for 6-7:30 p.m. at 1212 Magnolia Village Way in Leland. You may register here.

Tuesday, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority will host a tour of its Southside Water Reclamation Facility, 3436 River Road in Wilmington. Registered participants must be age 5 or older.

Events for Wednesday include a bird hike at Burnt Mill Creek 8-9:30 a.m., an opportunity to work alongside employees of Leland’s engineering department 4-5:30 p.m. to permanently mark the town’s storm drains, a children’s scavenger hunt 5-6 p.m. at Cypress Cover Park in Leland, and resilient coastal communities program public meeting drop in between 5p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Skyline Center in downtown Wilmington.

Events later in the week include a golden hour guided tour by paddleboat in Greenfield Lake Park, a walking tour at Pages Creek, a sustainability brewery tour at Mad Mole Brewing (for those 21 and older), a Brunswick Nature Park tour in Winnabow, and a cleanup at Greenfield Lake Park.

Details, including all dates, times and locations, are available on the N.C. Cooperative Extension website.

Cape Fear Creek Week is a collaboration between the N.C. Cooperative Extension, Wilmington’s Heal our Waterways, Leland, Cape Fear River Watch, New Hanover County Soil and Water Conservation District, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, Coastal Land Trust, Cape Fear Birding Observatory, Plastic Ocean Project, Mad Mole Brewery, UNCW Sustainability, and Alliance for Cape Fear Trees.

Alliance for Cape Fear Trees is hosting its next tree giveaway in Leland on Saturday.

The Wilmington-based nonprofit will be giving away 1,000 native trees at the event, which is scheduled from 9 a.m. until noon, while supplies last, at the Leland Cultural Arts Center, 1212 Magnolia Village Way.

Tree stewards and arborists will be available to help people choose trees best suited for their properties. There is a limit of two trees per household.

Available trees species will include Satyr Hill American holly, persimmon, flowering dogwood, Dura Heat river birch, blackgum, Princeton American elm, white oak, and southern live oak.

Saturday’s tree giveaway is being sponsored by the Arbor Day Foundation and Enterprise Mobility.

Cape Fear River Watch’s seminar series on Saturday will feature the principal investigator of the GenX exposure study.

Dr. Jane Hoppin, a professor at North Carolina State University, will provide a summary of the study’s findings to-date and discuss future plans for the project.

The study began in 2017 after residents in Wilmington were informed through a newspaper report that an upstream chemical manufacturing plant had, for decades, been discharging per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, including GenX, into their drinking water source, the Cape Fear River.

The study, which measures the blood levels of PFAS in Wilmington residents, has evolved into a long-term health project with more than 1,000 participants throughout the Cape Fear River Basin.

Cape Fear River Watch hosts its seminar series the first Saturday of each month.

The free event is being held at Cape Fear River Watch’s headquarters at 617 Surry St., Wilmington.

Those interested in attending are encouraged to arrive early to secure a seat. Complimentary pancakes and coffee will be served.

The Alliance for Cape Fear Trees’ next tree giveaway is on March 7 in Columbus County.

The Wilmington-based nonprofit plans to distribute a little more than 1,000 trees, thanks to funding from Duke Energy Foundation, from 9 a.m. – noon at Riegelwood Baptist Church, 103 N.C. Highway 87.

Trees available at the upcoming giveaway include varying species of oak — white, shumard, overcup, swamp white, and willow — as well as Dura Heat river birch, blackgum/tupelo, Princeton American elm, fringe tree, autumn brilliance serviceberry, Clarynette American hornbeam.

According to the organization’s website, Alliance for Cape Fear Trees has given away more than 19,800 trees and planted more than 3,500.

Show Mother Earth some love this Valentine’s Day by gifting her a freshly planted tree.

Alliance for Cape Fear Trees will be giving away more than 1,000 native trees Saturday, Feb. 14, at D.C. Virgo Preparatory Academy in Wilmington’s Northside community.

Northside residents and families of students who attend D.C. Virgo, DREAMS of Wilmington, Boys & Girls Club of Southeastern N.C., and Dorothy B. Johnson Pre-K will get first dibs on a selection of nearly a dozen different species of trees beginning at 9 a.m.

The event will open to the general public from 11 a.m. – noon. Trees will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Available tree species will include southern live oak, overcup oak, bald cypress, blackgum, longleaf pine, sweetbay magnolia, eastern redbud, sourwood, American hornbeam, pawpaw, and persimmon.

Cape Fear River Watch is kicking off its First Saturday Seminar series for the New Year with a discussion about the potential impacts of a Piedmont town’s request to permanently pull millions of gallons of water a day from the Cape Fear River.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Kenneth Waldroup will discuss how Fuquay-Varina’s request to transfer 6.17 million gallons per day from the Cape Fear River Basin to the Neuse River Basin could impact the region, and how local leaders are responding.

An update on major CFPUA projects, including the Southside Water Reclamation Facility, will also be provided.

The event will begin at 8 a.m. Jan. 3 with a pancake breakfast, following by the presentation at 9 a.m. at 617 Surry St., Wilmington.

Those interested in attending the seminar are encouraged to arrive early as seating is limited.

Cape Fear River Watch will have postcards available at the seminar for anyone who is interested in writing comments about Fuquay-Varina’s proposal.

The organization will send those postcards to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, which is accepting public comments on the proposal through April 1.

Comments may be submitted to Maya Holcomb, Division of Water Resources, 512 N. Salisbury St., Raleigh, NC, 27604, or by email to maya.holcomb@deq.nc.gov.

A Piedmont town’s request to permanently pull millions of gallons of water a day from the Cape Fear River would raise the risk of water shortages during periods of drought, undercut utilities’ ability to keep up with growing demand, and result in higher levels of contamination in the raw drinking water source for downstream communities, opponents of the plan say.

Of the dozen people who spoke Tuesday night during a public hearing in Raleigh, none supported Fuquay-Varina’s call for transferring 6.17 million gallons per day from the Cape Fear River Basin to the Neuse River Basin to meet that town’s projected water demands.

Similar opposition was expressed during a hearing held in Fayetteville last week by the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission and the state Division of Water Resources. A third hearing was scheduled to be held Thursday in Pittsboro.

Both elected officials and heads of public utilities in the lower Cape Fear region on Tuesday continued pressing the commission and division to host a public hearing in that area.

“None of the hearings for the Fuquay-Varina request are being held in the lower Cape Fear region, even though our communities will feel the downstream impacts,” said New Hanover County Commissioner Rob Zapple. “Residents in the city of Wilmington and the counties of New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender would have to spend four to five hours on the road just to attend the public hearing. Most residents simply cannot do that. Holding a hearing in the lower Cape Fear region in Wilmington would reduce frustration, encourage public trust, and allow our communities to be hearing in a constructive manner.”

As of Wednesday, more than 20 counties, municipalities, environmental organizations, businesses and drinking water providers have adopted resolutions opposing Fuquay-Varina’s request for an interbasin transfer certificate, or IBT.

Officials in Fuquay-Varina, which is about 30 miles south of Raleigh, project that the amount of water the town currently buys from the capital city, and Harnett and Johnston counties will fall short of demand by 2030.

Under the proposed preferred alternative identified in a draft environmental impact statement for the IBT, the town would source its entire water supply from a water treatment plant in Sanford, which is in the Cape Fear River Basin.

Once water pulled from the Cape Fear River is used by residents and businesses within the town, the treated wastewater would be discharged into the Neuse River Basin. This would permanently subtract more than 6 million gallons each day from the river flow that currently sources more than 500,000 residents with drinking water.

“We have absolutely no problem with Fuquay-Varina wanting to continue with their development,” Zapple said. “But if you take the water, just return it. That’s all. That’s the way the system works. And, if it costs more, well maybe that’s the price of doing business. We need our development down in the lower Cape Fear region as well and we can’t afford to lose 6.17 million gallons a day.”

The Cape Fear River is Brunswick County’s “primary and only reliable water source,” said Christopher Giesting, Brunswick County Public Utilities deputy director of water operations.

The utility supplies drinking water to 19 municipalities and serves more than 350,000 residents and seasonal visitors.

Giesting said that Brunswick County has invested more than $183 million to expand its Northwest Water Treatment Plant and upgrade to a reverse osmosis system designed to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, discharged into the river by upstream polluters.

“These investments were made with the expectation that the full safe yield of the Cape Fear River at the intake would remain available,” he said. “Any IBT that removes water without returning it means that safe yield volume is reduced, ultimately making these major infrastructure investments unable to function as planned and designed. Our county alone has more than 50,000 planned housing units already built, under construction, or in the works. Without reliable access to the full safe yield of the Cape Fear, we cannot meet future water demands for these communities.”

The IBT proposal also threatens water quality, Giesting continued, because the requested daily transfer would lessen the amount of water available to dilute contaminants, including PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, discharged by upstream polluters.

The Lower Cape Fear Water and Sewer Authority, which provides wholesale regional raw water to treatment facilities that serve more than 550,000 customers in a five-county area, has sourced from the Cape Fear River more than half a century.

Authority Executive Director Tim Holloman said the river is already being substantially used as a water resource in the region.

“For a river that’s already maxed, we just ask that that be considered. If the IBT is granted, that (water) be returned to the Cape Fear River Basin because the need is not going to go away. It’s only going to increase over time,” he said.

Fayetteville Public Works Commission Chief Executive Officer and General Manager Timothy Bryant said that the commission would be forced to spend millions more each year to ensure safe drinking water to its more than 250,000 customers.

“I would argue very strenuously that no one with any legitimacy can claim that removing over 6 million gallons of water per day isn’t a foreseeable detrimental effect on the river basin and the 900,000 downstream residents of North Carolina who depend on this water every day,” he said. “To be clear, growth in Fuquay-Varina should not come at the expense of other communities. There are multiple reasonable alternative options presented that are not only consistent with the intent and letter of North Carolina law, but also squarely place the cost burden on Fuquay-Varina and not the customers downstream of it.”

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Ken Waldroup asked that the Environmental Management Commission look into what he said are “critical technical shortcomings” associated with models presented by the town.

The commission will make the final determination on whether to grant Fuquay-Varina’s request.

If approved, the IBT would occur after 2031, according to the draft impact statement.

No announcement had been made at the time of this publication as to whether a public hearing will be held in the lower Cape Fear region.

Alliance for Cape Fear Trees is holding its largest tree giveaway yet on Friday, with more than 1,400 native trees up for the taking.

The giveaway will be held in Wilmington noon-5 p.m. Friday at Legion Stadium, 2149 Carolina Beach Road, and will continue starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, if there are remaining trees.

The nonprofit will be offering 14 species of native trees, including stock from Burton Natural Systems and heritage Southern live oaks from Penderlea Farms.

Those interested in participating in the giveaway are encouraged to view the list of available trees in advance to “plan ahead for a tree that will suit your space and needs.”

Trees will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Coastal Review cannot guarantee availability.

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 Wilmington City Council on Wednesday night unanimously adopted a resolution opposing Chemours’ proposed expansion of its Fayetteville Works plant.

The resolution asks the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “and other relevant regulatory bodies to deny any permits or approvals related to such expansion until Chemours has fully remediated existing contamination and demonstrated a sustained, transparent commitment to environmental and public health protections.”

The resolution also states that the council formally opposes the plant’s releases of ultra-short chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, into downstream drinking water intakes and asks DEQ to deny permits that would allow Chemours to continue to discharge those chemical compounds into the environment.

Chemours has applied for a permit to expand its production of vinyl ethers, a class of compounds used to create a variety of products used in a range of technologies from semiconductor chips to aviation components.

The planned expansion has drawn considerable blowback from communities downstream of the plant, which discharged PFAS directly into the Cape Fear River, groundwater, and air unbeknownst to the public for decades.

PFAS specific to the Bladen County plant has been documented in the river, which is the drinking water source for some 500,000 North Carolinians, as well as in private drinking water wells.

“These discharges have resulted in significant public health concerns, environmental degradation, and economic burdens on local governments and residents who have had to invest in costly water treatment upgrades and health monitoring,” the resolution states.

The council, “calls on Chemours to engage in meaningful dialogue with affected communities, disclose all relevant environmental data, and prioritize the health and safety of North Carolinians over corporate expansion.”

Think of it like a menu, one brimming with choices on how to slow the loss of tree cover and grow greener, healthier canopies in urban and rural communities.

Alliance for Cape Fear Trees has designed a guide offering just that, a policy resource to help local planning departments and governments, developers and community advocates shape green development.

“Code & Canopy” is 45 pages chock full of policies and practices that aim to create and maintain robust tree canopies, a core mission of the Wilmington-based nonprofit.

“Local planners, elected officials, they can look at this and see what is most applicable to their community and their community’s needs,” Alliance for Cape Fear Trees Executive Director Isabelle Shepherd said. “Cities and counties regularly update their land development codes and we plan to, piece by piece, introduce some of these ideas into our local codes and ordinances. This is a full menu of possibilities.”

The guide, which officially dropped Oct. 14, is a culmination of nearly a year of investigating codes and ordinances that shape development in the Lower Cape Fear Region, specifically Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover and Pender counties.

But Shepherd, who, with the support of the alliance’s board members and senior advisers, researched and wrote the guide, believes that what she set out to create as a local effort can be extended to other regions throughout the state.

“We wanted to make sure that it was all well-researched, but also that it was presented in a way that’s easy for the public to understand and for local governments to enact,” she said. “Fundamentally, we’re trying to make it easy for local governments to stand up for trees.”

The guide entails a variety of policies and rules that municipalities and counties can adopt to promote slow tree canopy loss, boost healthy canopy growth, and strengthen existing protections.

For example, communities may establish “tree save areas,” which require developers to preserve a percentage of undisturbed, natural areas and protect significant trees, or those that hold particular importance because of their size, age, cultural significance, or rarity, within a building site.

The city of Charlotte has such a requirement in its unified development ordinance, or UDO.

Wilmington and New Hanover County have regulations protecting certain species of mature trees, but Shepherd said the alliance would like for the city and county to include protections for all species of trees that are 24 inches in diameter at breast height or larger.

“That said, other municipalities and counties across the region do not have any protections for mature trees. That’s something that we are pressing for,” she said.

The guide suggests ways municipalities and counties can incentivize developers to preserve natural areas.

It also highlights several policies local governments can implement to protect and grow tree cover, including establishing conservation resource areas, revising performance subdivision rules, identifying high-value nature areas and strengthening zoning protections, and requiring annual training that focusing on tree protection protocols for general contractors and site supervisors.

“Code & Canopy” includes samples of resolutions municipal and county boards may adopt and letters those boards can send to the North Carolina General Assembly to advocate state legislators restore local zoning powers.

In December 2024, legislators amended Senate Bill 382, known as the Disaster Recovery Act of 2024, restricts the authority of local governments to “down-zone,” or rezone a property to reduce the density or intensity of a how a piece of land may be developed.

Alliance for Cape Fear Trees was founded 10 years ago as an advocacy organization for urban forestry depleted by coastal storms such as hurricanes, rapid development, and climate change.

The organization planted more than 3,000 native trees and distributed more than 15,000 throughout the region. It also offers educational programs and events that teach residents how to care for newly planted trees.

Since 2016, Wilmington’s tree canopy has shrunk from covering 48% of the city to about 40% today.

In unincorporated New Hanover County, more than 3,000 acres of canopy disappeared between 2014 and 2022.

Shepherd attributes those losses in what she described as a collision of climate stress and development pressure.

“Absolutely hurricanes like Florence play a major role in that, but development is also a primary driver of this loss and the costs go beyond aesthetics,” she said. “Mature forests intercept hundreds of millions of gallons of stormwater, reducing flood risk and improving water quality. Their roots stabilize soils. Their shade cool streets. When large trees and natural areas are removed without adequate replanting, the region loses vital green infrastructure.”

As part of their researcher, the alliance reached out to municipal and county planners, as well as developers who “demonstrated care toward the canopy,” for feedback.

A New Hanover County spokesperson said in an email that “Code & Canopy,” “will serve as a resource guide for the county’s Sustainability Manager to collaborate with departments in developing or updating policies that advance the county’s Strategic Plan goals for Sustainable Land Use and Environmental Stewardship.”

McKay Siegel, a partner with Chapel Hill-based development firm East West Partners, a sponsor of Alliance for Cape Fear Trees, lauded the organization for extending an invitation to developers to get their input.

“Developers don’t wake up and think about cutting down trees,” he said. “Whenever you take something from raw land to build, it’s not as though all you consider are the trees. There’s a whole lot of other factors – zoning, parking, stormwater. I think that ACFT is really doing their best to wrap their heads around some of the compromises that can be made in all the different areas, and what’s really best for the trees. I think ‘Code & Canopy’ is a good start. At least they’re giving us an opportunity to tell our side of the story, which is really neat and I think that the document reflects a lot of those conversations and hopefully it’s a good launch for the future.”

Alliance for Cape Fear Trees is hosting its first big tree giveaway of the season in Leland.

The giveaway will take place beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, at the Leland Cultural Arts Center, 1212 Magnolia Village Way. The event will end at noon or until the nonprofit organization runs out of trees to give away.

Available trees include oaks, river birches, magnolias, red maples, serviceberries, and blackgums.

All trees are hand-selected to support local wildlife, provide shade, and boost biodiversity, according to the organization.

“And these native species are champions of resilience in the Lower Cape Fear region’s climate and soil,” the organization stated.

Residents are encouraged to browse the species list in advance of the tree giveaway to decide which type of tree may be best suited for their yards.

Train volunteers and tree stewards will also be on hand to offer tips for selecting trees, planting guidance, and care instructions.

This report has been updated to correct the area code in Chemours’ well sampling request phone number.

About 14,000 additional residences in the lower Cape Fear region have been added to the list of private drinking water wells eligible for PFAS contamination sampling.

N.C. Department of Environmental Quality announced Thursday that it is requiring Chemours to expand sampling eligibility to more areas of Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover and Pender counties.

“This expansion comes after Chemours and DEQ staff completed an extensive review of existing residential well data as part of the ongoing assessment work and continued actions taken in accordance with the 2019 consent order between DEQ, Cape Fear River Watch and Chemours,” according to a DEQ release. “Current information provided by Chemours indicates that only a portion of these residences may receive their water from wells and need to be sampled.”

Residents within the newly expanded sampling area whose primary drinking water source is a private well may request well sampling by calling Chemours at 910-678-1100 or by completing the company’s online form.

Those who call are asked to live their name, phone number, email and mailing address if prompted to leave a message. The return call may come from Parsons Environment and Infrastructure, which is the authorized third-party contractor conducting the well sampling.

Newly eligible residents who previously requested sampling will be contacted soon by the third-party contractor to arrange sampling.

DEQ’s Division of Waste Management is scheduled to host a virtual public meeting at 6 p.m. Oct. 7 to provide more details about expanded sampling and answer questions.

The webinar number is 2435 548 5932 and the password is chemours (24366878 when dialing from a phone or video system).

Residents may also join the meeting by phone at +1-415-655-0003 (US toll) or +1-904-900-2303 US toll (Jacksonville), access code 243 554 85932.

The Environmental Protection Agency is hosting a public hearing next month on a proposed permit for a municipal wastewater treatment facility that discharges 1,4-dioxane into the drinking water supplies for about 1 million North Carolinians.

Oral or written comments about the federal agency’s specific objection to Asheboro Wastewater Treatment Plant’s proposed National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit will be accepted at the hearing scheduled from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. Oct. 22.

The hearing follows the EPA’s response to a ruling last year by former Chief Administrative Law Judge Donald van der Vaart that N.C. Department of Environmental Quality officials did not follow state law when they calculated discharge limits and established an enforceable water quality standard for 1,4-dioxane.

That chemical, one that cannot be removed through conventional water treatment methods, is deemed by the EPA as a likely human carcinogen.

The state has appealed the ruling.

The Asheboro Wastewater Treatment Plant has been discharging high levels of 1,4-dioxane upstream of the drinking water supply for several cities and counites, including Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties.

The hearing will be hosted both virtually and in-person at the JB and Claire Davis Corporate Training Center at Randolph Community College, 413 Industrial Park Ave., Asheboro. Doors open at 5 p.m.

Those who plan to attend in-person are encouraged to arrive early and preregister at least 72 hours before the hearing.

Virtual attendees may register online. Instructions are available on how to submit written comments during or after the hearing up until the close of the period for receiving comments. Those who attend virtually will not be able to present oral comments during the hearing.

The hearing will kick off with brief presentations by EPA officials and a neutral process facilitator. Oral comments will be limited to three minutes per person.

The agency does not guarantee that everyone who wishes to speak will get the opportunity to at the hearing, but will accept written comments from anyone who does not.

Written comments will be accepted through Oct. 31 and may be emailed to R4NPDESComments@epa.gov or mailed to US EPA, NPDES Permitting Section, Water Division, 61 Forsyth Street, SW, Atlanta, GA 30303-8960.

The North Carolina NPDES permit number is NC0026123.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

A new study detected high levels of toxic chemicals in water samples taken 2014-2016 from the Cape Fear River near Wilmington’s drinking water intake NC Policy Watch reported Wednesday.

Published this month in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, the new analysis of samples taken in 2015 show that PFAS that contain an ether molecule were found at concentrations of at least as high as 130,000 parts per trillion, or ppt, in the samples. The samples were from Lock and Dam No. 1, near the drinking water intake for the city.

Researchers also retested samples taken in 2014 85 miles upstream, near the Chemours Co.’s Fayetteville Works facility, where the contamination originated, at the Huske Lock and Dam. Total concentrations of ether compounds were 990,000 ppt.

State health and environmental officials recommend that water with levels of PFAS of any type above 70 ppt combined or above 10 ppt for a single compound, should not be consumed.

North Carolina State University and EPA researchers took the samplesbut recently retested the samples using advanced technology to more accurately measure the concentrations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in water.

N.C. State professor Detlef Knappe, graduate students Chuhui Zhang, Zachary Hopkins and James McCord, and Mark Strynar of the EPA in Research Triangle Park make up the research team. The research was partially funded by the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory.

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.