North Carolina To Chemours Co.: Stop Polluting Our Drinking Water

RALEIGH, NC — For decades, Chemours Co. has dumped wastewater into the Cape Fear River from its chemical plant near Fayetteville, water that contains the potentially harmful contaminant GenX, according to North Carolina's Department of Environmental Quality.

Now, the state is taking actions to stop the dumping of wastewater into the river, which is the main source of the water utility serving about 200,000 people in and around Wilmington, Delaware about 100 miles downstream of the Chemours plant.

The state environmental agency said it gave Chemours Co. a required 60-day notice before suspending a key permit needed by its chemical plant that employs nearly 1,000 workers. The Fortune 500 company can't release any wastewater into the Cape Fear River without the permit. It's not clear whether losing the discharge permit would force the plant's shutdown. (For more information on this and other local, subscribe to the Raleigh Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. You can also subscribe to the Across North Carolina site for state news.)

A Chemours spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

The Department of Environmental Quality notified Chemours that it's taking action because the Wilmington-based company didn't adequately disclose releases of GenX, an unregulated and little-studied compound used to make Teflon.

Only after a North Carolina State University researcher's findings were publicized in June by news organizations did Chemours inform the state agency that GenX byproducts had been discharged into the river for years on end, DEQ said in a letter to the company Tuesday.

Also Tuesday, Attorney General Josh Stein's office began seeking a state court order to stop the discharges.
Federal prosecutors last month issued a subpoena demanding documents, research and monitoring data from the state agency as they investigate Chemours' chemical releases.

GenX has been used since 2009 to make Teflon and other non-stick products, replacing the suspected carcinogen PFOA. There are no federal health standards for GenX. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies it as an "emerging contaminant" to be studied.

DuPont spun off Chemours two years ago. In February, DuPont and Chemours agreed to pay nearly $671 million to settle 3,500 lawsuits related to the release of PFOA from a Parkersburg, West Virginia, plant more than a decade ago. That was two months after a federal jury determined DuPont should pay $2 million to an Ohio man who says he got testicular cancer because of the company's negligence over PFOA.

GenX is part of a broader problem of chemicals deployed into industrial production before their risks are clear. For example, researchers are increasingly finding a likely human carcinogen called 1,4-dioxane in water supplies in North Carolina and dozens of other states.

By EMERY P. DALESIO, Associated Press

Photo credit: Brian Stansberry