The Environmental Management Commission, North Carolina’s foremost authority on water quality regulations, trudged closer to adopting statewide rules on PFAS and 1,4 dioxane at its January meeting. But years of debate over these forms of pollution have stripped back the proposed regulations so far from their original forms that environmental groups called it a “step backwards” for their cause.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly called PFAS, are “forever chemicals.” They are a family of synthetic substances used in the manufacture of products like nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing and stain-resistant fabrics.
PFAS break down very slowly and remain in the bloodstream, slowly accumulating over time. While the science is still out, the Environmental Protection Agency says that exposure to certain levels of PFAS may increase the risk of cancer and other harmful health outcomes.
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Another synthetic chemical known as 1,4 dioxane is also prevalent in North Carolina’s water sources. It’s an odorless, colorless industrial solvent generated in the manufacture of plastics, laundry detergent, antifreeze and shampoo. The EPA has classified it as a “likely human carcinogen.”
For years, the Cape Fear River and some of its smaller feeder rivers upstream, which provide drinking water to millions of North Carolinians, have tested positive for high levels of these forms of pollution. Potentially harmful levels of PFAS have also been detected in fish and crops throughout the state.
Industrial manufacturers often pay municipalities to treat their waste, despite those cities not having the proper technology to remove PFAS and 1,4 dioxane. This results in large quantities of these chemicals being dumped into rivers by wastewater treatment facilities.
“If this pollution goes unchecked, there are very real effects,” Cori Bell, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said.
“(The Commission members) dragging their feet on setting enforceable limits on how much pollution can be put into the state's waterways is a missed opportunity.”
Critics say proposed pollution rules toothless
The Department of Environmental Quality has worked since 2021 to impose water quality standards for PFAS and 1,4 dioxane despite opposition from industry and cities getting paid to do the dumping.
Previous attempts to implement numeric limits of the chemicals in surface water failed to make it through the rulemaking process. On Jan. 8 the Commission voted to proceed with a version of the rules that would simply require industrial facilities to test water samples quarterly for 1,4 dioxane and three types of PFAS and create a “minimization plan” aimed at decreasing the levels of those chemicals in their discharge.
Bell called the proposed rules a “big do-nothing.”
“It doesn't go far enough because there are no limits that you can point to and say, ‘This is the number to which we need to reduce our PFAS pollution to,’” she told Carolina Public Press.
“And it also doesn't give (DEQ) any ability to enforce it if there is noncompliance.”
The Southern Environmental Law Center took the criticism a step further in a letter penned to the Commission in December, claiming that the rules are “a significant step backwards” in the state’s attempt to reduce chemical pollutants in its drinking water.
That’s because this version of the proposed rules doesn’t give DEQ any powers that it does not already have, namely the ability to require monitoring for 1,4 dioxane and PFAS and, in some cases, institute discharge limits of the chemicals via permits.
Under the proposed rules, sampling for 1,4 dioxane and the three PFAS (PFOA, PFOS and GenX) wouldn’t be completed until September 2027, and the implementation of any minimization plans wouldn’t begin until 2029.
“After nearly a decade of studying this pollution, now is not the time to spend years longer on sampling and planning,” SELC’s letter read.
Bell also said she’s worried about the requirement that state legislature signs off on the spending associated with clean-up costs, thanks to the passage of the Reins Act last year. The approval of such regulations, she said, should be left up to the experts at state agencies, not politicians.
Fiscal notes approved by the Office of State Budget and Management estimated that the water pollution regulations would incur $138 million in implementation costs to the private sector. Costs to local and state governments would be more modest — about $13 million.
“It's costly, but somebody's going to pay no matter what,” Bell said.
“So should it be the industries that are polluting and then making money off of polluting? Or should it be the average North Carolinian who just doesn't want to have PFAS in their drinking water?”
The proposed rules will enter a public comment period that will start in February and run through April, although specific dates have yet to be announced as of the publication of this article.
Commission chairman J.D. Solomon said during the meeting that he expects to receive thousands of comments, with more than one public hearing on the matter likely.
Robeson threatened with PFAS lawsuit
Meanwhile, the SELC sent Robeson County a notice of intent to sue on Jan. 14 over PFAS pollution of its water supply stemming from a 537-acre landfill in the town of St. Pauls.
The notice alleged violations of the federal Clean Water Act for discharging pollutants without a permit and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for failing to adequately manage solid waste.
The county-operated landfill has a long history of accepting waste from industries that manufacture PFAS, the notice said. In recent years, it has accepted several large quantities of solid waste from the Fayetteville Works plant in nearby Bladen County, which is a known polluter of the Cape Fear River.
The companies that operate out of the plant include DuPont and Chemours, both of which are PFAS producers.
Maia Hutt, a senior attorney at the SELC, said tap water in homes and groundwater wells near the landfill have tested positive for levels of GenX well above the safe limit. That indicated that leachate – liquid waste from the landfill – containing the chemical has seeped into the county’s groundwater and nearby tributaries of the Lumber River, separate river system to the south of the Cape Fear Basin.
An investigation by the SELC determined that the nearby Rocco Water Treatment Plant had the highest total PFAS levels in finished water of any water treatment plant in North Carolina, and the highest levels of GenX in finished water of any groundwater-based water treatment plant in the United States.
“We spent the last eight months trying to talk to the county about this issue, because we wanted to try to solve this cooperatively,” Hutt said.
“We've attended several county commissioners' meetings with our partners on the ground, we've sent several letters, and at this point, we haven't seen any meaningful progress. That's why we sent the notice of intent now.”
Neither Robeson County leaders, DuPont, nor Chemours responded to requests for comment on the allegations in the notice of intent.
SELC has tried the tactic with several other local governments linked to PFAS and 1,4 dioxane pollution, with varying responses.
CPP reported in December how the City of Burlington successfully worked with manufacturers along the Haw River to reduce their PFAS usage after receiving a notice of intent to sue.
Asheboro, just 50 miles away, has opted to fight SELC in court over the allegations that it violated the Clean Water Act by discharging PFAS and 1,4 dioxane into the Deep River, which joins the Haw downstream to form the Cape Fear. The city was also among the group of municipalities that voiced opposition to stricter water pollution regulations.
What municipalities should take away from examples like these is that it's easier and less expensive to deal with pollutants at the source rather than trying to remedy issues once they reach water treatment plants and landfills, Hutt said.
“Once (PFAS) is out there, it ends up being drinking water utilities and municipalities and counties that have to take on that extra cost,” Hutt said.
“Preventing it from getting to this point is the first and best solution."
This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.