The city of Wilmington, New Hanover County and the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority all unanimously passed formal resolutions in November in opposition to Chemours’ plans to increase production at its plant in Fayetteville.
Local officials cite ongoing public health concerns about the release of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, as well as what they say is a historic lack of accountability by the company.
PFAS is a class of chemicals known as “forever chemicals” – so-called because of their resistance to breaking down in the environment and in people. The health problems the chemicals have been linked to by the EPA, the National Institutes of Health and university researchers include cancer, liver disease, kidney disease and decreased immunity.
“We think these resolutions are a clear message to the state that we expect you as the permit issuer to do your job and to keep the people of North Carolina safe,” said Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette of Cape Fear River Watch.
The resolutions come as the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality considers Chemours’ request to ramp up output of its fluorinated vinyl ethers, chemicals relied upon by the aerospace, automotive and semiconductor industries. The move would almost double production in one of its processing facilities on Chemours’ 2,000-acre Fayetteville Works site, while creating a 35 to 40% increase in another, according to an Aug. 14 filing by Chemours.
“This is an important one,” commissioner Rob Zapple said at a recent New Hanover County Board of Commissioners’ meeting before reading the county’s resolution, which included a call for independent data that confirms expansion won’t come with additional environmental impacts.
Chemours officials have said the company has its proprietary GenX chemical manufacturing process under control and also seeks a related National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit renewal.
The Wilmington City Council approved a one-page resolution Nov. 5 to oppose air and water permit requests by the chemical maker, a spinoff of DuPont, citing a decades-long history of releasing PFAS.
The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority board followed with a resolution a week later.
Jess Loizeaux, a Chemours spokesperson who responds to crisis, policy and advocacy matters, challenged recent assertions that the expansion would increase PFAS emissions by over a ton per year. She said that the upgrades to air filtration associated with the expansion – touted as a 99.9% capture solution – will actually result in net air quality improvements.
Loizeaux said, “It seems counterintuitive to oppose a permit application that would ultimately reduce Fayetteville Works’ site-wide PFAS air emissions by an additional 15% beyond the significant reductions already achieved in recent years, despite an increase in production.”
But opponents noted that nothing would bind Chemours to such reductions, should the company fall short.
And critics like Burdette are skeptical of any reduction claims.
He noted that the state mandated in September that Chemours widen its review of possible well contaminations to 14,000 additional residences in New Hanover, Brunswick, Columbus and Pender counties. Polluted air can potentially foul groundwater over distances due to wind currents and rainfall cycles, state researchers say.
“One-tenth of the state of North Carolina’s counties have now been found to have PFAS contamination in groundwater that is tied specifically and unquestionably to the Chemours facilities,” Burdette said.
Airborne contamination aside, Burdette contends that Chemours is still directly “contaminating the water that half a million people downstream drink.” He said he knows because he regularly boats to the plant to collect samples, which he takes to N.C. State University for testing.
According to Burdette, PFAS chemicals are still seeping into the groundwater outside the plant, despite a 2019 North Carolina consent order to solve the problem that included Chemours building a mile-long underground barrier wall, and that short-chain PFAS levels are still “sky high” in treated discharge of the groundwater, despite a 2023 EPA compliance order.
“Nobody here thinks that our drinking water is worth more profits for them,” Burdette said.
The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which provides potable water to Wilmington, New Hanover County and the town of Wrightsville Beach, resolved to oppose the expansion to “safeguard the public health” and emphasized the exorbitant cost it has already shouldered to do so.
CFPUA had to spend $43 million to build a granular activated carbon filtration system to remediate PFAS. The authority spends an additional $5 million each year to operate the filters. The Sweeney Water Treatment Plant improvements came online in October 2022.
Cammie Bellamy, public information officer for the authority, said she now feels safe drinking the treated water, which reduces the parts per trillion to levels the EPA considers safe. But the cost of that comfort, estimated now at $90 million, including legal fees, has been inappropriately passed on to the public, she said.
“To date, Chemours has not stepped up to take responsibility for contamination and the costs that they have passed along to CFPUA and our ratepayers,” Bellamy said.
But the company argues it has embraced its responsibility. The state began formal investigations into GenX contamination of the Cape Fear River in 2017.
“Chemours has taken a broad and unprecedented set of actions,” Loizeaux said, “including investing over $400 million to reduce PFAS discharges from its Fayetteville Works site in North Carolina.”
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