Just two years ago, here in North Carolina, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced its first-ever regulations governing levels of "forever chemicals" in drinking water.
Then-EPA Administrator Michael Regan unveiled the rules in Fayetteville, where residents had been dealing with the revelation that Chemours, a Dupont spin-off company, had been dumping PFAS, or per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, into the Cape Fear River since at least 1980.
The rules were a good first step, but a small one – and, as we said at the time, a signal that more needed to be done to stop the discharge of these dangerous chemicals and clean up the toxins that had already permeated drinking water supplies from the river and the region's groundwater.
Now the federal government is taking two giant steps backward. First, the EPA wants to rescind the 2024 rules, claiming they were improperly enacted – a claim that's false, and an action that would violate the Clean Water Act's anti-backsliding provision.
More recently, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a three-state consent decree with Chemours over PFAS pollution – a deal that blindsided North Carolina officials who are still seeking accountability for the company's pollution here.
Attorney General Jeff Jackson called the settlement "an insult to the people of eastern North Carolina." Despite the considerable harm done to North Carolinians at the hands of Chemours, North Carolina officials were not included in negotiations for the consent decree.
The proposed consent decree calls for Chemours to pay $22.5 million for violations, but not a single penny will go to North Carolina. It caps Chemours’ mitigation efforts for treating drinking water or supplying it at $90 million, but there is no minimum investment listed in the agreement, and North Carolina isn’t included. Chemours cut a sweetheart deal with the federal government, protected itself from future liability, and left North Carolinians out in the cold.
This couldn't come at a worse time: North Carolina's leaders are also failing their duty to protect our drinking water.
SPEAK UP NOW
- By Monday, July 20: Demand that the EPA keep the 2024 PFAS rules in place.
- By Wednesday, July 29: Tell the DOJ to cancel its useless consent decree with Chemours.
- Contact your state senator and representative to insist that they pass meaningful legislation to protect our drinking water.
This spring, the N.C. Environmental Management Commission (EMC) offered up "minimization" rules for 1,4 dioxane and PFAS. Instead of setting meaningful, protective and enforceable limits, these proposed rules – heavily influenced by industry – wouldn't "minimize" the discharge of these toxic chemicals or provide regulatory limits and mechanisms for accountability.
Public outcry was fierce: Thousands of North Carolinians packed public hearings and filed objections with the EMC before the public comment period ended in mid-June; we're still waiting for word on the outcome.
Meanwhile, the N.C. General Assembly skipped an opportunity to enshrine water protection in its long-overdue budget. That spending plan cut about $100 million annually from the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) budget for water infrastructure projects, monies used to provide safe drinking water and shore up water systems so they can better withstand disasters. Funding was provided for water safety studies, but the results will be kept confidential – not shared with the public, as publicly funded research ought to be.
The budget also failed to incorporate major policy provisions proposed by S1043, the Water Safety Act, regarding drinking water and discharge standards for PFAS. In the current political climate, these policies were the only hope we had to minimize toxic discharges and hold industry accountable for keeping “forever chemicals” out of our water. And yet those policies were ignored, discarded in favor of opaque studies and the continued irresponsible inaction of our legislative leaders.
The only way to get dangerous chemicals out of our drinking water is to not allow industry to discharge them in the first place. We need strong, enforceable regulations from both state and federal government.
We can make this happen by doing what we did to get the EPA to create its first PFAS rules in 2024, and what we did this spring to push back on the EMC's proposed regulations: We speak up, we fight back.
We deserve a government – for North Carolina and for our nation – that obeys its own laws, acts with common sense and common decency, and upholds its duty to protect its people by protecting the environment we live in.
The EPA's proposal to reverse its PFAS rules is open for public comment until Monday, July 20. The U.S Department of Justice is taking comment on the Chemours consent decree through Wednesday, July 29. Our legislature returns to Raleigh the week of July 27, likely to consider budget technical corrections, and could convene again for a "lame duck" session after the election.
Tell our state and federal leaders that they must fulfill their obligation to look out for our families and our communities – here and across the country.