EPA study to determine health risk of compound being emitted by Chemours

Residents who live near the Chemours plant south of Fayetteville that has been discharging a potential carcinogen into the water supply for years could know by mid-winter of the possible health threat, officials said Tuesday.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is conducting a scientific study to evaluate the "toxicity" of the GenX compound that has been emitted for years from the Chemours plant, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told officials at a roundtable discussion in Fayetteville on Tuesday.

There are more than 600 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known by the acronym of "PFAS" compounds that have been produced over the last two decades in America, he said.

At the Chemours plant, that particular strain of the chemical is used in the production of a Teflon product.

But there are many other products that are manufactured throughout the country with different variations of the PFAS compound, Wheeler said.

Chemours plant officials have said that the levels of GenX found in wells near the plant have not posed a health risk. The company has been providing bottled water and water filtration systems to some people near the plant.

"We can't use the same technologies to detect it because each (PFAS) is different," Wheeler said in a news conference on the first floor of the Systel building on Tuesday morning. "We cannot use the same disposal techniques to dispose of all forms of PFAS, so we have been working hard on new detection methodology. And we're working hard on new methodologies to destroy PFAS once it is found. We also are aggressively looking to see where PFAS is a problem.''

He said the EPA is looking at whether there are any more hotspots of the compound in other areas of the state.

"So far, we haven't found any additional ones, but we are also looking across the country," he said.

Congressman Richard Hudson invited Wheeler to talk to Cumberland County officials in a conference room of his office in the Systel building.

He urged the EPA to complete a final toxicity assessment of GenX.

"I'm the voice of the community, and I've worked hard for years to try and get some certainty and some understanding of GenX and do everything we can to clean up this chemical," Hudson said.

Hudson said there are people in the community who are scared about the possible health risk of GenX in their water supply. "Their neighbors have cancer," he said. "They don't know if it's caused by GenX. They don't know if it's going to impact their children. They don't know if it's impacting the air they breathe, the water they drink or the food they eat. People are really worried, and until we can get a final toxicity report from the EPA, we truly aren't going to know the extent of this chemical and what it is going to take to clean it up."

After the roundtable discussion, state Rep. John Szoka, who represents the Grays Creek area by the plant, said one of his biggest areas of concern and unknown is the toxicity of GenX, a compound that is being emitted from the Chemours plant.

"We have had a lot of studies about that but nothing conclusive," he said. "We need answers as to how toxic GenX is. Is it toxic? What does it do to people? What does it do to livestock? What are the long-term effects?"

Szoka said Wheeler assured officials in the roundtable that the study on the toxicity of GenX will be released by mid-winter.

"I'm looking forward to that with great anticipation because we need answers to not only what is it really doing to us, not only with the groundwater but also downstream — the Cape Fear Water Authority down in Wilmington," Szoka said. "Once we have those answers that are confirmed by science, I think we'll be in a much better position to aggressively move forward to do whatever else we need to do to clean up what is out there."

Cumberland County Board of Commissioners' Chairman Marshall Faircloth praised Wheeler for taking the time to come to Fayetteville and talk to local officials.

"This has been a very interesting discussion we had upstairs," he said at the news conference. "It has been very productive, and we look forward from moving on from here and cooperating and mitigation and a solution to this problem in our county."'

Wheeler said in the news conference that his agency is going to try and help the county get some federal grant money to pay for the $10.5 million the county has agreed to spend in property tax money to install a new drinking water system in the Gray's Creek area.

"We are going to take a hard look and see if there are any (programs) the county would qualify for to provide additional assistance," he said.

He said the state is using its enforcement authority to ensure that those wells affected by the Chemours plant are being cleaned up. "As far as cleaning up the wells and cleaning up the contamination, the state is taking the lead on enforcement, and we are assisting the state with technical assistance," he said.

Wheeler said the EPA is taking swift action to protect residents who live near the Chemours plant.

"They continue to get bottled water to make sure they are not drinking contaminated water," Wheeler said. "And again, the state is taking the lead. The state is moved fairly quickly on the enforcement side. These (PFAS) chemicals have been around for over 50 years. We have been working very aggressively under the Trump administration over the last two years to provide technical assistance to the state and taking our own enforcement action with the notice of violation we issued last year (on Chemours plant)."

Hudson is running for his congressional seat in a hotly contested race against Pat Timmons-Goodson, who served as an associate justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court.

In a prepared statement, she said that the Trump administration has not helped with cleanups like those at the Chemours plant. She said that "the bottom line is that every North Carolinian deserves unquestioned access to clean water."

"Yet for some time the EPA has been understaffed and under-resourced by the current administration," she said. "PFAS and other chemicals that can tarnish our water and hurt our community must be closely monitored and polluters must be held accountable. I do hope something beneficial and productive comes of this roundtable and that it's not just a moment where our elected officials play politics on such an important issue."

She added that as a vice-chair on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, it made recommendations "and studied just how devastating of an impact contaminated water can have on our communities - especially communities of color and folks who are living paycheck to paycheck. If elected to serve this community, ensuring polluters are held accountable and protecting our clean air and water will be a top priority."

Beth Markesino, the founder of North Carolina Stop GenX, said Hudson's event has a ring of politics to it. She said she's seen elected officials in the past call these kinds of news conferences for political gain but then the people who live near and downtsream from the Chemours plant still need clean drinking water.

"Tomorrow will mark 1,174 days since we learned of our GenX contamination in the downstream communities," she said. "We still have not received any form of relief. The consent order gives relief to the residents around the Chemours plant with bottled water and Granulated activated carbon systems or reverse osmosis units. Yet the downstream communities go without. Our communities have the highest levels of PFAS in the country. Our friends and neighbors are without jobs due to the coronavirus, and can not afford to buy bottled water and pay for contaminated water as well. We are worried about long term exposure of a chemical cocktail of PFAS."