EPA to hold public meeting on GenX, similar chemicals

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will hold a “community engagement event” in North Carolina this summer, one of the next steps in the agency’s work on chemicals such as GenX and C8.

“I asked the Administrator to come to my district because I want him to hear directly from our community and because addressing the GenX issue remains a top priority from me,” Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N..C 8, said in the release. Hudson’s district runs from Concord to the Fayetteville area.

The EPA release did not state when or where the North Carolina meeting will be held. Eastern North Carolina became known as one of the communities most impacted by PFAS chemicals last summer when the StarNews first reported GenX had been found in the Cape Fear River and was not being captured by utilities’ water filtration devices.

Bill Saffo, Wilmington’s mayor, said he hopes the event will be held in the Wilmington area, which he said is “ground zero” for GenX. Wilmington’s City Council last June passed a resolution calling on the EPA to hold a public meeting in the city, a call that has gone so far unheeded.

“We have been at the forefront of this. We have been the ones most affected by it, and I think that this community deserves to hear directly from the regulators and to have the opportunity to ask questions and get answers to those questions,” Saffo said.

Wednesday’s announcement comes a day after the conclusion of a two-day event held in New Hampshire attended by about 200 people.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in the release, “Building on the excellent event the Agency held in New Hampshire, we look forward to traveling to additional communities to hear directly from those impacted by these chemicals.”

Feedback from the community engagements will, according to the EPA, be used to craft a PFAS Management Plan that will be released later in 2018.
It is important, Saffo said, for Wilmington residents to have their influence felt in creating that management plan, particularly considering local and state governments’ responses to the GenX revelation during the past year.