Being on the fence within this space is never a preferred position, but it’s where we find ourselves when looking at the legal rift between Chemours and the Environmental Protection Agency. We will apologize up front.

The Chemours Company is suing the EPA for its recent health advisory for GenX, one of the contaminants discharged for years into the Cape Fear River from the company’s plant that straddles the Bladen-Cumberland counties border.

The suit filed earlier this month in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia specifically names EPA Administrator Michael Regan, who is also former secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. Chemours also warned it might take legal action against the EPA after the agency’s assistant administrator for water, Radhika Fox, announced the final health advisory June 15.

The EPA’s final health advisory for GenX is 10 parts per trillion for perfluorobutane sulfonic acid — a number that has been shrunk drastically from the EPA’s health advisory provisional drinking water health goal of 140 ppt in 2018.

On the one hand, it appears the requirements the EPA sends for Chemours to adhere to are continuously changing and becoming more rigid, which doesn’t seem fair to one of Bladen County’s largest employers. On the other hand, we are grateful that the EPA continues to study the effects of GenX in an effort to improve the safety of our groundwater.

We can understand a Chemours statement that claims the EPA failed to use the best available science when making its determination, but we can also see the merits in a statement by Cape Fear River Watch Executive Director Dana Sargent, who said publicly that “this is going to be seriously infuriating for the community to hear this news and to still be looking at commercials and this nonsense saying (Chemours) are good neighbors. I think Chemours needs to recognize that they can’t continue to claim that they’re good neighbors while suing the nation’s regulatory agency based on their assessment of the GenX toxicity level, which was done under strict calculations based on available science on the health impacts of GenX. The science is science.”

Already 5 years old, this struggle between Chemours, the public along the Cape Fear River between Fayetteville and Wilmington, and the EPA doesn’t appear anywhere near a conclusion. And the recent lawsuit by Chemours will only serve to extend that.

If there is one area we will stand firmly on is that a consent order between DEQ, Cape Fear River Watch and Chemours requires the company to provide whole house filtration for households that rely on private water wells where GenX concentrations are above the health advisory. That is a must.

For now, we will watch closely the jockeying for a workable and safe understanding between Chemours, the public and the EPA.

“Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.”

Call: 910-862-4163 Mail: 207 E. Broad St. Elizabethtown, NC 28337