CFPUA: Chemours’ corrective action plan ‘falls far short’

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - Chemours’ proposed corrective action plan to address the release of PFAS for decades into the Cape Fear River “falls far short of the actions needed to meaningfully correct the damages done,” Cape Fear Public Utility Authority said in comments submitted to state regulators Friday.

Chemours submitted the corrective action plan (CAP) in December 2019 as part of a consent order with N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and Cape Fear River Watch.

NCDEQ is accepting public comments on the CAP through April 6.

“What we find in the CAP are promises to attempt to reduce PFAS loading in the Cape Fear River sometime in the next five years or more from Chemours, a company that, along with its creator DuPont, spent almost four decades making a profit while quietly releasing these same PFAS," CFPUA wrote. "We find promises based on untested models and models built with inconsistent, incomplete data, confounding attempts at independent verification. We find several obvious, significant sources of contamination ignored or set aside because addressing them would cost too much or otherwise be too difficult for the company responsible for this contamination. We find gaps in calculations of the potential risks to human health posed by Chemours’ pollution.

"Overall, for the hundreds of thousands of people who rely on CFPUA for drinking water, we find this plan falls far short of the actions needed to meaningfully correct the damages done by Chemours and DuPont.”

In reviewing action plan, CFPUA enlisted Tetra Tech, a California-based consulting and engineering services firm, and Dr. Jamie DeWitt, a professor in the department of pharmacology and toxicology at East Carolina University.

CFPUA’s full comments and as well as supporting reports by Tetra Tech and Dr. DeWitt can be found here.