
NEW HANOVER COUNTY — The Department of Environmental Quality rescinded a permit renewal for Alpek Polyester’s Fayetteville industrial facility last year after receiving pushback related to the company’s large 1,4-dioxane and PFAS discharges. A year later, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority described the company as a top threat to local water quality.
READ MORE: CFPUA evaluating options after emergency 1,4-dioxane petition returned
Environmental Management Commissioner Robin Smith raised a motion to move forward on 1,4-dioxane numerical standards at the Jan. 9 meeting. North Carolina has the third highest concentrations of the synthetic compound — defined as a likely carcinogen by the EPA — in the country, but the state remains without codified numerical limits for discharge permits.
Chair J.D. Solomon ruled Smith’s motion out of order. He said he believed commissioners needed more time for review in consideration of a Jan. 3 EPA letter demanding the state enforce 1,4-dioxane limits and an emergency petition submitted by Cape Fear Public Utility Authority for immediate rulemaking to control the pollutant.
In the petition, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Kenneth Waldroup highlighted 1,4-dioxane discharges from Alpek Polyester — 60 miles upstream of the utility’s drinking water intake — as a top concern. He stated CFPUA found a strong correlation between the company’s discharges and water intake concentrations from July 2021 to July 2024.
“It is no secret that Alpek Polyester wishes to increase discharges,” Waldroup wrote. “Downstream communities need to see this industry discharge less 1,4-dioxane, not more.”
The Department of Environmental Quality issued a draft permit for the company in March 2023 with monthly 1,4-dioxane monitoring requirements but no discharge limits. The permit projected a major increase in wastewater discharge from 0.5 million gallons per day in 2021 to 0.76 mgd in 2026.
The Southern Environmental Law Center submitted a comment on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch opposed to the permit renewal in May 2023.
SELC noted Alpek — known as DAK Americas until 2023 — did not include information about PFAS in its permit renewal application, despite 2019 wastewater sampling showing concentrations as high as 306 parts per trillion.
“It is possible that [Alpek’s] infrequent monitoring underrepresents the full scope of 1,4-dioxane being released into the Cape Fear River,” SELC wrote. “As the Department has seen at industries and wastewater treatment plants across the state, the release of 1,4-dioxane fluctuates depending on the timing of manufacturing processes.”
The Environmental Integrity Project published a November study finding potential discrepancies between Alpek’s self-reported data in DEQ and EPA’s noncompliance and violation reports for the Fayetteville facility.
In response to community concerns, DEQ notified Alpek in June 2023 the agency intended to amend Alpek’s permit to limit 1,4-dioxane discharges to 2,112 ppb and requested the company develop a compliance schedule.
In a December 2023 response to DEQ, Alpek estimated its average 1,4-dioxane discharge level was 4,612 parts per billion. The company estimated treating discharges to meet DEQ’s proposed 1,4-dioxane standards at its Fayetteville site would cost $10 million and would not be operational until 2034.
DEQ notified Alpek its permit renewal was “issued in error” and withdrew it in February 2024. The agency stated Alpek’s 2018 permit — which does not contain 1,4-dioxane or PFAS limitations — will remain in effect as the Division of Water Resources continues to work on the new permit.
Alpek Polyester USA is a subsidiary of Mexico-based petrochemical company Alpek S.A.B., which operates over 34 plants across nine countries. The multinational firm reported almost $200 million in third quarter 2024 profits and around $500 million in annual 2023 profits.
Alpek’s U.S. subsidiary is a member of the North Carolina Manufacturers Alliance and the American Chemistry Council, both of which have lobbied in opposition to proposed 1,4-dioxane and PFAS regulations.
CFPUA is currently evaluating options after DEQ returned its petition in November. At the January meeting, Solomon said the commission expected to receive a revised petition from the utility by March.
“Communities in the Haw and Cape Fear watersheds have been exposed to toxic levels of 1,4-dioxane in their drinking water yet the state has been repeatedly denied authority to regulate dischargers,” Haw River Riverkeeper Emily Sutton told Port City Daily. “Smith’s motion to include a numeric standard for this toxin in upcoming triennial review is an attempt to give DEQ tools it needs to hold these polluters accountable, but the commission has again delayed any meaningful action.”
Under the Clean Water Act, state agencies can regulate compounds, such as PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, through “numerical” standards that set a specific, statewide limit for all dischargers or “narrative” standards generally used to regulate individual facilities.
In North Carolina, the Department of Environmental Quality must propose numerical standards to the Environmental Management Commission. The commission is a 15-member body appointed by the governor, General Assembly, and agricultural commission responsible for reviewing and approving DEQ’s proposed regulations.
After Environmental Management Commission approval, proposed regulations go through a public comment and hearing phase. The Office of Administrative Hearings then makes the final decision whether to approve permits.
The Environmental Management Agency approved DEQ’s proposed 1,4-dioxane standards in 2022, but the Rules Review Commission — a 10-member body within the Office of Administrative Hearings — rejected the proposal. The EMC sued in response, but dropped the litigation after Solomon took over as chair over a new majority last January.
Smith objected to dropping the suit. She noted the EMC already spent years gathering information about 1,4-dioxane’s toxicity to human health.
“It will take three years to get through the rulemaking process and may lead us right back to where we are,” she said at last January’s meeting.
An EMC adopted rule, 15A NCAC 2B.0208, guides the use of “narrative” standards to regulate toxic chemicals that do not have codified numerical limits. It requires the Department of Environmental Quality to use formulas for pollutant restrictions, such as estimates of cancer risk from long-term exposure to a chemical.
DEQ employed narrative standards as the basis for 1,4-dioxane conditions in Asheboro, Reidsville, and Greensboro’s permits after the wastewater facilities were identified among the state’s top sources of pollution. Chief Administrative Law Judge Donald van der Vaart rendered those permit limits “void and unenforceable” in a September ruling.
The judge stated DEQ erred by citing statutes that apply to carcinogens because EPA classifies the compound as a “likely carcinogen” and determined enforcement would require the implementation of statewide numerical limits; EPA found Van der Vaart erred in his ruling and demanded reinstatement of 1,4-dioxane regulation earlier this month.
“I think that opinion was poorly reasoned and will likely be overturned,” Commissioner Robin Smith said at the EMC meeting earlier this month. “But in the meantime — because of all the uncertainty surrounding use of the narrative standards — now more than ever we need to move forward with a numerical standard for 1,4-dioxane.”
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.
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