NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Sen. Michael Lee (R-New Hanover) introduced a bill directing state regulators to adopt industrial PFAS discharge limits and safe drinking water standards. Environmentalist groups that previously criticized the local senator’s PFAS legislative record broadly expressed support for his new legislation.
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Sen. Michael Lee introduced SB 666 — the 2025 Water Safety Act — last week. The bill directs the Department of Environmental Quality to develop discharge limits for commonly detected PFAS by October 2025 and enact maximum contaminant levels for seven specific compounds.
S.B. 666 would also establish a $56-million PFAS Mitigation Fund within the Department of Environmental Quality. The State Water Infrastructure Authority would use the funds for PFAS mitigation grants to public water and wastewater utilities.
Additionally, the legislation would provide $14 million to the NC Collaboratory to support research for PFAS health impacts, remediation, and detection methods. Lee helped establish the organization, which coordinates with state universities and governments to facilitate research that informs the state’s policy-making process.
Regulated entities would need to install filtration technology, conduct source identification and minimization plans, and cease feasible discharges to meet DEQ’s limits by the end of a three year compliance schedule starting no later than January 2026. State regulators would coordinate with the NC Collaboratory for technical assistance on treatment technologies used by permitted industrial dischargers, develop guidance on optimal treatment for different sectors, and assess cost-effective reduction strategies.
Port City Daily reached out to Lee to ask about the legislation but he was unavailable for comment by press.
“We support Senate Bill 666,” Southern Environmental Law Center general counsel Brooks Rainey Pearson said Wednesday. “We would love to see it move and look forward to conversations with the bill sponsors on some language that we think would make the bill stronger and more protective.”
Lee took over as Senate Majority Leader this week, giving him new influence as the third highest ranking member of the General Assembly. The senator has introduced multiple PFAS bills in recent years. He played a leading role appropriating funds for PFAS mitigation in local infrastructure, evaluating PFAS testing and treatment technologies, and providing around $50 million to fund academic research through the NC Collaboratory.
However, while environmentalist groups praised Lee’s past efforts to fund PFAS research, they’ve broadly criticized the senator’s past PFAS bills. Unlike S.B. 666, earlier renditions of the annual Water Safety Act did not include industrial PFAS discharge limits.
“Ultimately, this bill is a good start, but it can and should be strengthened,” Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan said. “We are tired of being a PFAS sacrifice zone while upstream polluters continue to profit.”
North Carolina remains without codified state PFAS standards eight years after former StarNews reporter Vaughn Hagerty broke the story revealing high PFAS concentrations in the Cape Fear River in 2017.
Other local elected officials — including Rep. Ted Davis (R-New Hanover), Rep. Deb Butler (D-New Hanover), and Rep. Frank Iler (R-Brunswick) — have repeatedly introduced legislation to establish discharge limits and polluter liability in recent years. None have passed amid lobbying push back from industry groups, including the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce and North Carolina Manufacturers Alliance. Davis, Iler, Rep. Diane Wheatley (R-Cumberland), and House minority leader Rep. Reives (D-Chatham) once again introduced H.B. 569 — the PFAS Pollution and Polluter Liability bill — last week.
PCD asked the lobby groups — both of which include Chemours and DuPont as members — if they have a position on Lee’s new bill but did not receive a response by press. The NC Manufacturers Alliance lobbied heavily on Lee’s 2018 Safe Drinking Water bill, which included the group’s requested change to narrow compounds eligible for testing.
Amid faltering legislative initiatives, the Department of Environmental Quality has pushed to enact codified PFAS limits through the administrative rulemaking process. The agency’s efforts have been stalled for over a year by the Environmental Management Commission.
The EMC is a 15-member body appointed by the governor, General Assembly leaders, and the agricultural commissioner. It is charged with reviewing and enacting rules for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. The NC Chamber has similarly lobbied its members to delay regulatory action.
The Environmental Management Commission is seeking to implement monitoring and minimization plans for both PFAS and 1,4-dioxane rather than enforceable limits. Critics, including Cape Fear River Watch and the Southern Environmental Law Center, argue the plan is “worse than nothing” because it would provide long-term liability protection for polluters.
Lee’s new legislation would override the EMC’s delays on PFAS water standards by requiring the commission to enact temporary and permanent PFAS rules used in National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.
The bill would also codify PFAS drinking water requirements for utilities at the state level. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency announced first-time legally enforceable maximum contaminant levels (MCL) for six types of PFAS with a five-year compliance schedule, but industry groups and Senate Environment and Public Works chair Shelley Moore Capito are pushing Trump’s EPA administrator Lee Zeldin to weaken the rules. They include:
- PFOA 4.0 parts per trillion (ppt)
- PFOS 4.0ppt
- GenX chemicals 10ppt
- PFNA 10ppt
- PFHxS 10ppt
- Mixtures of GenX, PFNA, PFHxS, and PFBS meeting a hazard index standard of 1
Lee’s new bill includes an additional limit of 10 ppt for PFBS, a PFAS compound commonly produced as a byproduct of semiconductor manufacturing. This comes amid a surge of industrial development from known PFAS users anticipated to impact the Cape Fear watershed, including chipmaker Wolfspeed’s Silver City facility, Vinfast’s electric vehicle plant in Moncure, Toyota Battery Manufacturing in Liberty, and aircraft manufacturer Boom Supersonic in Greensboro.
“It’s good to see Sen. Lee include a maximum contaminant level for PFBS at 10 ppt,” Donovan said. “We know PFBS is the predominant forever chemical showing up in semiconductor waste streams. If semiconductor manufacturing is going to move to North Carolina it is essential our state regulators and lawmakers ensure industry pays to control its waste tightly at the production site and not push the burden on taxpayers.”
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.
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