NORTH CAROLINA — Local elected officials are pushing a broad range of bills to address toxic chemical pollution in North Carolina, including legislation co-sponsored by Rep. Deb Butler (D-New Hanover) to prohibit non-essential PFAS uses and eliminate discharges in drinking water.
ALSO: Sen. Lee files PFAS bill to establish discharge limits, fund mitigation and research
Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford), Rep. Deb Butler (D-New Hanover), Rep. Mike Colvin (D-Cumberland), and Rep. Brian Cohm (D-Granville) introduced “PFAS Free NC,” H.B. 881, Wednesday. The bill contains a sweeping range of provisions to eliminate non-essential PFAS uses, study health effects of exposure, require industries to disclose and remove PFAS and 1,4-dioxane discharges, and address indirect contamination routes, such as biosolids and landfill leachate.
“I am proud to be a primary sponsor of H.B. 881 as I believe it to be the most comprehensive approach to tackling PFAS in our air, our water, our effluent and our soil,” Butler told Port City Daily. “It is a multi-faceted approach that focuses on disclosure, public notice, scientific health effects studies, and accountability.”
Butler’s bill comes amid a flurry of others from other local lawmakers in recent weeks — including Sen. Michael Lee (R-New Hanover), Rep. Ted Davis (R-New Hanover), and Rep. Frank Iler (R-Brunswick) — aimed at addressing North Carolina’s PFAS pollution.
Lee’s new bill, S.B. 666, directs state regulators to enact PFAS discharge limits and safe water standards. It also allocates over $80 million for mitigation and research.
Davis and Iler’s legislation — a reintroduced version of last year’s PFAS Polluter and Liability Act — focuses on making PFAS manufacturers cover costs incurred by public water systems to reduce contamination and meet federal maximum contaminant levels.
The North Carolina Chamber of Commerce took credit for sidelining Davis’ bill last year, as well as multiple other PFAS bills introduced by him and Butler. NC Chamber members include a number of PFAS manufacturers; Chemours and Honeywell are in the lobby group’s second highest donor category.
“They’ll oppose it again,” Davis told Port City Daily last week. “I have no doubt about that. The chamber opposes anything that has to do with protecting the environment, at least of anything I’ve ever seen. I fully anticipate that they’ll fight this so we’ll just go another round and see what happens.”
Butler and Harrison’s new bill, H.B. 881, takes further measures by prohibiting the manufacture, use and distribution of PFAS in North Carolina except for products authorized or required to contain PFAS under federal law.
Betsy Southerland, former director of the EPA’s Office of Science and Technology in the Office of Water, told Port City Daily exemptions would likely apply to a broad range of industries, such as the semiconductor sector. She viewed the provision as likely to draw controversy and prevent its passage, but expressed support for the legislation.
H.B. 881 requires the Department of Environmental Quality to begin identifying technology-based limits for PFAS dischargers by June 2026. It directs the House Environmental Review Commission to study sustainable alternatives to PFAS and other hazardous substances, as well as potential tax incentives and regulatory changes to promote their use.
“Aren’t we all tired of being a few rich people’s PFAS sacrifice zone?” Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan said. “Every step of the way these PFAS polluters resist efforts at full accountability — hiding behind the NC Chamber and fighting the justice system. Why should North Carolinians keep giving irrepressible polluters like Chemours and DuPont the right to use our land and taint our natural resources when they still haven’t provided half a million public water users with remedies and now our local beaches have toxic levels of PFAS in the seafoam?”
Butler’s bill directs multiple state agencies to carry out PFAS studies, including several focused on the Cape Fear region. It directs the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Environmental Quality to conduct an epidemiological study of populations in the Cape Fear River Basin aimed at identifying disparities in diseases associated with long-term PFAS exposure.
“[H.B. 881] involves many agencies across state government working in collaboration with our scientific community,” Butler said. “It calls for an investment of almost 100 million dollars because my fellow sponsors and I recognize this as an exigent need in North Carolina.”
It also requires DEQ to study the presence, migration, and treatment of PFAS in biosolids — solid organic matter used as fertilizer — and leachate collected from landfills. DEQ would present its findings from the study and recommendations for potential rules to the Environmental Management Commission by September 2026.
1,4-dioxane
Also included in the bill is a provision to prohibit discharges of a separate toxic compound, 1,4-dioxane, in drinking water. This comes amid recent efforts by New Hanover County commissioners and Cape Fear Public Utility Authority to push regulation of 1,4-dioxane after Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant released record pollution flowing downstream into the tri-county region.
“While the Cape Fear region has been focused largely on PFAS in recent years,” Butler said. “It is by no means the only challenge we face. 1,4-dioxane is just as scary so we addressed that in this bill as well.”
Davis similarly expressed concerns about recent 1,4-dioxane pollution and lobbying efforts to prevent its regulation; he told Port City Daily last week he would consider sponsoring legislation to limit discharges. Two weeks ago, environmentalist groups Cape Fear Watch, Haw River Assembly, and the Southern Environmental Law Center notified upstream 1,4-dioxane dischargers of their intent to sue them for contaminating almost one million North Carolinian’s drinking water supply intake.
“I’m very concerned about that chemical,” Rep. Harrison told PCD last month. “There is a player in Greensboro that is discharging it into the drinking water system. I agree with CFPUA — they shouldn’t bear the expense of cleaning up their water because we’ve got bad actors upstream dumping it into drinking water sources. It’s much cheaper to take care of these problems upstream than to clean it up downstream. And I feel firmly polluters should bear responsibility for the mess they made.”
H.B. 881 would require any permit holder that receives waste from industry — such as Publicly Owned Treatment Works facilities — ensure PFAS and 1,4-dioxane are eliminated before discharging into public waters. If a wastewater plant cannot afford filtration technology to remove the toxins, it would need to ensure its industrial customers pretreat and eliminate them. Under the bill, any applicant for a NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit would need to fully disclose any pollutant they would reasonably expect to discharge at detectable levels.
The federal government delegates the authority to issue permits that regulate pollutant dischargers to states. State agencies can set specific limits through several methods, including:
- Codified numerical limits established by legislation or administrative rulemaking
- Limits based on the use of best available technology
- “Narrative standards” that establish criteria for a water body’s conditions
In 2016, former Department of Environmental Quality assistant secretary Tom Reeder told NC Health News he believed the Department of Environmental Quality had authority to regulate 1,4-dioxane discharges.
He cited a state statute — 15A NCAC 02B.0208 — that guides North Carolina’s use of narrative standards. It requires the toxic substances in water to not exceed levels necessary to protect health.
But Chief Administrative Law Judge Donald van der Vaart — who was Reeder’s former director as DEQ secretary from 2015 to 2016 — issued a contrary opinion in September. He determined DEQ’s use of the same statute to limit Asheboro, Greensboro, and Reidsville’s 1,4-dioxane discharges was “arbitrary and capricious” because the EPA does not explicitly classify the compound as carcinogenic, but as a “likely carcinogen.”
Van der Vaart determined enforcement would require statewide numerical 1,4-dioxane limits. The Department of Environmental Quality has pushed to establish numerical PFAS and 1,4-dioxane limits for over a year, but North Carolina remains without them due to pushback from industry lobby groups and appointed officials charged with approving environmental regulations.
The Environmental Protection Agency found Van der Vaart inaccurately interpreted state and federal law in January and threatened to take over Asheboro’s permit in 90 days if limits were not reinstated. Port City Daily has repeatedly asked the EPA if it plans to take further action but has not received a response.
In the January letter, EPA warned Van der Vaart’s ruling would effectively eliminate the Department of Environmental Quality’s ability to use narrative standards, a critical component of the Clean Water Act. The Southern Environmental Law Center, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, and attorneys representing 1,4-dioxane dischargers have similarly described the judge’s September ruling as setting a broader precedent over regulation of toxic chemicals in North Carolina — including PFAS.
[Update: This article was updated to include additional comments from Rep. Butler and Rep. Harrison regarding 1,4-dioxane.]
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.
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