NEW HANOVER COUNTY — A long-time local firefighter is requesting a state investigation into health hazards at a Castle Hayne fire station. He alleges county officials intimidated him for raising concerns that led the International Association of Fire Fighters to request the immediate relocation of staff reporting chronic illnesses at the facility.
READ MORE: ‘Disheartening’: Firefighters association slams county response to Castle Hayne cancer concerns
Station 13, built in 1983, is in close proximity to a former Superfund hazardous waste site and the facility has faced recurrent mold contamination. Recent PFAS concentrations at the station are below advisory levels, but in 2023 testing found high PFAS levels — including PFOS concentrations of 74 parts per trillion. The county plans to move firefighters out of the building in September after a new Castle Hayne station is completed
Firefighters have brought concerns to the county but say insufficient action has been taken.
As previously reported by Port City Daily, in December the International Association of Fire Fighters sent a letter to New Hanover County urging immediate action after an informal health survey of Station 13 personnel found more than half of 23 participants suffered serious health maladies including cancer, gallbladder removals, kidney abnormalities, and liver dysfunction.
Station 13 Fire Captain Steve Hunt told Port City Daily he has a growing cyst in his left kidney. He said his doctor believes it is pressing into his adrenal gland, but has not determined the cause of the affliction.
“I started asking for help in 2021 out of concern for the health and safety of my fellow firefighters and the community we serve,” he said. “Since then, I’ve faced resistance at nearly every turn.”
Hunt — who has served the New Hanover County fire department for nearly 15 years — was commended by the International Association of Fire Fighters last year for jumping from the downtown riverwalk to save a resident who was drowning in the Cape Fear River’s powerful current.
He said his position was threatened after being called into HR meetings for alleging county officials engaged in criminal negligence of firefighter health and safety. The county denies the claim.
The county also maintains it has done everything necessary to ensure the site’s safety, including regular testing and remediation efforts, installing advanced water filtration systems, supporting firefighter participation in health studies, and constructing a new fire station to replace the current facility in September 2025.
Mold and PFAS
The county contracts with Phoenix EnviroCorp to carry out mold inspections and remediation at Station 13. Phoenix removed visible mold growth after identifying it throughout Station 13 in August, according to a Jan. 16 report. Elevated levels of toxic airborne mold — chaetomium and penicillium/asperilligus — have remained in various parts of the facility in repeated samples from August up to the most recent December testing.
“Airborne mold samples were at acceptable levels and there was no suspect mold growth observed,” Phoenix wrote. “Based on these criteria, the affected areas have passed post remediation verification.”
Station 13’s HVAC and packaged terminal air system were covered up during testing. In its most recent report, Phoenix stated it will obtain verification that a contractor has cleaned the air conditioning system; Port City Daily reached out to Phoenix to ask about Station 13’s mold issues and when the air conditioning system is expected to be cleaned but did not receive a response by press.
Hunt said mold growth and water intrusion remain an issue at the station and argued the site cannot be determined safe until the air conditioning system has been verifiably tested and cleaned. He alleges Station 13 staff’s concerns were dismissed until mold growth increased in severity and claims tests were withheld from personnel on multiple occasions.
“The repeated failure to eliminate mold contamination over more than a decade suggests a systemic issue, not an isolated occurrence,” he wrote. “Despite this, firefighters are still required to work and sleep in a known hazardous environment.”
The captain argued the county demonstrated a similar pattern on water quality.
“Leadership did not proactively monitor water quality issues but instead responded only when complaints became persistent or when outside agencies like the DEQ intervened,” Hunt wrote. “Their approach was reactive, not preventative.”
Retired deputy chief Frank Meier notified firefighters the Department of Environmental Quality advised staff not to drink in well water in a June 2023 Teams message; he shared a portion of a 56-page May 2023 PFAS lab report on Station 13 with staff.
Hunt and other firefighters requested access to the entire report, which included data from three neighborhoods near Station 13.
“I agree with Captain Hunt,” deputy chief Scott Wyland wrote in a Teams message. “I feel as though the missing pages will include the whole breakdown of what was tested. I would hope [the] County would be just as concerned and curious to what the other 52 pages had to say.”
Meier shared a response from DEQ stating the agency generally only sends results for specific locations requested by residents. He advised Hunt to request the complete report from DEQ.
After several firefighters expressed concerns about remaining information, fire chief Donnie Hall asked Meier to request the entire report. The results showed high PFAS concentrations at two locations less than a quarter mile away from Station 13.
The Department of Environmental Quality detected PFOS levels of 671 parts per trillion at 111 Hycanith Avenue and PFOS levels of 1,210 ppt at 105 Wedgewood Drive. EPA’s health advisory for the compound is 0.02 ppt. Cape Fear Public Utility Authority spokesperson Cammie Bellamy told Port City Daily water connection remains unavailable at the two addresses.
Station 13 is in close proximity to the former APAC-Castle Hayne Asphalt Plant — designated as an Inactive Hazardous Waste Site by the Department of Environmental Quality — and the former Reasor Chemical Company site at 5100 N. College Road.
The EPA classified the roughly 25-acre former Reasor property as a Superfund site in 2002 after the discovery of toxic compounds in groundwater, soil, and surface water. The EPA deemed remediation efforts satisfactory in 2018 and removed the site from its National Priorities List, but it remains subject to permanent restrictions on well installation and groundwater use.
“Seeing those PFAS levels is concerning by itself,” Cape Fear River Watch Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette told Port City Daily. “Then when you look at the concentration of other contamination sites in that area — it’s certainly concerning to see a cluster of sick firefighters.”
Burdette and Hunt spoke with Michigan State University exposure scientist and environmental epidemiologist Courtney Carignan about the issue last month. Carignan was the lead investigator for the 2022 Firefighter Turnout Gear Exposure Study that revealed high PFAS levels in participants’ blood.
“A lot of what we know about the health effects of contaminants is from investigating potential disease clusters,” she told Port City Daily. “It’s important to take concerns raised by workers or communities seriously, and if the science isn’t there to engage trusted experts.”
Carignan said it was difficult to evaluate the root cause of Station 13 firefighters’ broad-ranging health issues without further study. Some reported gastrointestinal issues she said have not been linked to PFAS, but PFAS exposure affects the immune system and reduces the body’s ability to respond to pathogens.
“Contamination issues are incredibly stressful,” she said, “Supporting people with such concerns can help a lot whereas the opposite can make things much worse.”
The complaints
The captain argues the county has failed Station 13 personnel by determining the facility safe for continued use.
Hunt sent an email to Fire Chief Donnie Hall last week calling for a state-level investigation into safety risks at Castle Hayne’s Fire Station 13 and the county’s failure to address them.
“Inconsistencies, reversals, and omissions have repeatedly eroded trust,” Hunt wrote. “The use of selective information, seemingly under the assumption that staff would not verify independently, has frequently overshadowed genuine concern for firefighter health and safety.”
In September, Hunt filed a crime tip with New Hanover County Sheriffs Office alleging criminal negligence against Hall, Health Department Director John Campbell, and former risk director Jennifer Stancil.
“I’ve contacted every link of my chain of command with no help,” he wrote in the crime tip. “My firefighters continue to get worse and they continue to ignore our plea for help. The health department was consulted by the chief, they refused to consider any of the evidence and made a decision that the firehouse was safe without a site visit or conversation to go over the concerns.”
NHCSO spokesperson Lt. Jerry Brewer said the agency determined investigating Hunt’s criminal complaint is not in its purview; he said a supervisor called Hunt to tell him he would need to make the claims in a civil lawsuit rather than as a violation of criminal law.
“Following this, I was called into a meeting where my employment and rank were threatened in an effort to deter further reporting,” Hunt wrote in a Feb. 11 email to battalion chief Michael Stophel. “I was later summoned to an HR meeting, where my position and employment were officially questioned due to my refusal to drop the issue.”
Hall denied that Hunt had been retaliated against or Station 13 concerns had been ignored. The fire chief wrote he and Assistant County Manager Lisa Wurtzbacher told Hunt submitting a crime tip was an inappropriate route for workplace safety concerns and instead recommended the Department of Labor or Department of Environmental Quality, but never threatened Hunt’s rank and employment.
“You are correct in suggesting that a systemic concern is present at the Castle Hayne Fire Station,” he wrote. “The building’s construction features and design have NHC Facilities Services to include the building on a recurring air quality testing schedule. Every periodic test that has indicated an air quality concern, has been acted on based on the remediation protocol provided by Phoenix Enviro Corp.”
Hall noted parts of the station had been closed off, such as the north side of the building, until mold testing deemed it satisfactory.
“Among the things discussed, it was important to clarify how you went about obtaining medical information from other employees,” Hall wrote in a response. “It was explained to you that no point should employees be collecting other employees’ medical information. The perception could exist since you were a supervisor (captain) that the employee was obligated to provide that information to you. Your position and employment status were not otherwise mentioned and in no way did we suggest that you drop the issue.”
The fire chief also said he wrote a December email to Hunt asking if he had been retaliated against for advocating a safe work environment and urged him to report it if so. He said Hunt indicated additional Station 13 personnel would reach out to the county health director in a face-to-face with station crews on Jan. 15, but none had yet contacted him.
Hunt responded in the email chain to Hall that he was given minimal notice for both meetings and threatened with disciplinary action if he had a scheduling conflict. He claimed Hall and Wurtzbacher cast doubt on his leadership abilities during the meetings for disagreeing with their assessment of Station 13’s safety.
“This was not an evaluation based on actions or decisions I had made as a leader but rather an attempt to frame my continued advocacy for firefighter health as a failure of perception,” he wrote in the email. “The underlying implication was that I lacked the intelligence or awareness to recognize the progress they believed had been made.”
He added that Hall described his advocacy as “very distracting” and sought to delegitimize his concerns.
Hunt said he was told in the HR meeting that reporting suspected criminal activity through any channel was within his rights. He said he learned his crime tip was explicitly blocked by NHCSO chief of operations J.A. Hart in a memo to staff stating the issue was being handled by Hall. He added he and other staff are hesitant to report health issues, deterrence, and retaliation to the county because of its past responses.
“The reality is that staff members are deeply reluctant to come forward due to fear of retaliation and an entrenched belief that any inquiry will be brushed aside,” Hunt wrote.
A county spokesperson denied Hunt’s allegations.
“New Hanover County staff have not obstructed any reports regarding Station 13,” NHC Chief Communications Officer Josh Smith wrote in an email to PCD. “Any claim that county staff retaliated against employees raising concerns is categorically false. Retaliation is a significant allegation that the county takes seriously, does not tolerate under any circumstances, and investigates immediately in accordance with established policies, procedures, and state laws.”
Hunt wrote to Stophel in an email the case needed “scrutiny beyond county-level leadership” and said he would continue to push on the state for accountability and transparency.
“Ultimately, this is not just about Station 13 — it is about whether public officials can act with impunity to suppress safety concerns and block the reporting of suspected criminal conduct,” Hunt wrote.
The county’s response
The county purchased and implemented a granular activated carbon filtration system for Station 13’s water last year; recent DEQ tests show the GAC system has reduced PFAS and other tested toxins below health advisory levels.
IAFF argues personnel’s long-term PFAS exposure preceding the filtration system compounded health risks posed by other contaminants in the area, such as mold and potential toxin exposure from the former Reasor Chemical Superfund site. The association also called for more frequent, comprehensive testing of a broader range of potential contaminants and a formal Station 13 personnel health survey with the county.
Port City Daily reached out to the IAFF to ask if it has taken any further action on the issue but did not receive a response by press.
County commissioners did not provide additional comment beyond a county spokesperson’s response:
“New Hanover County is committed to protecting the health and safety of our firefighters. As clearly outlined in a detailed fact sheet provided to County Commissioners by the County Manager’s Office in early January, the county has actively addressed environmental concerns at Station 13, including installing advanced water filtration systems, conducting regular independent mold inspections and remediation, and supporting firefighter participation in ongoing health studies. Additionally, construction of a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility to replace the existing station is already underway and will open later this year, permanently resolving facility-related concerns.”
County Attorney Jordan Smith responded to the IAFF in a January letter arguing it is difficult to determine causation of Station 13’s cluster of health problems, which could be influenced by other environmental issues faced by the broader community, or hereditary and lifestyle factors. Hall made a similar argument in his email to Hunt.
“Leadership’s stance that such illnesses ‘can correlate to many factors,’ while technically true, disregards the clear statistical anomaly, trivializing our health concerns,” Hunt responded, “Let’s not forget that we also have one death possibly linked to this matter.”
While Station 13 firefighters will move into a new facility in September, the IAFF and other firefighter associations argue relocating personnel should be an immediate priority. Scott Mullins, president of the Professional Fire Fighters and Paramedics Association of North Carolina, urged commissioners to take action at the board’s Jan. 21 meeting.
“These brave, dedicated men and women are not just employees,” he said. “They are your neighbors, constituents, your community protectors. And today they are living and working in what can only be described as a toxic dump of a firehouse.”
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