NORTH CAROLINA — Nonprofits including Cape Fear River Watch are opposing Chemours’ efforts to conceal up to 21,000 documents from its lawsuit with local water utilities and governments. The groups argue the information is particularly important amid the company’s Fayetteville expansion plans, which could lead to increased PFAS air emissions.
READ MORE: Chemours attempts to block internal docs in lawsuit with local utility authorities, governments
The Southern Environmental Law Center filed a motion Monday on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch, Environmental Justice Community Action Network, and North Carolina Coastal Federation objecting to Chemours and DuPont’s attempt to seal thousands of documents related to PFAS contamination in North Carolina.
“After contaminating the drinking water, air, soil, and food for more than half-a-million North Carolinians for decades,” SELC wrote in its filing, “the companies have no right to conceal essential documents related to their own pollution, including information on sampling data, air and wastewater treatment options, toxicology, and the public’s exposure to their toxic chemicals.”
The conservation groups are seeking to intervene on the side of plaintiffs — Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, Lower Cape Fear Water & Sewer Authority, Brunswick County and Wrightsville Beach — that sued the chemical companies to recover millions in costs and damages from widespread PFAS contamination in the Cape Fear region.
As previously reported by Port City Daily, Chemours and DuPont filed a motion in February to seal internal communications used by attorneys in the suit. The chemical manufacturers maintain the documents contain competitively sensitive information related to the Fayetteville Works plant’s operations.
The conservation groups emphasized the importance of public access to the data in consideration of Chemours’ plans to expand semiconductor and electronics manufacturing at its Fayetteville Works facility. The company’s application for a Department of Environmental Quality air permit for the planned expansion is still pending.
Chemours’ permit application stated it does not anticipate its new operations will increase PFAS emissions. However, a Southern Environmental Law Center analysis found the permit application could allow the company to release up to 2,510 pounds of PFAS in the air per year. SELC found Chemours omitted GenX from its list of anticipated PFAS air emissions.
“Despite causing one of the largest public health crises in North Carolina’s history,” SELC wrote, “Chemours continues to seek permission to release — and even increase — its toxic pollution.”
Wilmington-based Clean Cape Fear’s online petition to disclose Chemours’ documents — which has 1,770 signatures as of press — similarly highlighted the chemical manufacturer’s planned enlargement.
“Two years ago, Chemours filed a permit application to expand production at Fayetteville Works,” the group wrote. “We do not believe this company has earned the right to make more PFAS at Fayetteville Works while our communities continue to see our water bills go up for a problem we didn’t cause.”
Cape Fear River Watch’s 2019 consent order with Chemours put a number of PFAS-reduction requirements on the multinational corporation, including a $100-million investment in a thermal oxidizer control system to reduce PFAS emissions.
Chemours found PFAS air emissions reduced 99% due to the consent order, but a Guardian investigation last year found the companies’ aerial discharges were up to 30 times higher than the company reported.
North Carolina, New Mexico, and New Jersey petitioned the EPA in September requesting the designation of four PFAS compounds — PFOA, PFOS, GenX, and PFNA — as hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. The Department of Environmental Quality stated decades of unregulated PFAS air emissions from Chemours and DuPont have left a hydrologic footprint in North Carolina’s groundwater.
The Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to add toxic substances to its Hazardous Air Pollutant list based on periodic reviews or citizen petitions. The EPA remains without rules for PFAS air emissions, but released a draft test method for monitoring 30 PFAS compounds in January.
It is unclear if the Trump administration will move forward on regulating airborne PFAS; the White House withdrew pending discharge rules in January and EPA administrator Lee Zeldin recently indicated he was considering weakening drinking water limits in response to Chemours and other industry group’s ongoing legal challenge.
Aaron Szabo — President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation — worked to oppose proposed federal PFAS regulation as a Chemours lobbyist from 2019 to 2023, according to his disclosures. Szabo also lobbied on chemical regulation for the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemistry Council.
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.
Want to read more from PCD? Subscribe now and then sign up for our morning newsletter, Wilmington Wire, and get the headlines delivered to your inbox every morning.
