April 8, 2020
Company now says it’s too expensive to remove PFAS compounds, including GenX, to comply with consent order.
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has rejected a groundwater cleanup plan proposed by Chemours, which would have left at least 70 square miles contaminated with the chemical GenX.
“The proposed plan is clearly deficient,” said DEQ Secretary Michael Regan in a statement released yesterday. “Chemours will not receive approval from this department until they address appropriate cleanup measures for the communities impacted by the contamination and meet the terms of the Consent Order.”
DEQ received over 1,240 public comments on the plan, most of which denounced Chemours’ plan as insufficient to meet the needs of the community and the demands of the law.
Chemours spokeswoman Lisa Randall told Policy Watch the company “feels strongly the Corrective Action Plan is robust and in full compliance with the environmental laws of North Carolina and the approved 2019 Consent Order. We are surprised and disappointed by the NCDEQ’s public statement given they have not yet provided Chemours with comment on the plan. We look forward to learning the details behind their comments.”
In a February 2019 consent order with DEQ and Cape Fear River Watch, Chemours agreed to several cleanup provisions, including removing GenX contamination to meet state groundwater standards — the lowest concentration level laboratories can measure, or as close to that “as is economically and technologically feasible.
Read DEQ Rejects Chemours’ Proposed GenX Groundwater Cleanup Plan.