CFPUA intervenes in Chemours permit appeal, seeks protective discharge limits
WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) has filed a motion to intervene in Chemour’s recent appeal of a discharge permit.
On September 15th, NCDEQ issued a final National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Treatment System (NPDES) permit for a treatment system to remove PFAS compounds in contaminated groundwater and stormwater, and water from seeps at Chemours’ Fayetteville Works chemical manufacturing site.
Because the treatment system will discharge into the Cape Fear River at an outfall above the location of CFPUA’s raw water intakes, levels of PFAS remaining after treatment affect downstream water users such as CFPUA and its customers – and the cost to operate new Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) filters at the Sweeney Water Treatment Plant.
The NPDES permit includes limits on Chemours’ discharge of certain of its PFAS compounds:
During an initial 180-day “optimization period”: 120 parts per trillion (ppt) for GenX, 100 ppt for PMPA, and 320 ppt for PFMOAA.
After the 180 “optimization period”: less than 10 ppt for GenX, 10 ppt for PMPA, and less than 20 ppt for PFMOAA. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released a health advisory level (HAL) for GenX of 10 ppt for lifetime consumption.
On October 14th, Chemours announced it was appealing the permit, saying “late changes to the permit as issued included future effluent limits that exceed the design basis of the proposed treatment system, giving rise to compliance uncertainty with the permit terms within the timeframe required.”
Chemours’ appeal announcement came just three days after CFPUA shared news that no PFAS, including Chemours’ GenX, had been detected in the most recent tests of drinking water treated at the Sweeney Water Treatment Plant.
To date, CFPUA says they have spent more than $49 million on efforts in response to Chemours’ PFAS contamination, including $43 million in project costs to construct the new GAC filters at the Sweeney Plant.
CFPUA has filed a lawsuit in federal District Court seeking to compel Chemours to pay.
“The cost to operate the new GAC filters is directly tied to the amount of PFAS our neighbor Chemours is putting in the Cape Fear River. The more PFAS Chemours sends to the river, the more it costs us to remove those PFAS from our customers’ drinking water,” CFPUA Executive Director Kenneth Waldroup said. “At least 70 percent of our most recent rate increase and our next projected rate increase is directly attributable to Chemours’ pollution. On behalf of our customers, we have filed this motion to intervene and have seat at the table so we can advocate for our community for enforcement of the permit as written.”
