Commissioner Patricia Kusek reacts to CFPUA review

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — New Hanover County commissioner Patricia Kusek doesn’t think Jennifer Adams’ ties to DuPont impacted her report. But she does have other concerns.

“It was nice to have a lengthy report that did outline the timeline and the sequence of events,” Kusek said.

As GenX worries continue, CFPUA held a special meeting Thursday to review an internal investigation.

“What we wanted to do today was to look at what the CFPUA participating in this study and what they knew when and how that got disseminated or not to the public,” Kusek said.

Kusek wanted to know of any procedures that happened over the past few years and says despite this report, this should not have happened in the first place.

“I think the issue still remains is that that board was not notified early on. For some reason there was no notification on getting out in front of the public,” Kusek said.

Adams led the investigation and says “There wasn’t anything indicated in the report that indicated immediate action was needed.”

However, one thing did stick out to Commissioner Kusek at the review that she says did shock her.

“The only thing that was kind of an aha to me was when the report came out in November of last year that it not only was circulated to the regulatory agencies but also to some of the environmental partners we have and no one seemed to think there was a red flag there,” Kusek said.

She also has this message for the public.

“I think that we are all on the same team here. I think there’s so much splintering in the community and I know its because people are angry, people are concerned and they want answers and we’re all trying to find answers,” Kusek said.

One of those local organizations mentioned was the Cape Fear River Watch. Cape Fear Riverkeeper, Kemp Burdette, said “I didn’t see the article. Someone sends me one e-mail out of 120 e-mails in a day, I probably won’t look at it. It just said ‘Folks – recent CFR paper from NCSU.’ That’s it. It didn’t say anything like ’emergency’ or ‘urgent’.”