State agencies ask outline funding request in wake of GenX investigation

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The leaders of a pair of state agencies have sent a letter to legislators outlining their requests for more funding in the wake of the GenX investigation in southeastern North Carolina.

During his visit to Wilmington last month to discuss GenX with local leaders, Gov. Roy Cooper called for investing more resources in experts to help protect the state’s water. Today DEQ Secretary Michael Regan and DHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen sent a letter to legislators from the counties affected by GenX in the water requesting more funding.

“While we have deployed our staff experts to address the immediate challenges, long-term solutions such as rigorous water testing and scrutiny of water discharge permits will take more resources than the State of North Carolina currently maintains in our departments,” the letter reads.

The leader goes on to ask lawmakers to work on an emergency appropriation when they convene in September that would include:

Water and public health; Department of Health and Human Services, $530,839

Resources to establish a Water Health and Safety unit in the Division of Public Health that would include additional expertise specifically on water quality.

• Medical risk assessor, a physician who has experience with poisoning and environmental toxicity;
• PhD Toxicologist, to research and review available studies and formulate strategies to mitigate harmful health effects;
• Informatics/ epidemiologist, to organize data and perform high-level analysis to arrive at causation of harm;
• Health educator, to establish adequate public notifications and provide educational materials and briefings to the public.

Water quality monitoring, permitting; Department of Environmental Quality, $2,049,569

• Funding for long-term water sampling for the presence of GenX by DEQ at a cost of $14,000 per week for a full year (currently the cost is being funded by the corporation and performed by the Environmental Protection Agency and private labs on a time-limited basis).
• Staff for the Division of Water Resources: Already a backlog of wastewater permits exists, and the review time can take as long as two years. That’s too long for the public and industry. Adding experts would give us more thorough and timely review.
• Four Engineers, three Environmental Specialists, two Environmental Senior Specialists, two Hydrogeologists, two Program Consultants, a Business Technology Analyst and two Chemist III to strengthen the Division of Water Resources so it can address unregulated compounds in the water discharge permitting program and allow more frequent sampling and faster evaluation.
• These water quality scientists and experts like hydrogeologists and chemists would work with local governments to identify where contaminants occur and where they come from.
• Move the permits from paper copies to an electronic database to integrate wastewater, drinking water and groundwater information and allow for easy searches.

The legislation would also direct the Environmental Review Commission to study whether there should be an exemption to the so-called “Hardison amendment” that prevents the state from enacting stricter standards than the federal government.

According to a news release, since 2013, DEQ has seen approximately 70 positions eliminated that once supported the permitting, compliance and enforcement programs. DEQ is responsible for monitoring 38,000 miles of waterways.