NCDEQ collects water samples to test for Genx

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — The Cape Fear River is getting a lot of attention.

Two scientists who work for the Department of Environmental Quality came to the Sweeney Water Treatment Plant to collect samples of water to test for GenX.

“The teams with the Department of Environmental Quality have been collecting water quality samples on the lower Cape Fear and they collect those in half liter containers, and what there doing is collecting at each of the sample locations,” NCDEQ Communications Director Jamie Kritzer said.

It only took a couple of minutes to collect the water, but finding out what’s in it will take much longer.

“The analysis of that, of those samples does take several weeks because there’s a lot of scientific analysis and what not that has to, that all these samples have to undergo,” Kritzer said.

The scientists gathered samples from the water that has already been filtered. The same water that people are drinking and using.

“The places we are sampling are a variety of locations, so that we can get the best available data and kind of draw some more meaningful conclusions from the water samples that we’re collecting,” Kritzer said.

Kritzer said they will send two half liter containers to a lab in Colorado and two containers to a lab in Raleigh.

“We expect to make the results public from the samples we sent to the Colorado lab within 4 weeks and we’re still trying to work out a timeline for the lab results we’re sending to the EPA lab in the Research Triangle Park,” Kritzer said.