A chemical maker's North Carolina plant may have broken federal law by failing to notify the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before it started manufacturing and repurposing new industrial compounds, the agency said this week.

Under pressure from Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it would move toward setting safety limits for a class of highly toxic chemicals contaminating drinking water in several states.

Groups are petitioning the state to remove the "swamp waters" classification from 15 miles of the lower Cape Fear River flowing past Wilmington.

President Donald Trump and Democrats are trading blame for the partial government shutdown but doing little substantive talking with each other, as the disruption in federal services and public employees' pay slogs into another weekend.

North Carolina's top environmental official hopes one of the country's largest chemical companies will change how it operates now that it has been hit with the largest penalty a polluter has had to pay the state.

The EPA says it has an updated and validated way to test for four additional PFAS compounds, including GenX, in drinking water.

Water samples collected Wednesday showed elevated bacteria levels that exceed state and EPA standards at these beaches.

State recreational water quality officials announced today that bacteria levels at swimming sites in Bald Head Island meet state and Environmental Protection Agency standards for swimming and other contact with the water.

The former site of a chemical company in New Hanover County is one of 22 properties no longer on the the federal Superfund's National Priorities List.