Senate stays quiet on GenX bill; Clean Cape Fear begs for cooperation

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — While the House came to a unanimous decision, the Senate remained tight-lipped.

The bill passed by the house gives two million dollars for technology to identify and research GenX and other contaminants. As well as money for the Department of Environmental Quality to hire more personnel. But some state senators do not see this as a productive route to take.

“I support everything we can to provide clean water to my constituents, neighbors and family. I personally have serious concerns about the legislation as it does absolutely nothing to provide clean water to our citizens and may lead people to think otherwise,” Senator Michael Lee said.

Local groups, like Clean Cape Fear, are hoping more will be done by lawmakers and are afraid they are forgetting about the people.

“It’s appalling to me that our legislators would be playing these games with clean water. This is their job. It’s their job to protect us from things like this. I have two kids. You know, we buy our water and that’s not what we should be doing,” Dana Sargent, a Clean Cape Fear member, said.

But Representative Bill Rabon says this is something which needs more attention and action than just testing.

“Stop the discharge. Find out how we get this out of our drinking water at the water treatment level. Get it out of the water, make that water safe to drink for everyone. And then how do we dispose of the material that we have removed from the water,” Rabon said.

The bill passed by the house asks for everything to be in place by June, but Senate leader Phil Berger said they are not going to discuss it until May.