TOUR CHEMOURS: A look at company’s plan to keep GenX from you

BLADEN COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — It’s been nearly 15 months since WWAY learned about GenX in the Cape Fear water supply. WWAY took part in a tour of the Chemours‘ plant in Bladen County Thursday.

Video cameras were not allowed and Chemours employees would not speak on camera, but the company did let us take photos in several areas of the facility.

Members of the Bladen County Commission and Bladen Economic Development Commission toured Chemours’ Fayetteville Works Plant to learn what the company is doing to cut GenX emissions in the air and water.

“They are very definitive about the things they’re trying to do and are going to do, and the money they are going to spend and are hoping in the next year or two it’s going to be back where it’s supposed to be,” Bladen County Commissioner Russel Priest, a democrat, said.

Since it stopped releasing wastewater into the Cape Fear River last year, Chemours says it trucks 45 to 60,000 gallons of wastewater each day to Texas.

The company says it has also been working to cut emissions of GenX into the air from the plant.

Plant Manager Brian Long says they have already cut emissions by 40 percent thus far this year and plan to do another 40 percent by the end of the year. The long-term goal within the next two years is 99 percent.

To reach that goal, Chemours says it is investing $100 million at the site.

It plans to break ground in October on a treatment facility that Long says will destroy air and water waste on site.

He says the company still needs a permit to discharge the treated wastewater into the Cape Fear River, but he believes the new technology will make the water cleaner than when they pulled it out of the river to use it in the first place.

Other features include carbon absorption scrubbers to reduce air emissions, lined basins to hold sediment until it’s treated and lined channels to keep cooling water out of the aquifer, which Chemours believes has contributed to GenX tainted water reaching the river.

The goal is to have it completely online by mid 2020.

“There is a lot of negative talk out there about the environment,” Bladen County Commissioner Arthur Bullock, a democrat, said. “They are doing a very good job of straightening that out, and they are committed to cleaning the air and water, as well.”

While most elected leaders down river have been critical of Chemours, Bladen County leaders have been publicly supportive.

Several of them thanked Chemours Thursday for investing in the community and the environment.