Cumberland County’s lawsuit to make DuPont and the Chemours Company pay for the damages caused by the contamination of drinking water by a group of chemicals known as PFAS advanced a step closer to trial.
On Thursday, the N.C Court of Appeals denied an appeal from the companies and sent the case back to a lower court for a jury trial. In September, Superior Court Judge Michael O’Foghludha ruled that DuPont and Chemours caused a public nuisance with aerial emissions of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances—commonly referred to as PFAS forever chemicals—from their Fayetteville Works chemical plant on the border of Bladen and Cumberland counties. The chemicals have been found in the drinking water wells of homes and at least two public schools in the Gray’s Creek area.
O’Foghludha said in his order that the only questions left for a jury to decide is how much the companies should pay in damages and how they should abate the nuisance they caused. Chemours provides bottled water to residents with contaminated wells and installed PFAS filters in some homes.
Last summer, Cumberland County installed PFAS filters at Gray’s Creek Elementary and Alderman Road Elementary. It is spending millions of dollars to extend public water to that part of the county, and it wants Chemours and DuPont to pay for it.
“Defendants created a public health nuisance by contaminating the communities’ source of drinking water. Providing a clean source of water eliminates that threat and abates the public nuisance,” county lawyers said in a 9,638-page legal filing to the appeals court.
The state law regarding nuisance lawsuits doesn’t allow a judge to order Chemours and DuPont to pay for a new water system, attorneys for the companies said in their 4,852-page petition asking the appeals court to review O’Foghludha’s order.
“The statute permits only the abatement of the source of the nuisance; it does not empower the County to establish new water districts without regard to any abatement measures at the source of the alleged nuisance,” they said.
In a one-page order on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the appeals court denied the request to review O’Foghludha’s order.
The case has been set for trial in August, according to a county court filing. The county filed the lawsuit in March 2022.
PFAS chemicals are used for a variety of consumer, commercial, and industrial products. Research has connected PFAS to health problems, such as infertility, cancer, weakened immunity, cholesterol, and obesity, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. They have been called forever chemicals because they are slow to break down naturally in the environment.
The contamination in southern Cumberland County was found after the Wilmington Star-News reported in June 2017 that the Chemours plant discharged PFAS into the Cape Fear River. That contaminated drinking water supplies in Wilmington.
The City of Fayetteville’s Public Works Commission gets its drinking water from the Cape Fear River. Its intake is upstream of the Chemours plant, so Chemours’ discharges into the river would not have reached Fayetteville’s water supply.
However, PFAS is widespread in the environment, and has been found in water from the Fayetteville PWC. The PWC is spending $134 million to install PFAS filtration systems. The city is not involved in the county’s lawsuit against Chemours and DuPont.
DuPont changed its name to EIDP in 2023. Chemours was spun off from DuPont in 2015.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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