Residents in six surrounding counties of the Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant now qualify for well testing and filtration installation by the company responsible for polluting the Cape Fear River Basin with toxic forever chemicals.
Last week, some Fayetteville-area residents received stark warnings from scientists about the dangers of eating homegrown produce in areas with known PFAS water contamination.
The news was announced by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) at a community meeting in Cumberland County on Tuesday, attended by approximately 100 people. The meeting was hosted by Cumberland County and N.C. State University. Speakers included PFAS researchers from N.C. State and other universities, as well as representatives from DEQ and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
The testing range now includes residents in Hoke and Harnett Counties for the first time, as well as Spring Lake, Fort Bragg, Lumberton, Pembroke and Roseboro. Six counties neighboring the Chemours plant now have water contamination associated with the plant: Hoke, Harnett, Cumberland, Bladen, Robeson and Sampson. This adds 150,000 people who qualify for Chemours’ well testing and filtration program, as ordered by the DEQ, the agency said.
The range also expands Chemours’ suspected groundwater contamination in all directions of the plant, with some 60 miles separating endpoints such as Pembroke and the outskirts of Dunn. Residents in the expanded testing area will receive letters in the next few days with more information, DEQ representatives said.
PFAS are a group of about 15,000 toxic and pervasive chemicals colloquially referred to as “forever chemicals” for their inability to naturally break down in the environment and to build up in the human body. Exposure to PFAS is linked to a number of adverse health effects, including from kidney cancer, heart disease and reproductive issues.
PFAS researchers said on Tuesday that residents downstream of the Fayetteville Works plant on the Cape Fear River, and those surrounding it, have PFAS levels between two and four times higher than the national average.
Under the 2019 consent order with DEQ, Chemours is required to test residential wells for PFAS contamination upon DEQ’s direction. If these compounds are detected, Chemours must immediately provide affected households with bottled water or other filtration solutions.
“If you have these compounds in your well water you will immediately receive bottled water or a voucher card,” DEQ Waste Management director Michael Scott said. “You can go to your grocery store, you can go to Dollar General, buy water wherever you want to buy, they will give you a card to pay for it. Then they will offer you a filter, reverse osmosis or whole house activated carbon, depending on what the well water results show.”
Garden produce consumption warnings
Residents were also given a crucial message about the safety hazards of eating homegrown fruits and vegetables if they live within the well water testing zone. Researchers said the higher the levels of PFAS in a household’s well water, the higher the risk of eating produce grown on the land.
This was based on a recent N.C. State study that sampled 53 fruits and vegetables from five gardens within six miles of the Fayetteville Works plant. The study found that, for children, eating a handful of blueberries from a contaminated garden is like drinking a liter of water with unsafe levels of GenX, a type of PFAS. Adults can eat about four times as much.
Researchers who presented their findings on Tuesday said that for residents who do decide to eat fruits and vegetables they grow in their gardens, the best choices are grains, nuts and root vegetables, like carrots and turnips. Shoot vegetables like lettuce and kale, and fruits like tomatoes and peppers, pose the highest risk.
Testing of homegrown produce is available through private labs, researchers said, but one sample costs about $600 to test for PFAS, making it financially unfeasible for many. Growing produce in garden beds with PFAS-free soil, a greenhouse or using hydroponics would also minimize risk, the scientists said.
When asked if they would eat the produce if they lived within a 1–2 mile radius of the Chemours plant, all of the five scientists on the panel agreed: it’s not worth the risk. Still, they emphasized it was a personal decision that should depend on the extent of prior contamination levels people have been exposed to, especially if their wells had more PFAS.
“This is all about risk, right?” said Owen Duckworth, a crop and soil scientist at N.C. State. “You all probably know the numbers in your blood, the numbers in your well. It’s all more and more numbers. What I would say is … that if you have concerns about this, based on your current conditions, all those numbers you’ve been given, I would definitely limit consumption.”
What’s next?
As the presentation went on, slight tension simmered between the residents in the audience and the scientists and state agency representatives on stage.
“Why hasn’t this plant been shut down already?” one resident shouted a few rows from the back. “That’s right!” another resident chimed in.
In response to the residents, Scott emphasized the successful efforts of the consent order, such as the barrier wall keeping in groundwater PFAS from the Fayetteville Works plant, and the company’s thermal oxidizer that traps air PFAS pollution. He said updates on expanded well testing in the Lower Cape Fear region will be announced in the future. The agency is also in the process of attempting to establish final legal limits on PFAS in groundwater (interim rules are currently in effect). The final rules are expected to be voted on by the Environmental Management Commission in July, Scott said.
Researchers emphasized the value of the community’s engagement on the issue. Detlef Knappe, director of N.C. State’s Center for Environmental and Health Effects of PFAS, encouraged residents to continue their efforts to fight for clean water and hold polluters accountable.
“I also am amazed how on a Tuesday night you all came out,” Knappe said. “It’s really important that you stay engaged, do reach out to the policymakers. In the end, the reason why this happened is really a failure of our regulatory system, right? And no one person alone can change that. You all are part of this and so please stay involved. You’re all very important.”
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608. This story was made possible by donations from readers like you to CityView News Fund, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization committed to an informed democracy in Fayetteville and Cumberland County.