As another winter comes to a close, the season brought with it a new host of challenges for local residents whose drinking water and environment have been heavily contaminated with harmful “forever chemicals” known as PFAS.
For decades, Chemours and its predecessor, DuPont, dumped PFAS, including GenX, into the Cape Fear River, contaminating the groundwater of hundreds of residential wells surrounding the plant.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of toxic and pervasive chemicals colloquially referred to as forever chemicals for their inability to naturally break down in the environment and human body. Exposure to the chemicals has been linked to a wide variety of health conditions, including various cancers, reproductive and developmental problems, thyroid problems and kidney and liver diseases.
Experts from the United Nations recently declared the decades-long contamination of the Cape Fear region a human rights violation.
But even as the global spotlight on local PFAS contamination has increased, with major media outlets reporting on the situation in Fayetteville and lawsuits piling up against Chemours and DuPont, many Cumberland County families report ongoing struggles to access clean water on a day-to-day basis.
Cold weather this winter raised new concerns for local residents with well-water filtration systems, which are court-ordered and paid for by Chemours under the 2019 consent order.
Known as Granulated Activated Carbon (GAC) filters, the water filters are attached to wells owned by local residents whose water has passed the state’s PFAS and GenX contamination threshold. Chemours also installs reverse osmosis filters on sinks for qualifying households.
The groundwater well GACs were first implemented in a 2018 pilot program that included six households in Cumberland County near the Chemours plant. The number of households qualifying for GACs in the county has increased with the sampling area, which is currently about 10 miles south and 25 miles north of the plant.
Well water for more than 10,000 residents in Cumberland, Bladen, Sampson and Robeson counties has been sampled for GAC qualification as of December 2023, according to the N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ). Of these, at least 2,148 qualified for GAC systems or public water connections provided by Chemours, with the highest concentration of qualifying households located in the northwestern part of Cumberland County, according to NCDEQ maps.
GAC installation and groundwater testing is also ongoing in private wells in the lower Cape Fear Region, with thousands of households in New Hanover, Brunswick, Columbus and Pender counties undergoing well sampling since February 2022. Chemours hires contracting companies to install and maintain the GACs and test water levels.
Photos of the filter systems shared on social media in late January show the GACs housed in outdoor plastic sheds with little insulation from the elements — which residents said has caused some of their pipes or the systems themselves to freeze and stop working.
Sara Ruble, a resident who qualified for a GAC system, said in an email on Jan. 23 that her family’s water supply was cut off when her water tanks froze.
“The current issue I’m having is a lack of insulation in this plastic hut has led to my entire water system freezing over this very cold weekend,” Ruble told CityView. “The remedy apparently was supposed to be a heat lamp but unfortunately that has done nothing nor does it appear to be up to safety standards that were set forth. From my understanding, these buildings were to be insulated but mine most definitely is not and my family was without water."
Several residents have also reported safety and functionality issues with the heat lamps installed in the GAC sheds by contractors during freezing temperatures this January. The lamps hang from extension cords in the sheds and are angled toward the GAC tanks to prevent the filter components and pipes from freezing.
Jamie White, a lead organizer of Gray’s Creek Residents United Against PFAS in Our Wells and Rivers, said her lamp didn’t even turn on after being installed because of a sensor issue.
“When we had that very short cold snap, they came and installed the heat lamps,” White said. “They plugged them into the extension cords and just hooked them to one of the pipes. It never even worked. It was never even turned on in my shed.”
Photos of the heat lamps shared with CityView and on social media show the lamps are plugged into extension cords that are not connected to grounded electrical sockets, presenting risks for electric shocks and fire hazards in case of pipe bursting. Ruble said she ultimately decided to unplug the heat lamp on Jan. 23., citing “the unfortunate safety issue this poses since didn’t resolve issues anyway.”
In a statement to CityView, Chemours denied any electrical or installation issues with GAC systems.
“All of the GAC systems provided by Chemours are installed in an enclosure and have a layer of protection from the elements,” a Chemours spokesperson said on March 1. “Any heat lamps installed with Chemours’ knowledge were installed by the GAC vendor’s team of experienced technicians with safety top of mind.”
In the wake of issues with GACs during the winter months, residents have also questioned whether Chemours is complying with stipulations regarding mandatory electrical inspections of the systems as laid out in the 2019 consent order.
“Not one word of the electrical connection requirements was followed for my GAC install,” Gray’s Creek resident and advocate Arthur Bell said in a comment on a post in a public Facebook group where Gray’s Creek residents discussed their GAC issues.
Residents alleged Chemours contractors had also been negligent about the winter issues with GACs until several of them had alerted the company of their problems. Several residents said they also contacted local and state administrators to notify them of the GAC electrical and insulation problems.
“The inspectors have never been [to examine the GACs] until we started pitching a fit here lately,” White said.
The maintenance and oversight issues are not surprising for White, who said her entire well collapsed this past summer; she claimed this was a result of Chemours contractors’ negligence when installing a booster to her well.
“We had really low water pressure and they came out and they hooked up a booster to it,” White said. “And the supervisor let the booster run about 20 minutes before he realized that the booster was only sucking air, and he collapsed the bottom of my well.”
White first informed CityView of the collapse in an interview in July 2023. She said her well is still collapsed and Chemours has not yet dug a new one, despite having alerted the N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality on multiple occasions about the issues.
“I still have not had a response from anyone in your department to discuss my well that Kinetico collapsed,” White wrote in a Jan. 24 email to NCDEQ. “These safety issues have to be fixed immediately and they need to have a new well dug on my property since they have caused all the problems.”
In response, NCDEQ Division of Waste Management Director Micheal Scott said he had “asked Chemours about the status of your well based on your concerns with it collapsing,” encouraging White to update NCDEQ on her situation.
Mike Watters, founder of Gray’s Creek Residents Against PFAS, said in an email to Scott and Andy Roberts, the Cumberland County Code Enforcement Manager, that the heat lamps plugged into extension cords presented “a serious safety issue” in the newer plastic GAC shelters installed by contracting company Kinetico. (White also said that the new sheds are not insulated like the first sheds that were installed starting in 2018.)
“After Kinetico took over the installs and switched from the 6x8 Handi-House to the plastic shed it appears that the adherence to electrical requirements and following code went out the window,” Watters said.
Those requirements, as outlined in Chemours’ compliance plan, include as stipulations the installation of heaters, frequent inspections by licensed electricians, compliance with county electrical codes and permitting requirements and the installation and testing of ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) outlets.
As of March, Watters said he has not heard back from either the county or state about the issue.
Watters added that he was aware of 15 GACs in sheds that had frozen this winter.
While this winter, a relatively mild one, may be wrapping up in Fayetteville, White believes future winters with more extreme temperatures could further challenge the systems.
“We have not had one in a while, so we are due,” White said, “and it's going to be a doozy when it gets here.”
Chemours said in response to CityView’s query it did “not anticipate a disruption to GAC efficiency due to weather” and encouraged concerned residents to contact them about problems.
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608.
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