Legislation filed today in the house would appropriate more than $14 million to the NC Department of Environmental Quality, while strengthening environmental laws that appear targeted at Chemours, the company that has contaminated drinking water, the Cape Fear River, air and groundwater with GenX and related compounds.
House Bill 968 would also repeal the Hardison amendment, which the Republican majority reinstated in 2011 CQ. The Hardison amendment prohibits state legislators or agencies from passing stricter laws and rules than those established by the federal government.
Since the EPA has proposed rolling back regulations on coal ash, car emissions and clean water and air, the Hardison amendment could significantly hamstring North Carolina’s attempts to strengthen its own protections.
The legislation has four Democratic co-sponsors: Reps. Deb Butler of New Hanover County, Pricey Harrison of Guilford County, and Billy Richardson and Elmer Floyd, both of Cumberland County. of the co-sponsors, three are in districts affected by Chemours; Harrison’s district includes rivers and streams polluted with other emerging contaminants, like 1,4-dioxane.
The bill also contains language that would require companies to fully disclose in their environmental permits all chemicals and compounds that they discharge. Other provisions further empower the Environmental Management commission to “immediately” suspend the discharge permit of companies that allow unregulated toxic pollutants to enter the air or water.
Since the GenX crisis began a year ago, DEQ has filed notices of intent to modify or suspend Chemours’ discharge permit, as well as issued notices of violation. But no permits have actually been suspended.
The bill also establishes conditions under which the DEQ secretary and the governor could declare an emergency when it finds that a “generalized condition of water or air pollution is causing imminent danger to the health or safety of the public.” In such cases, the polluter would have to “reduce or discontinue immediately” discharge of the contaminants.
Chemours recently argued to state environmental regulators that there was no public health emergency associated with GenX; in that case, the company argued, rigorous limits on concentrations in drinking and groundwater were not warranted.
Companies would also be required to provide filtration and treatment for water supplies contaminated by illegal discharges. The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority has already spent upward of $1.7 million to reduce the amount of GenX entering Wilmington’s drinking water supply below the state’s provisional health goal of 140 parts per trillion.
The EMC could also force violators to reimburse the state for removing and halting the pollution, or face a civil penalty.
The balance would be allocated as one-time funds for scientific equipment, such as a high-resolution mass spectrometer, temporary staff to work on permit tracking and online access for the public, and upgrades to the Division of Water Resources’ Reedy Creek lab. That facility has not been upgraded in more than 25 years.As for the funding, about $9 million would be recurring, and much of it for 39 positions devoted to managing, monitoring and analyzing GenX in water and air.
Many of these funding requests had been made previously by the governor and other House lawmakers. The Senate has so far rebuffed those requests.Another $536,000 would go to the Department of Health and Human Services to fund four positions: a medical risk assessor, toxicologist, epidemiologist and a public health educator.
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