NC commission delays advancing limits on forever-chemical water pollution — again

Republican-appointed leaders of the Environmental Management Commission have twice declined to advance proposed rules that would restrict industry’s release of some “forever” chemical pollution into drinking water supplies across North Carolina .

The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality wants to regulate eight specific chemicals that are found in drinking water in North Carolina, compounds understood well enough to determine their safe exposure levels.

That could both reduce people’s exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl pollution and lower communities’ expanding cost to clean up drinking water, DEQ officials say.

The department is seeking two different regulations. Surface water rules would aim to protect drinking water supplies and wildlife by setting limits on chemicals released into rivers, creeks and other above-ground water. Groundwater rules would largely impact how much existing contamination companies will need to clean up.

Approving the surface water rule alone would cost companies and public utilities about $9.5 billion over the next 36 years, according to a fiscal analysis approved recently by the N.C. Office of State Budget and Management.

That same analysis determined that it would also produce nearly $10 billion in savings, including avoided health costs, reduced water treatment costs and preservation of property values.

DEQ wanted EMC members to vote both the groundwater and surface water standards out of its committees in May, which would have put them on the full commission’s agenda this month. They did not.

Last week the committees again decided to not vote on the rules, delaying any movement forward until at least September. To further complicate things, the groundwater committee also asked DEQ to remove five of the eight chemicals from the list of what it wants to regulate.

An increasingly frustrated DEQ Secretary Elizabeth Biser, appointed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, said the commission is stalling full committee evaluation of the new rules, a departure from previous practices.

“I hate to say that it wasn’t a huge surprise that they once again found reasons to move the goalposts and to not take action. It’s very frustrating,” Biser said.

At the end of Thursday’s full commission meeting, JD Solomon, the EMC’s chairman, stressed that he prefers a more deliberate process.

“This is rulemaking. We don’t have temporary rules to do immediately. This is a long game,” Solomon said.

Forever chemicals in North Carolina

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals don’t easily break down in the environment and can accumulate in people’s bodies. They are prized by manufacturers because of their durability and water resistance, the same traits that cause many of them to pose a threat to human health.

About 3.4 million North Carolinians drink water supplied by public water systems with forever chemical levels exceeding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency drinking water standards approved earlier this year, according to a recent DEQ analysis. Another estimated 200,000 people who drink well water face exposure levels above those the EPA set, although the federal standards do not apply to private wells .

Southeastern North Carolina residents who have been exposed to per- and polyfuloroalkyl substances and N.C. DEQ staff are growing frustrated with the delays.

Biser has grown increasingly critical of the commission in recent months, particularly over its unwillingness to move the forever chemical rules forward.

In early May, Biser sent letters to EMC members and the NC Chamber, the powerful business lobby, criticizing both for what the secretary characterized as unnecessary stalling on the rules.

“These commissioners are unable or unwilling to understand the science. They are unable or unwilling to take action that would actually protect the health and pocketbooks of North Carolinians. We know that the science is clear,” Biser said in an interview.

The rules would need to clear several other steps before becoming enforceable, even after passing out of the committees.

The EMC would need to approve them. Then they would head to public comment, be potentially changed based on feedback from interested parties, receive a final approval from the full commission and need to withstand scrutiny from the state’s Rules Review Commission. They might also need to survive legislative review.

Declining to regulate ‘a real soup’ of PFAS

After more than 70 minutes of presentations and debate at last week’s EMC Groundwater and Waste Management Committee, commissioners abruptly decided to ask DEQ to revise the regulatory impact analysis and remove five of the eight chemicals from consideration for groundwater rules.

The only chemicals the committee wants to consider during its September meeting are GenX, PFOA and PFOS. It would remove PFBS, PFNA, PFHxS, PFBA and PFHxA from consideration for a groundwater standard.

“There were eight compounds within what was proposed. The committee elected to go forward with three of those with concern about the department’s desire to relax the current regulatory structure in place for the other five,” said Joe Reardon, an EMC commissioner who chairs the groundwater committee.

Reardon, appointed by Republican Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, said that PFOA and PFOS are the only two of the eight chemicals the EPA classifies as likely carcinogens.

In groundwater, DEQ is able to regulate human-made chemicals like PFAS at the level at which they are detected unless there is a specific rule setting a different standard.

Adopting new, higher standards for those chemicals is backed by health studies and would reduce costs of complying with the rules, DEQ staff members say.

Take PFBS, for example. At current detection level of three parts per trillion, 86 of North Carolina’s 103 landfills would need to remove the chemical from their groundwater. But at DEQ’s suggested 2,000 ppt standard, only one landfill would need to remove the chemical.

EMC member Jaqueline MacDonald Gibson, chair of NC State University’s Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, argued for the full rules, citing recent well water sampling her students have conducted in Southeastern North Carolina.

PFOA, PFOS and GenX accounted for a little less than half the total PFAS MacDonald Gibson and her students found in Southeastern North Carolina wells.

“We’re really seeing a real soup. It’s really not just those three things,” said MacDonald Gibson, a Cooper appointee.

Failing to adopt the looser standards would hurt well owners who are afraid that having levels above the practical quantitative limits in their well water could impact their ability to sell their land or their property values, MacDonald Gibson said, even if research indicates a much higher level is safe.

Waiting on surface water rules, too

Earlier Wednesday, the commission’s Water Quality Committee had voted to delay until September consideration of DEQ’s proposed surface water rules for the eight chemicals

The presentation was the fourth time the committee had heard from staff on the proposed rules, although committee members declined to hear a presentation in May, saying they did not receive the impact analysis with enough time to consider it.

After voting to postpone a vote on the surface water rules to September’s meeting, Steve Keen, the committee’s chair, said, “Once you set a surface water standard, it’s extremely difficult to get the EPA to allow you to adopt something less strict.”

Adopting a rule too hastily could lead to companies paying to install treatment technology, even if the standard is ultimately proven to be unnecessary, he added.

“I’m just curious how many more meetings members are going to ask for detailed questions and revisions before we’ll actually act?” said Marion Deerhake, a committee member appointed by Cooper.

This story was produced with financial support from the Hartfield Foundation and Green South Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. If you would like to help support local journalism, please consider signing up for a digital subscription, which you can do here .