PFAS is a water problem? Here’s why NC wants EPA to also treat it as air pollution.

North Carolina and two other states are asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air emissions of four forever chemicals.

On Thursday, the states sent the EPA a petition asking it to classify GenX, PFNA, PFOA and PFOS as hazardous air pollutants.

“Adding these forever chemicals to the list of regulated pollutants addresses a gap in our regulatory authority and makes it possible to tackle a critical part of the PFAS life cycle: air emissions,” N.C. Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser said in a written statement. DEQ was joined by environmental agencies from New Jersey and New Mexico.

The states said air regulations are needed to control industrial emissions of PFAS. But they also pointed to the incineration associated with new federal rules requiring removal of forever chemicals from drinking water and polluted sites.

Man-made PFAS are known as forever chemicals because of their durability. The chemicals also tend to move easily through water, meaning that once emitted from a stack they can easily find their way into ground- and surface-water supplies.

North Carolina has for years grappled with the impacts of PFAS from air emissions around Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant on the Cape Fear River. State environmental regulators have linked high levels of PFAS found in well water around the facility with pollution Chemours and predecessor DuPont released into the air, while scientists have measured elevated levels of PFAS in the air around the plant.

Federal regulations requiring companies to capture and destroy PFAS emissions before they are released into the environment are significantly more effective, the states argue in the petition, than allowing the substances to be released and later filtering them from water sources, as is happening around the Fayetteville Works site.

Chemours and DEQ have identified 7,310 wells around the facility that are eligible for filtration because of elevated PFAS levels written into a 2019 consent order that also included environmental nonprofit Cape Fear River Watch. Another 5,106 wells were sampled and contained levels that did not require action.

The EPA has classified 188 chemicals as hazardous air pollutants, including benzene, mercury and methylene chloride. Any facility that releases 10 tons of a single hazardous air pollutant or 25 tons of any mixture of the substances must obtain a permit classifying it as a major source of pollution .

State regulators are also asking the EPA to consider requiring technological methods to limit air pollution at facilities that release smaller amounts of PFAS, not just major sources. They point to North Carolina as an example, where uncontrolled releases of GenX from Chemours wouldn’t have reached the major source threshold.

“NCDEQ’s experiences show that PFAS air emissions, well below (hazardous air pollutant) major source thresholds, can result in significant impacts through deposition,” the petition states.

In Chemours’ case, the 2019 consent order required the company to install a system including a thermal oxidizer to capture and destroy 99% of PFAS emissions .

That agreement required an update to Fayetteville Works’ major air emissions permit, which DEQ granted. Chemours is seeking a renewal of that permit.

Biser and her counterparts also told the EPA that regulating air emissions could become more important due to the agency’s recently finalized drinking water standards for five PFAS and a mixture that includes a sixth. Those standards, which are being challenged in federal court by the chemical industry and water utilities , are expected to lead to the installation of billions of dollars of filtration devices across the country.

Those filtration devices often include membranes or carbon material that capture PFAS and other contaminants before sending them elsewhere to be destroyed. That destruction process can include incineration, which, in turn, can lead to air emissions.

“Without EPA acting on this petition, remediating our land and waters may result in air dispersion of these chemicals into communities or other geographic areas of our environment,” the petition said.

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 .