Over recent months, lawmakers in North Carolina’s House and Senate have been grappling with how to respond to contamination in the state’s rivers by PFAS — “forever chemicals” that can be toxic to drinking water. The Senate’s latest budget proposal offers a serious step in the state legislature to address the issue.
While invisible to the eye, per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are used in manufacturing for their powerful hydrogen-carbon-fluorine bonds, which are almost impossible to break. With PFAS linked to serious health risks like cancer and developmental issues, different legislative efforts, including the latest budget proposal, have sought to fund further research and testing.
The Senate budget passed in mid-April and commits significant funds to testing, treatment, and research to protect communities. To tackle forever chemicals, the budget commits $110 million over the two-year biennium to create the PFAS Mitigation Fund.
“We’re also taking concrete steps to help local governments monitor and remove PFAS from their water supply and assist with additional research opportunities,” said Senate Appropriations Chairman Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, in a press release.
Managed by the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) under the Water Safety Act, the fund will provide grants to local governments and water/sewer authorities to test for PFAS, monitor contamination, and install or upgrade water treatment technologies, such as advanced filtration systems, to remove PFAS from drinking water.
The budget also allocates $6 million over the biennium to the NC Collaboratory at UNC-Chapel Hill for PFAS research. This funding will drive studies on PFAS sources, health impacts, and innovative cleanup methods, building on prior efforts like the 2019 PFAS Testing Network, which identified contaminated water systems statewide.
Though the House has not yet released its budget proposal, House committees have recently heard from experts on the impacts of PFAS. Legislators discussed House Bill 569, titled PFAS Pollution and Polluter Liability, that would address contamination into water sources that go into a public utility.
“One of the most important parts of this bill is the fact that right now, the ratepayers are responsible for the cost incurred by that public utility authority in order to remove the PFAS contamination that was put in there by the polluter. And that is not right,” said Rep. Ted Davis, R-New Hanover.
Davis pointed to the Cape Fear public utility authority, which has spent $83 million in ratepayer funds to address PFAS contamination in the water supply. Brunswick County has spent $159 million to expand and install a low-pressure reverse osmosis water treatment system.
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During public comment, Jeff Fritz, a representative with Chemours, said that the company voluntarily ceased all emissions to the Cape Fear River when concerns became apparent in 2017, eliminating 95% of the PFAS going to the river.
“No PFAS was regulated in this country by the US EPA until April of 2024,” said Fritz. “We respectfully suggest that Chemour should not be made liable for all other PFAS and various contaminants coming down the Cape Fear River for which new filtration systems have been built to address.”
In March, legislators were briefed on new technology from a Burlington-based company to eliminate PFAS in water supplies. The efforts remain pending in the General Assembly.