Q&A w/ Clean Cape Fear: Shutting Down Chemours

We're starting a new series where we share answers to questions you send us.

We received a lot of responses inspired by our recent filing with the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Our first question focuses on perceived inactions from NCDEQ.

Question: Why isn't Chemours given a date to clean up the water, if not they should be shut down until they clean up their process? I guess they must be in somebody's pocket.

Answer: Agree on the shutting down. We believe Chemours doesn't deserve a date extension on their delayed barrier wall construction. It's frustrating.

In 2021, Belgium shut down certain operations at a 3M manufacturing facility after 800 residents living near the facility had detectible PFAS in their blood. This was the first time anywhere in the world a PFAS manufacturing facility was shut down.

We believe NC needs to start shutting this place down. We're done with pretend politics. We refuse to be a sacrifice zone.

It's possible regulators might be in someone's pocket--not sure, doubt we'll ever really know.

What we do know is that our regulators are intimidated by the chemical industry and we're afraid that is why they aren't doing their jobs fully.

It also doesn't help that our state lawmakers chronically refuse to fund NCDEQ to a level where it has enough staff to monitor and fully enforce things happening at Chemours--much less adequately address PFAS across the rest of the state. It's all related.

In the past, we've supported efforts to fully fund NCDEQ and we've also been critical when existing staff is not doing their jobs.

Last we heard, NCDEQ had over a 25% vacancy rate. They can't seem to fill or keep departments fully staffed. People are leaving for better-paying jobs because NCDEQ can't pay market value for similar work somewhere else. This means existing projects get processed slowly or not at all.

We get what we pay for.

It's budget time in Raleigh. The most powerful thing we can all do is reach out to our lawmakers and demand they give NCDEQ every resource requested to protect us from PFAS. If lawmakers fail to do this--then let them know they shouldn't even bother coming home until they succeed.