State struggles to understand impact on health, environment from man-made chemicals

PFAS chemicals, used in everything from firefighting foam to fast food wrappers and nonstick pans, are often referred to as "forever chemicals" because they’re nearly indestructible.

That makes them especially dangerous to human and animal health and difficult to deal with and very expensive to clean up when they get into the environment. In North Carolina, scientists seem to find more of them everywhere they look – including in drinking water, fish and people.

Ever since one such chemical, Gen X, was found in the Cape Fear River and drinking water in the Wilmington area four years ago, state regulators have been trying to figure out how to deal with it and other emerging contaminants.

On Monday, Frannie Nilsen, a toxicologist at the state Department of Environmental Quality, told the agency’s science advisory board that Gen X and four other PFAS compounds show up in more than half the wells they sampled near the Chemours plant on the Bladen-Cumberland county line.

3/31/21: NC fines Chemours over improper treatment systems along Cape Fear River

8/13/20: Deal struck to stop GenX runoff at NC's Chemours plant

5/28/20: Inspectors didn't police GenX limit because they didn't know about it

"Gen X has health advisories in three states, North Carolina being one of them, but there is no official regulation for any of these," Nilsen said.

Emerging contaminants are in the water in Pittsboro, too. Nilsen said they’re showing up in the blood of adults and children there and in Wilmington.

"If you compare each of these – the Wilmington adults, children in Pittsboro and Fayetteville adults – all to the U.S. population's average, you can see that there are some compounds that are much higher in North Carolina's population," Nilsen said.

John Vandenberg, who recently retired as the Environmental Protection Agency's chief on human health risks, is also on the state panel. He had to double check the numbers he was hearing.

"When you compare what’s actually in people's blood serum, it seems to me these detected PFAS are of concern as well, considerable concern to me," he said.

PFAS contamination has been popping up in a lot of places, from Wake County to Shelby, near Charlotte.

The panel is trying to help the state figure out how to regulate these compounds. Other states are doing the same. But it's difficult. There are thousands of the compounds, and chemical manufacturers aren’t even required to disclose what they’re putting in the water.

A bill that passed the U.S. House would change that, but the Senate has not yet taken it up.