North Carolina Groups Call on EPA to Address Needs of Impacted Cape Fear Communities by Granting PFAS Testing Petition
CONTACT: Emily DiFrisco, (510) 655-3900 x 307 emilyd@ceh.org
WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA – North Carolina community groups today responded to the PFAS Strategic Roadmap announced by EPA today to address harmful pollution from PFAS chemicals for the next three years.
The six groups are: Center for Environmental Health, Cape Fear River Watch, Clean Cape Fear, Democracy Green, the NC Black Alliance, and Toxic Free NC.
“We are pleased Administrator Regan publicly and forcefully announced polluting companies will receive testing orders from the EPA,” said Emily Donovan of Clean Cape Fear. “We plan to keep a close eye on if these orders include all the requests from our NC TSCA petition.”
The testing petition, filed October 14, 2020, asks EPA to require Chemours to conduct a comprehensive research program to understand the health impacts of Cape Fear communities who have been exposed for decades to numerous PFAS in their drinking water, air and soil. The program would focus on 54 PFAS released to the environment by Chemours and include human epidemiology studies and tests on PFAS mixtures that examine the effects of real-world exposure to PFAS in Cape Fear communities.
“We are grateful that Administrator Regan recognizes the urgency of health effects testing and hopeful that the Administration will require this testing specifically for communities such as ours – which have been contaminated by a toxic mix of PFAS for decades,” said Dana Sargent of Cape Fear River Watch.
“For decades, our communities have suffered silently from PFAS contaminated water. All the while, polluting corporations have continued to profit from our pain. Our dedicated team of community groups, legal counsel, and scientists have provided EPA with the tools to clearly and swiftly act to save our people. It’s straightforward: approve our petition, clean up our communities and make the polluter pay,” said La’Meshia Whittington, NC Black Alliance.
Center for Environmental Health (CEH) is a 25-year-old organization leading the nationwide effort to protect people from toxic chemicals.