The federal government and chemical maker Chemours struck a deal in which the company pledged to pay up to $450 million in recompense for decades of PFAS pollution caused by its facilities in three states, including North Carolina. However, hazy details and few teeth attached to the agreement have left some wondering whether the feds let Chemours off too easily.
Despite the large headline number, North Carolina officials lambasted the dealmakers for not involving them in the negotiations or securing more money for the state, which has already spent millions to address the pollution caused by Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility in Bladen County.
Gov. Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson called the settlement a “backroom deal” when it was first announced on June 25, and they claimed the Environmental Protection Agency hadn’t let them in on discussions leading up to the announcement.
As is sometimes the case with large deals such as this one, the federal government’s complaint and their consent agreement with Chemours were filed in court on the same day. That meant the EPA and Chemours had hammered out the details some time before the existence of the lawsuit became known.
Environmental advocacy groups also criticized the deal for not going far enough to punish Chemours for its pollution. Attorneys from those organizations said it was the latest example of the EPA taking an industry-friendly approach to PFAS regulations and framing it as a victory for the American public.
“If anything, I think what (the EPA) is doing is giving handouts to polluters like Chemours, and that is exactly what this settlement is,” Cori Bell, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Carolina Public Press.
“I would imagine that their shareholders are crying tears of joy over this because this is just a freebie for them,” Bell said.
What’s in the Chemours deal for NC?
While the EPA valued the penalties and relief at $450 million, that number isn’t anywhere to be found in the actual terms of the deal.
According to the consent agreement, Chemours will pay a $22.5 million civil penalty to the two litigants: the EPA and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. North Carolina, which wasn’t a party to the lawsuit, won’t receive any civil penalty money.
Chemours also agreed to pay a maximum of $90 million over the next 15 years for PFAS mitigation projects in West Virginia, New Jersey and North Carolina. However, there is no minimum amount that the company must spend on those mitigation projects, nor are there guidelines for how that money should be divided among the three states.
The civil penalty and funding for mitigation projects are the only two explicit financial commitments in the deal, totaling just over $100 million. The $337.5 million difference between that and the EPA’s headline number seems to be the estimated costs of compliance for other provisions in the agreement.
Those include an enhanced requirement for Chemours to capture or destroy at least 99.5% of GenX compounds at its facilities in North Carolina and West Virginia (the previous requirement was 99%), as well as a third-party audit of the Fayetteville Works plant to identify release points and recommend controls for two other potentially-harmful chemicals manufactured there.
North Carolina is excluded from other parts of the deal, such as a program to treat or provide alternate drinking water in areas which test positive for high levels of PFAS.
Chemours spokesperson Jess Loizeaux told CPP in an email that North Carolina received less in this new deal partly because of a previous settlement agreement that the state’s Department of Environmental Quality reached with Chemours in 2019.
That court-enforceable agreement included a sampling program for private wells near the Fayetteville Works facility. It also required Chemours to take several other steps to reduce its release of PFAS into the surrounding air and water.
“Fayetteville Works has already invested over $400 million in recent years to significantly reduce its PFAS emissions,” Loizeaux said.
NC left out of talks, attorney general says
Regardless, North Carolina officials thought the state should have received more from the recent settlement.
“This deal is an insult to the people of Eastern North Carolina,” Jackson said in his joint statement with Stein.
“Our state is ground zero for GenX contamination, but this deal does practically nothing to clean up our water. Chemours made this mess, and Chemours should clean it up. The EPA will be hearing from my office.”
Jackson is currently leading a separate lawsuit against Chemours and its predecessor company Dupont over PFAS pollution originating from the Fayetteville Works facility. That case was originally filed in Cumberland County and has since been elevated to the state Supreme Court, which is set to hear oral arguments in September.
A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s office said the EPA’s settlement with Chemours would not impact the ongoing lawsuit.
In response to Jackson and Stein’s claims of a backroom deal, the EPA and U.S. Department of Justice said in a joint statement that they had, in fact, been invited to participate in the settlement negotiations but “decided to act under their own authorities.”
The settlement is not yet final, as it must first undergo a 30-day public comment period before receiving final court approval. Instructions on how to submit a comment may be found in the Federal Register notice.
Groups frustrated with EPA contradictions on PFAS
According to environmental activists, the EPA’s settlement with Chemours, which it billed as a “landmark deal,” follows a pattern of softening their approach to PFAS under the guise of progress.
Earlier this year, the current administration under Lee Zeldin announced at a “PFAS destruction event” that it would seek to rescind its rules establishing maximum contaminant levels for four types of PFAS, including GenX, in drinking water.
The EPA said the rollback would instate new rules which were more “practical” and “legally defensible” than the previous limits established in 2024. Critics derided the move as undoing years of progress.
“This isn’t easing off the gas,” Bell said. “This is slamming on the brakes and throwing everything into reverse.”
Since Zeldin took over the agency last year, the EPA has directed most of its PFAS mitigation efforts towards the two of the most well-studied types, PFOA and PFOS. The agency has walked back regulations on other forms of PFAS which are less researched but likely harmful to humans.
Jean Zhuang, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, told CPP that industry is more likely to get on board with regulations for PFOA and PFOS because those chemicals are largely being phased out and replaced with newer alternatives.
“That is why EPA is saying ‘we’ll hold on to the PFOA and PFOS standards,’ because it looks like they’re doing something on PFAS, but really those are legacy PFAS that industry has long abandoned,” Zhuang said.
The EPA hasn’t stopped there. It also recently rescinded a 272-page draft risk assessment which examined the potential human health risks of PFAS in sewage sludge used as fertilizer. Previous studies had found that farms were using PFAS-contaminated sludge as fertilizer, and that PFAS was subsequently making its way into food crops and livestock.
Draft risk assessments such as that one are typically precursors to future regulations on whatever potential hazard they are studying. The EPA replaced it with a much shorter 9-page document minimizing the findings in the original risk assessment.
Zhuang called that an alarming downgrade, but said it’s the type of action she’s come to expect from the EPA in the past year.
“They are doing the bidding of industry, putting out these press releases that make it look like they’re doing something good,” she said. “But if anybody is paying attention at all, this is an administration that does not care at all about protecting us from toxic chemical pollution.”
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