Chemical spill keeps Wilmington-area utilities from drawing raw water from Cape Fear

Wilmington-area utilities stopped drawing water from the Cape Fear River for more than five hours Wednesday after Chemours informed them of a spill at a tenant’s segment of the Fayetteville Works industrial site.

Tuesday’s spill occurred at Kuraray America’s portion of the site, according to a release from the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA), which provides water to much of New Hanover County. Chemours plant manager Brian Long told utilities about 30 gallons of a “plasticizer” had leaked at Kuraray’s plant, CFPUA reported.

Facing uncertainty about what spilled, CFPUA and Brunswick County Public Utilities stopped drawing raw water Wednesday from their shared intake at Kings Bluff in Bladen County after models indicated water containing the chemical could reach the pipe as soon as 8 a.m. The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality is investigating Tuesday’s spill, according to a release.

According to a statement from the county’s utility, “Brunswick County has suspended its intake of water through the raw water line entering the Northwest Water Treatment Plant to isolate and protect our water supply and prevent the substance’s plume from reaching the plant.”

Brunswick County and CFPUA said they had sufficient water stored to maintain service while they weren’t intaking raw water, but also urged customers to take conservation efforts such as ceasing irrigation.

Due to the initial uncertainty, CFPUA measured total organic carbon and chemical oxygen demand in the samples, Vaughn Hagerty, CFPUA’s spokesman, wrote in an email. CFPUA frequently tests for those factors, giving it a benchmark to compare against.

In later releases, both CFPUA and Brunswick County said they would resume intake from the Cape Fear River around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday after there were “no abnormalities” in seven samples captured from the river near the intake between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Fayetteville Works scrutiny

Wednesday afternoon, Kuraray released a statement saying it had spilled less than 30 gallons of 3GO plasticizer — triethylene glycol bis(2-ethylhexanoate). The chemical is used to make polyvinyl butyral (PVB) sheets more flexible so they can better absorb impact when used in windshields.

A safety sheet for 3GO plasticizer shows that the chemical is biodegradable and “does not contain any chemical components with known (Chemical Abstracts Service Registry) numbers,” according to Kuraray. Chemical Abstracts Service Registry (CAS) numbers are specific numbers used to identify chemical substances.

Fayetteville Works has been in the public eye since June 2017, when the Wilmington StarNews reported that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) including GenX were being discharged into the Cape Fear from Chemours’ operation on the 2,150-acre site and making their way downstream, where they were seeping through utilities’ treatment methods and into Wilmington-area drinking water.

Earlier this week, the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General announced it was launching an investigation into what steps the agency took to determine DuPont and then spin-off Chemours were compliant with a 2009 consent order allowing the manufacture of GenX. Specifically, the investigation will look at what steps EPA staff took to make sure GenX wasn’t being released into the Cape Fear River.

Chemours holds the discharge permit for its operation, as well as for the Kuraray and DuPont plants on the site. Its own operations and discharges at the site are governed by a consent order signed between the company and DEQ last fall that levied $13 million in fines and penalties and barred Chemours from discharging its own process wastewater to the nearby Cape Fear.

Kuraray spill

Tuesday’s spill was first noticed at 12:01 p.m., according to Sharon Martin, a DEQ spokeswoman, when an agency inspector taking biweekly samples at the outfall noticed a sheen. The DEQ staff member told Chemours staff about the sheen. Chemours then partially closed the gate to the outfall, according to a DEQ release, and deployed absorbent booms to capture the fluid.

Chemours said in a statement that the company’s monitoring process indicated Tuesday afternoon that a non-PFAS substance had been found in the site’s water treatment system. “Rapid testing” was used to determine the substance was not related to Chemours’ manufacturing process, but rather Kuraray’s.

Kururay said the spill happened when the 3GO plasticizer escaped into a no-longer-used storm drain uncovered during construction at the site.

After Chemours made an initial formal notification to DEQ around 1:45 p.m., Kuraray followed up at 3:30 p.m., Kuraray’s release stated. The company continued its operations until 5 p.m. in an effort, Kuraray said, to better grasp where the release was coming from.

DEQ notified utilities around 5:15 p.m., according to CFPUA’s release. Chemours’ outfall pipe is about 55 miles from the Kings Bluff intake, according to CFPUA.

Upon learning the discharged chemical seemed to float on the surface, CFPUA’s Hagerty wrote, the Wilmington-area utility ceased intake from its own raw water pipe at Kings Bluff, which sits at the surface. The shared pipe, owned by the Lower Cape Fear Water and Sewer Authority, lies underneath the water.

The companies and DEQ continued to investigate the spill Wednesday, while the utilities tested raw water.

“Kuraray’s operations and construction will not resume until the investigation is complete,” Kuraray’s statement said. “Kuraray’s is working to ensure that there is no risk of an additional chemical escape and will release more information as it becomes available.”

This story was produced with financial support from Report for America/GroundTruth Project, the North Carolina Community Foundation and the North Carolina Local News Lab Fund. The News & Observer maintains full editorial control of the work.

This story was originally published September 25, 2019 at 3:32 PM.