A Graham well was contaminated with forever chemicals. It led to a new, temporary rule.
State environmental officials this week approved temporary groundwater limits for eight forever chemicals, levels that are effective immediately.
Jonathan and Stephanie Gordon of Graham requested the interim maximum allowable concentrations, often referred to as IMACs, in July.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are frequently referred to as forever chemicals because the synthetic chemicals take a long time to break down in the natural environment. The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality primarily uses groundwater standards to establish targets to clean up already contaminated groundwater, while surface water standards are used to prevent further contamination.
“North Carolina’s newly announced groundwater limits for PFAS can’t solve the whole problem but they will help reduce exposure to these dangerous chemicals if the Department of Environmental Quality makes companies that release PFAS clean them up — and helps communities that have been contaminated get access to safe water,” Jonathan Gordon wrote in a statement.
Gordon is a firefighter who has been exposed to forever chemicals from foam, protective gear and other sources on the job. A sample collected from a drinking water well on his property found total PFAS levels of more than 3,000 parts per trillion, or ppt.
The eight interim standards now in effect are identical to those the N.C. Division of Water Resources asked the Environmental Management Commission to approve earlier this year. They are:
- GenX: 10 ppt
- PFBA: 7000 ppt
- PFBS: 2000 ppt
- PFHxA: 4000 ppt
- PFHxS: 10 ppt
- PFNA: 10 ppt
- PFOA: 0.001 ppt
- PFOS: 0.7 ppt
Environmental Management Commission and groundwater
In September, the commission voted to send to public comment DEQ’s requested rules for three of those chemicals — PFOA, PFOS and GenX — at the levels regulators requested. Those rules will be reviewed in a public comment period before coming back to the commission for a final vote in early 2025.
But in July, the commission’s groundwater committee voted to remove the five other PFAS from the rulemaking process. At the time, Joe Reardon, the committee’s chair, said he was worried that DEQ wanted to loosen regulations for PFBA, PFBS, PFNA, PFHxA and PFHxS.
Reardon pointed to a section of North Carolina’s groundwater rules that says a chemical that does not have explicit limits should be regulated at the level at which it is detected, also known as the practical quantitation limit. For the five chemicals in question, DEQ’s proposed regulatory level was higher than the detectable level
DEQ staff have argued that while higher than the detection level, their proposal is backed by toxicological and human health data. It would, they have said, lessen the cleanup costs for facilities like landfills that will need to remove forever chemicals from their groundwater.
A sample of the Gordons’ well water tested by N.C. State University’s Detlef Knappe found PFOA, PFOS and PFHxS above the level set by the temporary rule. Other chemicals like PFBA, PFBS, PFNA and PFHxA were above the detectable level but not the IMAC limit.
In their letter requesting the temporary rules, the Gordons addressed the possibility that the levels would be higher than the detectable levels, saying they simply wanted to know what the state considers safe.
“We don’t yet know what responsible party caused our contamination; when they are identified, they may argue for a less protective cleanup, and they may be able to afford well-heeled lawyers and scientists. We are asking for you to issue a fair and scientific IMAC now so we know where we stand,” the Gordons wrote.
The N.C. Water Quality Association, which represents 40 public water utilities in the state, said in a comment letter that it approved of six of the proposed temporary rules. The temporary rules for PFOA and PFOS were too low, Paul Calamita, the association’s general counsel wrote, because they are lower than both the practical quantitation limit and the four parts per trillion level the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set for the chemicals in public drinking water.
“Doing so will establish lower standards of acceptable concentrations for the same PFAS in private drinking water wells than in public water supply systems and incorrectly insinuates that the allowable PFAS standards in the EPA’s (maximum contaminant levels) are not protective of public health,” Calamita wrote.
The director of North Carolina’s Division of Water Resources has 12 months from Oct. 15 to recommend whether the temporary rules should be made permanent or allowed to expire. According to state law, the temporary rule expires when DEQ declines to initiate permanent rulemaking, when a permanent rule is adopted or when the Environmental Management Commission declines a proposed permanent rule.
Should the Environmental Management Commission decide to begin a formal rule-making process regarding the temporary rules, there would be a public notice and comment period, as well as a full fiscal analysis of the proposed rule.
This story was produced with financial support from the Hartfield Foundation and Green South Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. If you would like to help support local journalism, please consider signing up for a digital subscription, which you can do here.
This story was originally published October 18, 2024 at 3:15 PM.