North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality will suspend the wastewater discharge permit for Chemours… unless the company meets two clear deadlines in the coming weeks. All this, while the state prepares a legal case against the company.
On Tuesday, the state of North Carolina initiated its lawsuit against Chemours, in Bladen County Superior Court. The actual formal complaint will be filed sometime this week.
Moving forward, the Department of Environmental Quality has two deadlines in place that Chemours must meet.
The first is this Friday, when Chemours must stop the discharge of the GenX byproduct Nafion into the river. Then by October 20, the company must stop the discharge of any other perfluorinated or polyfluorinated compounds.
If Chemours fails to meet these deadlines, DEQ intends to suspend the company’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit, which allows the company to discharge into the Cape Fear River.
Emily Donovan is with the Clean Cape Fear, an alliance of concerned groups and citizens.
“We fully support any action from all levels of government that’s going to try and take an aggressive approach to stop Chemours from discharging these chemicals and hold them accountable for it too.”
The DEQ says it is looking into other actions as well, and will release further details soon.
Chemours did not respond to our request for comment.