NC0089915_Comments_20200826

James R.Flechtner,PE
Executive Director
MP Cape Fear RECEIVED 235 Government Center Drive
Wilmington,NC 28403
910-332-6542
Public UtilityAuthority [e-mail]
AUGAU6 2 6 010 g
Stewardship.Sustainability.Service.
NCDEQ/DWRINPDES
August 17, 2020
Wastewater Permitting
Attention: Chemours Permit
1617 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-1617
Re: Public Comment on Draft NPDES Permit No. NC0089915
To NCDEQ:
Chemours' draft National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit (NC0089915) would
allow the industrial chemical manufacturer to send into the Cape Fear River more than 1.5 million
gallons per day of wastewater resulting from a proposed treatment system.
The treatment system purportedly will reduce per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in surface
water, stormwater, and groundwater from Chemours' industrial site on the Cumberland-Bladen
county line. The discharge from that treatment process will be channeled into the Cape Fear River,
the primary drinking water source for hundreds of thousands of North Carolina residents
downstream, including 80 percent of more than 200,000 people in New Hanover County who rely on
Cape Fear Public Utility Authority for their drinking water. Chemours estimates the initial total flow
from the treatment system will be as much as 965,000 gallons a day. The permit will allow Chemours
to discharge up to 1.58 million gallons per day, with other potential future flows from projects to
address "on-site seeps and other groundwater remediation projects expected at the site," according
to the permit fact sheet.
Overall, we find the proposed discharge permit and treatment system are the latest in an ongoing
succession of partial measures Chemours promises to undertake to fulfill its obligations under the
February 2019 consent order meant to address decades of PFAS contamination in the Cape Fear River
by Chemours and the company that created it, DuPont. Like so many of Chemours' previous
proposals under this consent order, the stated PFAS-reduction goals meant to benefit hundreds of
thousands of downstream water users such as CFPUA's customers fall far short of the far more
specific, timely measures afforded a few thousand private well owners around the Chemours site.
These well owners rightly obtain relief, at Chemours' expense, almost immediately upon
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determination that their drinking water contains more than 10 parts per trillion (ppt) of any one PFAS
compound or if the total of all PFAS in their water is above 70 ppt. These standards have not been
applied to downstream water users, including CFPUA's customers, despite overwhelming evidence
that their source water routinely contains concentrations exceeding the 10/70 thresholds. Instead of
immediate relief, downstream water users are asked to pin their hopes on Chemours' promises to
implement measures with uncertain outcomes sometime in the coming years.
We note that granular activated carbon (GAC) is the centerpiece of the Chemours-funded PFAS
treatment system that will result in the discharge governed by this permit. Chemours also has paid to
install GAC filters for dozens of private well owners near their industrial site. A large-scale GAC filter
system is under construction at CFPUA's Sweeney Water Treatment Plant, which sources its raw
water from the Cape Fear River. This $43 million addition is being built solely to address Chemours'
and DuPont's PFAS contamination in the Cape Fear River. Yet, while State regulators and attorneys
have compelled Chemours to fund the wastewater treatment facility connected to this permit and
pay for GAC filters installed in private homes near its plant, the State so far has not similarly required
Chemours to contribute even a single dime from the corporation's highly profitable operations to
provide an equivalent remedy for CFPUA's customers. Instead, as things stand, more than 200,000
people in New Hanover County are being left to pay for necessary treatment and fund their own legal
action to try to recoup these costs. We have made this point in previous comments to the State and
still have received no satisfactory explanation for this obvious disparity. The message to CFPUA and
its customers seems to be: Want more timely relief from Chemours' pollution? Pay for it yourselves.
Below are comments on specific portions of the draft permit:
• PFAS directly linked to activities at the Chemours' site have been collectively referred to as
"Table 3+," which comprises 20 distinct PFAS compounds. Yet this discharge permit has
effluent limits for only three PFAS compounds: GenX, PFMOAA, and PMPA. The purported 99
percent removal effectiveness still allows discharge of concentrations of these three PFAS as
much as 964 ppt in total. To that must be added various concentrations of the numerous
other PFAS that are known to exist at the Chemours site but whose contributions to total
PFAS in the discharge will remain unknown because no effluent limits are set. Loading of PFAS
compounds, likely at concentrations of more than a 1,000 ppt even after the treatment
process is implemented, will continue to pollute the environment, river sediment, and the
drinking water supply of downstream utilities. Why did DEQ decide not to establish limits for
the other 17 PFAS compounds in Table 3+?
• The proposed treatment system is to be completed by September 30, 2020. Yet Chemours
already is admitting that it cannot meet the effluent limits by that time for PMPA, one of the
three compounds that have effluent limits in the permit. Instead, Chemours is asking for
more time, until January 31, 2021. This postponement is particularly concerning given that

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downstream water users will wait years to see the vast majority of benefits promised by
Chemours from its efforts to clean up after itself and the company that created it, DuPont.
• Design of the treatment system was based on a "single 24-hour composite influent sample,"
which hardly gives confidence in the potential effectiveness.
• The treatment system includes GAC. GAC treatment vessels need to be backwashed
periodically. The description of the GAC adsorption process includes no mention of how this
backwash water will be handled. If it is recycled along with many other waste streams from
the proposed treatment process, it is unclear if the hydraulic capacity of the treatment system
is adequate to handle this additional flow without reducing the treatment effectiveness.
• In the permit, the removal efficiency is to be calculated only monthly, even though samples
are collected twice per month. Given that the system is designed based on limited data, more
frequent sampling and calculation of removal efficiency, preferably weekly, should be
required.
We note that still pending is a separate NPDES permit that will allow Chemours to resume discharging
the PFAS-laden wastewater from its chemical manufacturing processes. Will provisions in this permit
for Old Outfall 2—with effluent limits for just three PFAS compounds—serve as a model for any PFAS
effluent limits in the pending process wastewater permit? Will the process wastewater permit also
restrict its effluent requirements to only GenX, PFMOAA, and PMPA, while ignoring the many other
PFAS known to be byproducts of Chemours' industrial chemical manufacture? Will the
concentrations of those PFAS compounds be left out of the effluent requirements of the process
wastewater permit, even though they will be constituents of the millions of gallons of daily discharge
Chemours will send into the Cape Fear River to be a burden on downstream water users?
We and our customers look forward to the State's responses before the permit is issued.
Regards,
James R. Flechtner, PE
Executive Director