The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) will require extensive revisions to the proposed Corrective Action Plan submitted by Chemours on December 31, 2019, due to inadequacies in the plan.
“The proposed plan is clearly deficient and fails to address the fundamental purposes of a corrective action plan,” said Michael S. Regan, DEQ Secretary. “Chemours will not receive approval from this department until they address appropriate clean up measures for the communities impacted by the contamination and meet the terms of the Consent Order.”
The purpose of the Corrective Action Plan is to address remediation of groundwater and soil and significantly reduce PFAS flowing from onsite groundwater into surface water. As noted in the Consent Order, the corrective action plan must adhere to DEQ’s groundwater rules.
Based on initial review, the proposed Corrective Action Plan lacks a thorough technical basis, including an adequate assessment of human exposure to PFAS compounds and a thorough evaluation of on- and off-site groundwater contamination. In addition, DEQ believes the plan does not provide for appropriate remediation of on-site groundwater or off-site contamination.
In addition to internal review, DEQ provided the proposed Corrective Action Plan to the public for comment. From January 6 to April 6, DEQ received more than 1,240 public comments and DEQ staff continues to review the comments. The vast majority of the commenters believe the proposed plan from Chemours is not sufficient to address community concerns, the requirements of state law and the Consent Order. The public comments are available online here.
The February 2019 Consent Order and related documents are available online at https://deq.nc.gov/ChemoursConsentOrder.
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