The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Division of Water Resources (DWR) is accepting public comments on a draft permit to treat PFAS-contaminated groundwater, surface water and stormwater from the Chemours Fayetteville Works site before discharge into the Cape Fear River. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) wastewater permit is part of the required actions to prevent residual PFAS pollution from entering the Cape Fear River, as outlined in the 2020 Addendum to the 2019 Consent Order.
The draft NPDES permit only allows the discharge of treated water associated with the remediation activities. It does not allow the discharge of wastewater from plant operations or processes.
Under the 2020 Addendum, Chemours was required to address four identified seeps that account for more than half of the PFAS contamination in the groundwater entering the river. The required interim measures have been installed and Chemours has submitted plans to DEQ for approval of the permanent measure: a more than one-mile-long, subsurface barrier wall and groundwater extraction system to capture contaminated groundwater and prevent it from entering the Cape Fear River. The draft NPDES permit requires treatment to remove PFAS contamination from the groundwater, surface water and stormwater captured by the extraction system before discharge into the Cape Fear River. The system must remove at least 99% of PFAS and meet daily and monthly effluent limits as specified in the permit conditions.
The proposed NPDES permit does not change the conditions of any previous NPDES permit held by Chemours.
DWR is accepting comments on the draft permit until May 2, 2022. To submit comment by email, send to publiccomments@ncdenr.gov with CHEMOURS noted in the subject line. Public comments may also be mailed to Wastewater Permitting, Attn: Chemours Permit, 1617 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C., 27699-1617.
The draft permit and fact sheet are available to view online.