The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality announced the agency’s Action Strategy for PFAS today during an event in Wilmington. The DEQ Action Strategy for PFAS contains three priorities: protecting communities, protecting drinking water and cleaning up existing contamination.
“Families deserve to have confidence that they're getting clean water when they turn on the tap," Governor Cooper said. "North Carolina has taken the lead across the country in demanding accountability for PFAS and other emerging chemical compounds and this plan will help us continue to proactively protect our communities.”
“In the last five years, communities along the Cape Fear River have learned far more than most about GenX and PFAS, or forever chemicals, and their impacts and we want to ensure that in the future no other community experiences what they have already been though,” said Secretary Elizabeth S. Biser. “DEQ’s Action Strategy lays out our priorities to address PFAS comprehensively across our state and our commitment to propose enforceable standards for PFAS chemicals.”
DEQ’s priority areas include actions to identify health and exposure risks, develop the science needed to set enforceable limits, and steps to minimize future PFAS pollution.
DEQ, in consultation with DHHS and the Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board, is working to create a list of Priority PFAS compounds most prevalent in North Carolina. DEQ plans to propose groundwater, surface water and drinking water standards for priority PFAS and will initiate rulemaking for those that have available scientific data. For compounds without the required data, DEQ will work with academic partners to develop the data needed to set standards.
While standards are being developed, DEQ will provide technical assistance to permittees who take early action and chose to reduce their releases into the environment through materials substitution, pollution control and treatment systems, and other innovative techniques.
The DEQ Strategy for PFAS Action is available online at: https://deq.nc.gov/media/30108/open
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