Story by Heidi Perez-Moreno
Video by Sierra Sanders
When Sophia Retchin was growing up in Wilmington, it was no secret that drinking tap water could potentially make you sick.
It’s worrisome for those in Wilmington — one of several areas along the North Carolina coast that has fallen victim to contamination. It was no secret drinking tap water in the area could potentially make someone sick, but it wasn’t until news broke of the contamination that a cause was identified.
Retchin was furious when she heard the news. Far-reaching coverage on the issue frustrated her further, like when she read articles on the issue, and watched the 2019 film ‘Dark Waters’ that shed light on the impact of pollution from harmful PFAS chemicals on residents.
“Everyone was really pissed off, like, really pissed off,” said Retchin, who is now a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill, double majoring in environmental studies and business administration.
Retchin says the Wilmington area continues to feel the effects of the contamination. Typical water filters are not equipped to filter out PFAS chemicals, leaving residents to either purchase specialized reverse osmosis or granular activated carbon filters that could cost hundreds of dollars, or depend on bottled water.
“I’m lucky enough to be able to afford a water filter, but sadly, all these other people can’t do that,” Retchin said.
Although media coverage of the issue has plateaued, environmental advocates are working to change environmental regulatory practices.
In April, the PFAS Testing Network submitted a report to the North Carolina General Assembly that outlined 60 recommendations to combat water contamination in the area and enforce more environmental protection regulations. They detail suggestions for monitoring efforts, research studies and environmental regulations that would better serve the area.
“One of the primary takeaways is that this is much more of a severe problem that needs to be dealt with,” said Geoff Gisler, senior attorney with South Environmental Law Center and leader of their Clean Water Program.
It’s one step, environmental advocates say, in a long road to better environmental regulations for those affected by water contamination.
What is PFAS?
PFAS, or formally known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, is an umbrella term for a heap of man-made chemicals, including PFOA and GenX. There are at least 4,730 different variations of PFASs, according to a 2018 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
It’s not a new chemical either — the first PFAS were created nearly a century ago, with commercial production of the chemical beginning in the 1940s. The chemical can be found in food, stain and water-repellent fabrics, nonstick products and cleaning products.
But exposure to PFAS is highly likely among most people, and it’s become background noise in our daily lives.
“If you have clothing, fabric, soft sofa, carpet, the cushions on the bar, anything that has water falling on it and seems to not absorb, any oil that falls on them that doesn’t seem to absorb,” said Orlando Coronell, associate professor of UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. “That’s probably one of the chlorinated chemicals.”
But being around the chemical is also possible through contaminated soil, food packaging containing PFAS and drinking water.
There’s evidence that it can lead to adverse health effects in people and animals, either by ingesting the chemical or having it absorbed throughout the body as a whole.
Research shows that PFAS can lead to risk of kidney or testicular cancer, high blood pressure, decreased vaccine response among children as well as decreases in birth weight for infants, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
“There are ways to move forward, despite the unknown,” Gisler said.
How did PFAS end up in North Carolina?
Although reports of the chemical in drinking water gained the national spotlight in 2017, its story in eastern North Carolina started decades ago.
It started with DuPont’s Fayetteville Works plant, which produced fluorochemicals used extensively in hoses, films and ventilator components.
The 2,150-acre manufacturing site, located in southeast North Carolina near the Cumberland county line, merged with Chemours in 2015.
After the EPA rolled out a program meant to gear toward a global phaseout of PFOA and related toxic chemicals, the plant began using GenX as a replacement in 2009.
Three years later, GenX was detected in the Cape Fear River, alongside other PFAS chemicals. Two years after that, it was detected in the city of Wilmington’s water supply area.
In 2017, the Wilmington Star-News reported on water contamination in the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority and the Cape Fear River. The newspaper said that about 40 years of pollution had flooded contaminants into rivers and water supplies in surrounding communities.
“We know enough about these chemicals to understand that they are toxic and are dangerous for environmental health and human health,” said Dana Sargent, who served as the executive director of Cape Fear River Watch in Wilmington.
The company has since assumed legal responsibility for PFAS pollution by DuPont and other pollution-related liabilities. Earlier this year, Chemours came to an agreement with DuPont and Corteva Agriscience on a payment allocation plan for upward of $4 billion in PFAS liabilities and damages over the next two decades.
While PFAS contamination is prevalent throughout North Carolina, exposure in drinking water supplies is especially concentrated in the Wilmington area, which is spread across several rivers, parks and water systems, according to a map from the Environmental Working Group.
“I don’t think it has to do with the fact that we’re coastal,” Sargent said. “I think it’s the fact that the river has been contaminated and that’s our drinking water supply.”
What does this mean for residents in affected areas?
More than 300,000 individuals in the Wilmington area drink from the river’s water supply, Sargent said.
“The river being contaminated for that many people, plus the people around the facility whose groundwater has been contaminated, is obviously a big issue,” she said. “I think it’s important to make the point that people shouldn’t have to take those additional steps to mitigate their water — we think the industry polluters should be responsible.”
For many in the area, it’s resulted in added precaution aimed at reducing exposure to contaminants. Many residents must resort to expensive water filters throughout their homes to mitigate the contamination.
The only form of protection in Retchin’s family in Wilmington is a reverse osmosis water filter on their kitchen sink. They regularly drink bottled water.
Bottled water is another option, but may also be a last resort. A water filter equipped to block through-PFAS contamination can run in the hundreds of dollars, leaving many families in the area without protection.
For Sargent, she’ll always wonder whether the water contamination is linked to glioblastoma, aggrestival, terminal brain cancer that killed her brother Grant in 2019. He was diagnosed months after news broke on the PFAS contamination in 2017.
