State environmental officials say the number of North Carolinians receiving tap water from systems containing at least one compound that exceeds new federal contamination standards is “decreasing day by day.”
As the state's drinking water companies upgrade their systems with technology to remove contaminants, North Carolina Drinking Water Protection Program Coordinator Rebecca Sadosky told members of the State Environmental Control Board on Thursday. He said that number (estimated at 3.4 million) will continue to decline. Polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.
Thursday was the first committee meeting since North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Visser sent a letter to commissioners expressing disappointment that the agency's proposed groundwater standard for PFAS would not be voted on in July. .
In a May 1 letter, Visser said the chair and vice chair of the commission's Groundwater and Waste Management Committee met Wednesday to “discuss a proposed groundwater standard for PFAS as an action item. I refuse,” he said.
Committee members deny the accusations and postpone a vote on the standard to allow members to first consider at least a draft financial analysis that describes the expected costs associated with the proposed standard. He said the decision had been taken.
Commissioner John Solomon began Thursday's meeting with some encouragement, urging his fellow commissioners to get to know each other, break down barriers and “really, really support each other to make good deliberations and good decisions.” He said there is.
“We still have some big decisions to make,” he said. “We're going to regulate 1,4-dioxane. We're going to regulate PFAS. I think we're getting there. I think you're coming together and coming together, but over the past week, Please continue to work together as we have seen you all do.”
At a Groundwater and Waste Management Commission meeting held the day before the commission's meeting, Chairman Joe Reardon and Vice Chairman Tim Baumgartner defended the decision to wait for a financial analysis and issue that DEQ would issue. He fired back at Visser, saying that the company had chosen to “grandstand” in response. Public statements using accusations in committee rather than resolving issues in committee.
Baumgartner said Wednesday that DEQ showed a “lack of respect” for the commission members. “This committee and the Commission deserve the right to consider the complete package before considering moving forward with these rules.”
He also said agency officials indicated last November that the Waste Management Authority was working on a financial report at the time. But he said the committee had not yet received a draft financial report to consider. He cited the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act in his remarks.
“During DEQ's existence, DEQ has not provided a complete set of documents to this committee or to EMC two weeks prior to a meeting. This is EMC's current policy,” Baumgartner said. “This persistent disregard for this committee ends today. All documents and requests to this committee must be submitted to this committee at least two weeks before the scheduled meeting date, or the item Removed from the Agenda The population we serve requires a robust DEQ rulemaking process that is fully APA compliant, fully considered, and compliant with statutes and regulations. If we're going to work against us and withhold documents and grandstanding instead of engaging, this committee can't do that.”
Reardon said the committee's decision to remove PFAS from Wednesday's agenda was to give the committee time to access “all the material at once.”
“The decision to remove this from the agenda was based solely on the failure to provide all materials necessary for the adoption of the rules, including the fiscal memo, in a timely manner,” he said.
Dana Sargent, executive director of Cape Fear River Watch, thanked Visser for his letter to the commission in a news release Thursday.
“The mission of the Environmental Control Board is to adopt regulations to “protect, conserve, and enhance the state’s air and water resources,” Sargent wrote. “If his new EMC members don't understand their mission, they should resign.”
The fight comes a month after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it had established maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for several PFAS.
New federal regulations mean hundreds of water systems must regularly monitor for PFAS and report their monitoring results to customers.
Utilities with drinking water contaminated with PFAS above the MCL will have five years to integrate technology to become compliant. According to DEQ, more than 300 municipal and small water systems sampled in 2022 detected PFAS above the newly established MCL.
Sadosky explained to EMC on Thursday a timeline that requires the system to submit water samples to an EPA-certified laboratory for testing starting June 25.
North Carolina currently does not have an EPA-certified laboratory that can test for PFAS. Sadoski said the state is awaiting direction from the EPA on where to send samples this summer.
Expect higher utility bills due to new federal drinking water standards. The federal government is pouring billions of dollars into helping with costs associated with the measure.
States need surface water and ground water standards because PFAS are discharged into surface water and ground water sources, and ultimately into drinking water intakes and public water wells. “This will directly impact North Carolinians' out-of-pocket costs because the cost of complying with drinking water standards will increase,” Visser said in the May 1 letter.
EPA does not set standards for surface water and ground water.
