Read the full article by Paul Woolverton (The Fayetteville Observer)
“The EPA’s regional office wasn’t told it was supposed to inspect the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant until the StarNews in Wilmington reported there was GenX in the Cape Fear River.
In 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reached an agreement to allow DuPont to manufacture its GenX chemical at its plant in Bladen County near Fayetteville as long as it captured and destroyed or recycled 99% of the GenX the plant would otherwise emit into the air and water.
But from 2009 to the end of June 2017, the EPA made no inspections to make sure the plant, now operated by Chemours Co., was in compliance with the agreement, says a report issued Thursday by the EPA’s Office of Inspector General.
Until June 2017, the EPA relied on information provided to it by Chemours to verify that the plant was in compliance with the agreement, the report says.
The first inspections were done after the StarNews of Wilmington reported there was GenX in drinking water supplies of communities along the Cape Fear River downstream of the factory.
The reason no inspections were done until June 2017 is that the EPA’s regional office in Atlanta was never told about the 2009 agreement, called a consent order, that it was expected to enforce.
‘Region 4 personnel informed us that they do not know all the headquarters-negotiated consent orders within their region,’ the inspector general report says. ‘In fact, they did not know about the 2009 consent order with Chemours until the inspection was requested’…”