Clean Cape Fear submitted the following updates for the January 2026 Newsletter.
From Emily Donovan, co-founder:
In December 2025, Cape Fear Public Water Utility Authority (CFPUA) received a small legal victory when a federal judge ruled against Chemours’ request to seal documents related to the eight year litigation between local public water utilities and Chemours and DuPont. Clean Cape Fear made a public records request to access those documents and CFPUA has agreed to make them publicly accessible.
Environmental advocates recently helped the Snow Hill community in Sampson County seek a court enforceable agreement with the owners of one of the nation’s largest landfills located in Sampson County and historically used by Chemours’ Fayetteville Works Facility to dispose of industrial waste.
Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan testified before Congress on December 18, 2025 regarding industry efforts to weaken EPA’s Superfund laws and provide first ever Congressional exemptions from CERCLA liabilities. Clean Cape Fear and many respected environmental advocacy groups oppose these exemptions.
Industry is currently attacking EPA’s PFAS reporting requirements by pressuring Congress to pass a bill that would weaken the Toxic Substance Control Act. Clean Cape Fear opposes this action. It would remove reporting for 97% of current PFAS releases and place the financial burden of monitoring and reporting on public water ratepayers instead of the PFAS polluter.
Recent water testing shows Chemours Fayetteville Works is still releasing extreme levels of ultrashort chain PFAS like TFA and PFPrA into the Cape Fear River, our primary drinking water supply.
Clean Cape Fear submitted public comments opposing a plan from the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the Cape Fear River near the Port of Wilmington. The Army Corps’ draft environmental impact study failed to include PFAS.
In January 2025, NCDEQ released a preliminary statewide PFAS biosolids and wastewater study which found the majority of PFAS releases in municipal wastewaters come from industrial sources.
Chemours continues to seek approval for its expansion plan efforts while New Hanover County, Brunswick County, Cumberland County, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, City of Wilmington and the Town of Leland all unanimously passed resolutions opposing the expansion and encouraging state regulators to deny further requests from Chemours. Additionally, Clean Cape Fear has a petition with over 1,800 residents opposing the expansion request.
DECEMBER 2025
Wanted to give updates on PFAS issues in North Carolina. Here’s the short version:
- Local governments unite in opposition to Chemours expansion request. Four local governments representing over 400,000 residents have unanimously passed resolutions opposing the Chemours expansion.
- The US Army Corp of Engineers failed to include PFAS in its environmental impact statement. The Port of Wilmington plans to deepen the Cape Fear River near downtown Wilmington; however, no PFAS sediment testing has been done in this area.
- NCDEQ & Environmental Management Commission are failing to host a public hearing in Wilmington regarding an issue that could severely impact drinking water quality and PFAS pollution in our drinking water supply The upstream Town of Fuquay-Varina wants to permanently divert 6.17 million gallons of water from the Cape Fear River. Three public hearings are being held this month, none in Wilmington, and all are nearly two hours away.
Here’s our in depth perspectives and actions taken:
Local governments unite in opposition to Chemours expansion request.
Clean Cape Fear partnered with environmental nonprofits to draft resolutions opposing Chemours expansion plans. New Hanover County, Brunswick County, the City of Wilmington and Cape Fear Public Utility Authority have all unanimously passed similar resolutions opposing the Chemours expansion plan. The resolutions call on the US EPA and NCDEQ to deny the Chemours expansion request.
In October, NCDEQ deemed the application incomplete and requested additional information from Chemours. Chemours responded on 11/19/2025. The date of Chemours’ response is important because state lawmakers passed a bill in late 2023 putting a time limit on NCDEQ’s ability to review air permits. NCDEQ has 90 days to review minor permit modifications and 270 days to review significant permit modifications.
In early 2024, Chemours officially requested NCDEQ “move forward with processing the Title V renewal to include all the permit applications submitted to the agency since November 2019.” NCDEQ’s website states:
“The Division of Air Quality is currently reviewing multiple air quality permit applications from the Chemours facility, including a Title V air quality permit renewal and a significant Title V permit modification.”
It is unclear to us if this lumping now puts all the permit reviews on the 90 day clock or the 270 clock. Either way, our region has been a PFAS sacrifice zone for nearly half a century and we believe this company still has not earned the right to expand. Please continue to sign and share our petition opposing Chemours’ expansion.
In 2020, the Port of Wilmington and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began exploring a plan to deepen and widen the Cape Fear River to attract larger cargo ships. Yet multiple environmental groups point out that the river already accommodates these vessels, meaning the project offers minimal economic gain while posing major environmental risks.
The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) ignores the region’s most urgent threat: PFAS contamination. Clean Cape Fear is deeply concerned that the EIS contains no PFAS analysis at all, despite years of documented upstream pollution and clear science showing that dredging can release buried contaminants. The Corps studied turbidity and fish habitat but skipped the very chemicals driving enforcement actions in this watershed.
Even more troubling, no agency, university, or nonprofit has tested PFAS sediment levels in the precise stretch of river targeted for excavation—an area that sits downstream of decades of legacy and replacement PFAS discharges. Without baseline data, the public cannot know whether dredging will disturb concentrated PFOS or PFOA “hotspots,” both now classified as CERCLA hazardous substances. If high levels are found, this section of the Cape Fear could qualify for Superfund designation, contradicting claims that impacts will be minor. And under the current plan, any contaminated sediment would be relocated directly offshore of beaches already battling PFAS-laden sea foam washing ashore.
We believe moving forward with dredging without PFAS sediment testing is reckless. It exposes the region to environmental, legal, and economic risks that far outweigh any promised port benefits. Clean Cape Fear urges the Corps to pause the project until comprehensive PFAS testing is completed and fully integrated into the environmental review. As it stands, the EIS isn’t just incomplete—it’s unsafe.
NOVEMBER 2025
The NC Chamber has been pressuring state lawmakers to stall PFAS regulations. NC’s Dept. of Environmental Quality is trying to establish PFAS surface and ground water quality standards to bring state level regulations more in line with EPA’s new drinking water standards. Clean Cape Fear wrote a blog explaining the situation and shared it with our followers.
https://www.cleancapefear.org/dailyfilter/5g7szdec2sjc6l22amelgwpssy3kks
Clean Cape Fear has also been educating voters on important issues related to the November elections. We’ve been working to dispel misinformation campaigns regarding our PFAS contamination crisis. One specific ad was so upsetting to our community it was pulled after we provided important fact checks.
https://www.cleancapefear.org/dailyfilter/leepfas
Recently we created a Clean Water Candidate Pledge for all local, state and federal candidates running in our region. Those candidates who completed the pledge were issued an official endorsement from Clean Cape Fear.
Clean Cape Fear State & Local Candidate Pledge
Clean Cape Fear Federal Candidate Pledge
In June, Clean Cape Fear was a speaker and panelist during the Business Related Human Rights session at the 2024 National PFAS Conference in Ann Arbor, MI. We also co-moderated the Sustainability Challenges and Safer Alternatives session.
In July, after several industries filed a lawsuit against EPA’s new drinking water standards, we partnered with EarthJustice and several other PFAS contaminated community groups to file a motion to intervene in favor of EPA’s new PFAS drinking water standards.
Additionally, we participated in a petition filed by EarthJustice requesting the EPA regulate PFAS in fluorinated plastic containers. The EPA granted the petition.
Lastly, we participated in a press conference hosted by NRDC calling out members of NC’s Environmental Management Commission for allowing the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce to unfairly influence its rulemaking process regarding PFAS surface and ground water quality standards.
https://www.cleancapefear.org/dailyfilter/5g7szdec2sjc6l22amelgwpssy3kks
In February, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a public statement calling out Chemours and DuPont for business-related human rights abuses regarding decades of PFAS releases into the environment–especially in North Carolina. This the first official public statement made by eight UN special rapporteurs regarding a communications filed by Clean Cape Fear last year. The UN experts also expressed concern regarding companies spreading “disinformation about PFAS” citing the use of PFAS as “essential for semiconductors and plastics needed in the energy transition and the fight against climate change.” The UN experts reminded businesses and regulators that “[D]ecarbonation strategies must be integrated with detoxification strategies and guided by human rights.”
Since then, Clean Cape Fear was invited to introduce U.S. EPA Administrator Micheal Regan as he finalized first-ever federal PFAS drinking water standards which included GenX. The announcement was held in Fayetteville, NC–miles away from Chemours’ manufacturing facility. North Carolina does not have any state-level PFAS drinking water standards making the EPA’s announcement welcome news to Clean Cape Fear who has fought for over six years alongside the National PFAS Contamination Coalition to establish these protections.
In November 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Council started an investigation, at the request of Clean Cape Fear, into human rights violations associated with Chemours PFAS contamination crisis in North Carolina. The UN sent letters to Chemours, Corteva, DuPont, the Netherlands, and the United States. The United States has yet to respond to the UN’s allegations.
In December, NC’s Dept. of Environmental Quality required Chemours expand private well testing to more residents in the lower Cape Fear River basin. This action would allow over 14,000 additional residents to qualify for private well sampling. It has been over six years and communities still to do know the complete scope of the groundwater contamination in the region caused by Chemours’ Fayetteville Works Facility.
In October, the US EPA announced it reauthorized Chemours to import up to 4.4 million pounds of GenX waste from its Netherland’s facility to its North Carolina facility. Clean Cape Fear worked with local, state, and national leaders and environmental groups to oppose this decision. These actions resulted in a temporary pause in shipments by Chemours while the US EPA further reviews its approval process. Clean Cape Fear also created a community pettion/letter to US EPA Administrator Regan requesting these shipments be permanently banned.
In August, Clean Cape Fear continued our fight alongside the Center for Environmental health and other NC health and environmental groups to access more health studies related to our Chemours-specific PFAS exposures. An opening brief was filed with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the dismissal of our lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to fully grant our TSCA petition. Our community still does not have access to a large-scale human epidemiological health study or any exposures studies looking for cancer outcomes.
We also requested a community graphic from the NC State GenX Exposure Study which was published in their July 2023 newsletter. This graphic showed the total sum of all PFAS measured in blood per community cohorts sampled. New Hanover County, where Wilmington, NC is located, had the highest levels of total PFAS in participants’ blood due to the additional body burden of Chemours-specific PFAS. All cohorts have more PFAS than the national average due to poor monitoring and enforcement of PFAS releases along the Cape Fear River system.
NC’s Dept. of Health & Human services released PFOS Fish Consumption Advisories for freshwater fish caught along the Lower Cape Fear River. These advisories were in response to demands by local community groups, including Clean Cape Fear, calling on state agencies to issue PFAS fish advisories in areas where with known PFAS contamination. NC is the first state to issue advisories using the US EPA’s newly updated information. The advisories are for seven fish species and are very health protective; however, they do not take into consideration if an individual was over exposed to PFAS due to highly contaminated tap water or occupational exposures.
In September, Clean Cape Fear traveled to Washington, DC to join the National PFAS Contamination Coalition’s National Day of Action. We held meetings with White House staffers, EPA officials, and member of Congress urging them to establish a broad definition for PFAS, expedite pending PFAS drinking water standards, and to protect CERCLA’s Superfund program by refusing to issue any exemptions when designating PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances.
Link to joint TSCA press release: https://ceh.org/latest/press-releases/north-carolina-groups-file-opening-brief-in-continuing-battle-to-require-vital-health-studies-on-effects-of-exposure-to-chemours-pfas/
Link to GenX Exposure Study newsletter: https://genxstudy.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/149/2023/07/Hoppin-12229-GenX-Newsletter-7-JAH-FIN.pdf
Link to Fish Adivsories: https://www.ncdhhs.gov/news/press-releases/2023/07/13/ncdhhs-recommends-limiting-fish-consumption-middle-and-lower-cape-fear-river-due-contamination