Speak up for safe, clean water across NC!

Your voice matters! We need your help keeping our waters safe and clean, and protecting them from polluters.

The N.C. Environmental Management Commission (EMC) has proposed new rules to “regulate” the discharge of PFAS (per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and 1,4-dioxane into our waterways. Except these rules – written by industry lobbyists – don’t actually do that.

If the EMC enacts these rules as written, chronic polluters won't have to cut their toxic discharges of PFAS and 1,4 dioxane into North Carolina’s drinking water supplies – they just have to say they will. Even then, they face no consequences even if those discharges INCREASE.

If that doesn’t seem to make sense, that’s because it doesn’t. PFAS and 1,4-dioxane are incredibly harmful to human and environmental health, and are very difficult and expensive to remove from our drinking water. These rules only benefit the polluters they represent. Everyday North Carolinians will be exposed and vulnerable to these toxins flowing from their taps. Currently, more than 3.5 million North Carolinians drink water contaminated with unsafe levels of PFAS, and more than one million drink water laden with cancer-causing 1,4-dioxane. We demand better. We deserve better.

Our voices matter, but only if we use them. So add your name to our petition NOW: Tell the EMC to pass rules that work for the people, not the polluters who poison our waters. We can demand that our government work for us and not for polluters by rewriting these rules to prioritize public and environmental health.

Use our form to add your name to our petition to the EMC – and be sure to add your personal thoughts about how this affects you, your family and your neighbors. This rule will affect waterways across North Carolina, so ask your friends to speak up, too!

Let’s demand accountability from the regulators whose job it is to protect North Carolina's environment and all who live in it. We deserve safe, clean drinking water, so speak up NOW to protect our communities and our environment.

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We need strong rules for PFAS & 1,4 dioxane discharges

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We hereby submit comments regarding the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission’s (EMC) proposed monitoring and minimization rules for PFAS and 1,4 dioxane. Due to the similar structure and intent of the proposed rules, the concurrent run of the comment periods, and the fact that 1,4 dioxane and PFAS contamination impact similar communities across the state, we submit these comments to address both sets of rules. We do so in the hope of preventing an even greater threat to human health should they pass as written. It is the mandate of the EMC to create rules that protect North Carolina communities and the environment. Despite the significant power granted to this body to create protective and enforceable rules, the proposed monitoring and minimization plan for PFAS and 1,4 dioxane are neither. — The rules do not require polluters to reduce discharge of these chemicals, only to draft a plan saying how they might do so – and that plan will not be enforceable under these rules. — The proposed rules include monitoring provisions that are of questionable benefit; the state is already aware of the sources of 1,4 dioxane, and required sampling for three only PFAS when thousands of the compounds risk the health and well being of our communities is woefully inadequate. PFAS and 1,4 dioxane have been contaminating the Cape Fear River watershed for years, even decades, exposing communities in these regions to health risks that are beyond their control. PFAS have been linked to cancer, thyroid disease, immune system damage, and developmental harm in children. 1,4-dioxane, classified by the EPA as a likely human carcinogen, has been discharged into the Cape Fear River watershed at concentrations considered dangerous by the EPA. These inadequate rules will be applied not just in the Cape Fear River watershed, but statewide, extending these risks to the environment and every living thing across North Carolina. We ask that the EMC intervene to protect the people of this state. Codifying voluntary reductions for industry with no mechanism for accountability does not move us toward safer water. It sets us up for incalculable harm. We respectfully ask the committee to abandon the proposed monitoring and minimization plans and instead act quickly to create strong regulations for these chemicals that are backed by science, protect our communities, and provide strong enforcement.

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