RALEIGH – North Carolina has secured an agreement valued at $590 million with Chemours, DuPont and Corteva over PFAS contamination, including $455 million in payments and a $135 million reserve for future drinking-water and cleanup work.
The $455 million will be paid to the state and 11 affected local governments over the next 10 to 15 years, according to the North Carolina Department of Justice. The state will receive $75 million, including roughly $55 million for an Emerging Contaminant Mitigation Fund that helps local governments detect and reduce contaminants in drinking water.
The remaining $380 million will go to Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, Cumberland, New Hanover, Robeson and Sampson counties; Lumberton, Wrightsville Beach and Bald Head Island; and the Lower Cape Fear Water and Sewer Authority. The agreement does not yet disclose how that money will be divided among the local entities.
The separate $135 million reserve will be funded by DuPont and Corteva. North Carolina can draw from it if Chemours becomes unable to continue work required under a 2019 consent order, including providing filtration or other clean-water options to families whose private wells were contaminated by pollution from the Fayetteville Works plant.
Chemours has spent nearly $1.2 billion complying with the consent order and projects another $320 million in spending, according to company filings cited by state officials. About 27,500 household wells have been sampled, and roughly 10,500 families have been offered filtration systems or other replacement drinking water.
State officials described the agreement as the largest environmental-damages recovery in North Carolina history. The deal does not affect an ongoing Cape Fear Public Utility Authority case seeking additional cleanup funds for Wilmington and parts of New Hanover County, and six state cases involving manufacturers of PFAS-containing firefighting foam are continuing.
Image credit: North Carolina Department of Justice and North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality; NC Business Desk graphic.