00:00:02
The Cape Fear River runs down the eastern
half of North Carolina,
00:00:06
passing by major cities before emptying into
the Atlantic Ocean.
00:00:10
Right here, at the bottom of the river basin,
is Wilmington – a city known for its iconic
00:00:15
riverwalk.
00:00:16
That’s where you’ll find this sign, describing
the importance of this river to the region:
00:00:21
“It flows southeast for 200 miles… has
the largest basin in the state, covering more
00:00:26
than 9,000 square miles… [and] drainage
from 4 cities and runoff from factories, farms
00:00:31
and homesites in 29 counties flows into it.”
00:00:35
This river system provides water to the entire
basin and the Cape Fear is one of Wilmington's
00:00:40
main sources of drinking water.
00:00:42
A nationwide test of tap water recently ranked
both Wilmington and neighboring Brunswick
00:00:47
County in the top five for high levels of
PFAS contamination — a group of chemicals
00:00:52
found in many everyday products.
00:00:55
Anything that has water repellant in it, stain resistance in it, fire retardant, popcorn bags
00:01:00
... popcorn bags and dental floss and pizza boxes...
00:01:02
... pizza boxes, rain gear, sleeping bags, food containers...
00:01:06
...food containers and makeup.
00:01:07
It's everywhere.
00:01:09
Tracing the sources of chemicals in this North
Carolina river tells you exactly how the water
00:01:14
got so contaminated...
… and it also tells you how chemical companies
00:01:18
are getting away with polluting our drinking
water — not just here, but throughout the
00:01:23
United States.
00:01:29
This happens to be ground zero for these chemicals
being discharged into the water and the air.
00:01:37
99% of all Americans have this in their blood.
00:01:45
Yet another chemical compound found in the Cape Fear River...
00:01:46
Chemicals used in consumer products like firefighting foam and nonstick products...
00:01:50
... could lead to cancer...
00:01:52
... prompting concerns about the drinking water in Southeastern North Carolina.
00:01:59
It has a lot of different names.
00:02:01
But it's basically what they call “forever chemicals”
— they're long-chain fluorocarbons
00:02:06
designed to withstand any kind of breakdown.
00:02:13
Forever chemicals, or “PFAS”, have strong
molecular bonds that repel oil, water, and
00:02:19
stains and can withstand extreme heat, making
them almost indestructible.
00:02:24
It was actually invented to coat tanks and
military instruments and weaponry to protect
00:02:31
it from the elements.
00:02:33
Chemical companies like DuPont have been making PFAS since the 1930s.
00:02:36
All around us are the product of modern chemistry...
00:02:40
Even burnt food won't stick to Teflon...
00:02:43
Choose a DuPont nonstick...
00:02:45
There's nothing like DuPont.
00:02:48
Now, there are nearly 5,000 different forever
chemicals, and “PFAS” is an umbrella term
00:02:53
for all of them.
00:02:55
One of them, PFOA, was used by DuPont to make
Teflon.
00:02:58
Also known as C8, it was the subject of a
2001 class action lawsuit claiming DuPont
00:03:03
contaminated drinking water in Ohio and West
Virginia.
00:03:07
PFAS chemicals accumulate in our bodies and
that build-up can cause health problems long
00:03:12
afterwards.
00:03:13
You can't see it, and you can't taste it,
and the kinds of impacts that occur with it
00:03:18
take some time to develop.
00:03:21
As a result of the lawsuit, DuPont funded
a science panel that, in 2012, found probable
00:03:26
links between C8 exposure and health problems
like cancer after testing almost 70,000 people
00:03:31
in the area.
00:03:33
Five years later, DuPont settled without admitting
any wrongdoing, despite evidence that they
00:03:38
had known for decades about the harmful effects
of PFAS.
00:03:41
They had also agreed to stop making C8.
00:03:44
But by then, PFAS contamination had cropped
up elsewhere.
00:03:49
The Cape Fear River Basin begins here, near
the city of Greensboro.
00:03:54
In water samples taken from lakes in the area,
researchers found a forever chemical called
00:03:59
“PFOS”.
00:04:00
It was coming from here: The Piedmont Triad
International Airport.
00:04:04
PFOS is in the firefighting foam...
… used during training exercises conducted
00:04:08
at airports like the one here.
… and that runoff flows into the upper river
00:04:13
basin.
00:04:14
Farther down on the Haw River—a tributary
of the Cape Fear— forever chemicals are
00:04:19
coming from a different source.
00:04:26
The people that do know about it, they don’t
drink the water.
00:04:29
There’s people considering leaving because
they don’t feel like their water is safe.
00:04:38
Emily Sutton is a conservationist who tests
the Haw River for contamination.
00:04:42
This spot in the Haw is directly impacted
by the PFAS load that's coming directly from
00:04:51
Burlington's East Wastewater Treatment
Plant.
00:04:53
It's about 300 yards upstream.
00:04:56
Filters at the treatment facility are not
designed to remove PFAS.
00:05:00
So wastewater coming from nearby industries
arrives and leaves containing similar levels
00:05:06
of PFAS contamination.
00:05:08
Their effluent from the wastewater treatment
plant comes directly into the Haw.
00:05:13
We know that the city of Burlington's wastewater
treatment plant is the main source for PFAS,
00:05:20
but they're not necessarily creating the PFAS.
00:05:23
It's all of these different industries that
are sending their waste to that wastewater
00:05:28
treatment plant.
00:05:29
A few miles downriver,a water sample taken
from beneath a bridge crossing the Haw showed
00:05:35
high levels of PFAS.
00:05:36
And as the river flows down towards Wilmington,
chemicals from other sources accumulate and
00:05:42
push PFAS levels even higher near the city.
00:05:46
But it's not just the levels that start to
change.
00:05:48
If you look at the kinds of PFAS in that sample,
you'll notice something else in the water.
00:05:53
A newer type of forever chemical called GenX.
00:05:57
It came from here, at the Chemours chemical
plant, located between the two sample sites.
00:06:02
The plant released wastewater into the Cape
Fear River containing GenX, and also emitted
00:06:07
the chemical into the air — where it settles
on nearby land and entered the river as runoff.
00:06:13
70 miles downstream, an intake pipe pulls
in river water and supplies it to Wilmington.
00:06:22
The discovery of GenX in Wilmington’s drinking
water was front page news in 2017…
00:06:27
When we woke up and saw the Star News article
that Gen X was in our water, a group of citizens,
00:06:33
we all got together around a dining room table
and realized that we needed to address this
00:06:38
head on.
00:06:41
Two years later Emily Donovan submitted water
samples from Wilmington and Brunswick County
00:06:45
to a nationwide study measuring PFAS levels
in tap water.
00:06:49
Her Brunswick County sample came from Belville Elementary School.
00:06:53
I went back to my kids school, because I was
curious to see what they were still drinking.
00:06:59
That sample was the highest reported in that
study.
00:07:02
And that was devastating.
00:07:04
I mean, nobody wants to be at the top of that
list.
00:07:07
I think back now to maybe what we might have
accidentally been exposed to, while we were
00:07:13
on the banks of the Cape Fear River letting
our kids play.
00:07:16
I mean, I've got photos, and I go back and
look at them, and I'm thinking to myself:
00:07:21
“What were we wading in?"
00:07:26
Millions of people depend on The Cape Fear
River Basin for their water, but throughout
00:07:30
the country other Americans are drinking forever
chemicals.
00:07:34
What you think is happening in North Carolina
is staying there.
00:07:38
It's just not the case.
00:07:40
It's everywhere.
00:07:42
Communities in Michigan, New York, California,
Pennsylvania and elsewhere have discovered
00:07:46
PFAS in their drinking water.
00:07:48
This map shows PFAS contamination across the
US.
00:07:52
And many communities have yet to be tested.
00:07:54
The answer here is not to put the burden of
safety on the homeowner, on the consumer.
00:07:59
You have to stop these pollutants at the source.
00:08:04
The real problem is at the regulatory level.
00:08:08
In America, it falls to us, the ordinary people,
to prove that these chemicals are toxic, before
00:08:16
the chemical is regulated by our government.
00:08:18
That is simply backwards.
00:08:20
There's something that's called the precautionary
principle — and we don't really apply it
00:08:24
here in the United States — but what it
says is: before you can bring a chemical to
00:08:28
the market, you've got to prove that that
chemical is safe for the consumer.
00:08:33
We have the inverse of that.
00:08:35
I've been arguing for some time about our
country and our state adopting a precautionary
00:08:40
principle, which means don't put anything
in the air or water that you think is not safe.
00:08:45
Right now, companies can sell products without
declaring all the chemicals they contain,
00:08:50
even if they're harmful for consumers.
00:08:52
So we're left with tens of thousands of chemicals
on the market that we have no idea whether
00:09:00
they're safe for consumption or not.
00:09:03
But with a precautionary principle in place,
the government adds a preventive check — by
00:09:08
requiring companies to prove the safety of
the chemicals in their products before they
00:09:13
reach consumers.
00:09:14
If I knew that I could potentially get cancer
by having stain resistant carpet, then I would
00:09:20
make a better decision for myself.
00:09:23
But I'm not even given that choice right now.
00:09:25
And knowing which chemicals are toxic would
allow the government to look for those contaminants
00:09:29
in the air and water, while also requiring
companies to filter chemicals out of their wastewater
00:09:37
North Carolina is the perfect example where
there is nothing.
00:09:40
When we don’t have any information, we don’t
know how to assess them and address them,
00:09:44
so they don't get talked about.
00:09:46
Without a precautionary principle, chemicals
like GenX can go unchecked.
00:09:50
And even when companies get caught for one
toxic chemical, they can replace it with another.
00:09:56
When DuPont agreed to stop making the Teflon
PFAS “C8” by 2015, C8 blood levels dropped
00:10:02
for the average American.
00:10:03
But in the meantime, DuPont introduced a new
chemical in 2009 to replace C8,
00:10:08
and in 2015 spun off a new company — Chemours
— to produce it in North Carolina.
00:10:15
That new chemical was GenX.
00:10:22
It's just this game of Whac-A-Mole, that one
gets regulated, and you have a new one pop up.
00:10:27
As forever chemicals become a nationwide conversation, some states are starting to respond.
00:10:33
Washington state, San Francisco, and Maine
have banned PFAS in food packaging, and many
00:10:38
states have proposed prohibited firefighting
foam containing PFAS, including North Carolina.
00:10:43
But a larger effort to eliminate PFAS chemicals
is still pending.
00:10:48
There is still no legal requirement to filter
PFAS from tap water, so more than 100 million
00:10:55
Americans are likely drinking water contaminated
with PFAS.
00:11:01
I think protecting public water and public
health isn't really controversial.
00:11:04
But how we get there, as you know, industry's
got a lot at stake here.
00:11:10
It stays out there forever, and it accumulates
in us.
00:11:14
So we all have a stake in this.
