RALEIGH — A community information session regarding the state’s plans to test private wells near Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility in Bladen County will take place today in St. Pauls.

The state departments of Environmental Quality, and Health and Human Services will serve as hosts to the session at scheduled for 6 to 7:30 p.m. at St. Pauls Middle School, located at 526 W. Shaw St. The public is invited.

State officials plan to start collecting water samples for testing from residential wells adjacent to the facility on Friday as part of an ongoing investigation into the chemical GenX, according to information from the Environmental Quality department. GenX is produced by Chemours.

The information session will give area residents an opportunity to ask state officials questions about the state’s testing plans. Eligible residents will also will be able to sign up to have their wells tested.

State officials issued Chemours a notice of violation recently after preliminary test results detected GenX in violation of state groundwater standards in 13 of 14 industrial wells at the company’s Fayetteville Works facility. The wells tested are used for environmental monitoring at the facility and are not a source of drinking water. Based on the test results, DEQ and DHHS notified local officials and initiated plans to start testing the private wells of residents nearest the facility.

“People in this community deserve to know about the safety of their well water and we’re working to get them answers,” said Michael Regan, secretary of the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. “Thursday’s meeting will give people who use these wells an opportunity to learn more about the well sampling process and next steps.”

State officials must have a resident’s permission to conduct private well sampling. The water samples will be taken to Gel Laboratories in Charleston, S.C., for analysis of GenX and other chemicals detected in the preliminary test results from the industrial wells at Chemours’ facility.

More information about the state’s investigation can be found at: https://deq.nc.gov/news/hot-topics/genx-investigation.

For more details about today’s information session, contact Jamie Kritzer, DEQ’s communications director, at 919-707-8602 or at [email protected], or Laura J. Leonard, Division of Waste Management public information officer, at 919-707-8233 or at [email protected].

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Staff Report