Wilmington and Cape Fear region residents were vocal about their concerns over new PFAS rules proposed by the Environmental Management Commission (EMC). On Thursday, the room at Wilmington City Hall’s Skyline Center for the last of three public hearings was brimming with a capacity crowd (reportedly, the fire marshal declared the event at capacity and had to turn some away).
Many wore blue in support of the Cape Fear River — and they were overwhelmingly opposed to new rules they feel are toothless and unenforceable.
The hearings, hosted by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ), were focused on two draft rules proposed by the EMC, which would require the monitoring of PFAS, the large family of compounds known as ‘forever chemicals’ that includes Gen-X, as well as 1,4-dioxane, a chemical labeled as a likely human carcinogen. The rules would require industrial dischargers to develop plans to reduce pollution, but notably don’t include enforceable discharge limits, deadlines, or automatic penalties for violations.
Of the sixty people who signed up to speak at the event, all but one were fully against the proposed rules. Speakers from a range of backgrounds, including UNCW college students, retired and current professors, doctors, mothers and grandmothers, engineers, and city councilwomen, said the proposed rules ask the industry to police itself voluntarily with no real consequences for continuing to pollute Cape Fear waters with forever chemicals.
Of the more than 14,000 PFAS chemicals, the EMC’s proposed rules cover only three: PFOS, PFOA, and GenX. Two of these chemicals are no longer manufactured in North Carolina. The rules ask industries and water treatment facilities to minimize the amount of PFOS, PFOA, and GenX chemicals that they are releasing into the rivers that are the source of much of the region’s drinking water. Many speakers complained that the rules were heavily influenced by industry, which is why they are vague and have no penalties. They asked the EMC to deny approval of the rules and instead put forward enforceable, quantitative, health-based, and science-based regulations.
Roger Shew, a retired UNCW geologist who has frequently weighed in on local environmental issues, stated that the 2025 Safe Drinking Act includes PFAS. He argued the people need “elimination and enforcement,” not “monitoring and minimization.” Erin Carey, Deputy Director of the Sierra Club, discussed the 2017 StarNews story that introduced people to the problem of PFAS in the Cape Fear River. She said that the state has had nine years to address PFAS and has disappointingly come up with rules that are “wholly dependent on the altruism of an industry” that has repeatedly bucked accountability.
Health concerns
Many speakers said they had PFAS-related health conditions like kidney disease, cancer, or thyroid disease. Others had lost loved ones to cancer, several to extremely rare brain cancers, which they said were related to PFAS.
Bernard Williams of the Rock Hill Community in Castle Hayne said that 150 people in his small community have died. Several speakers spoke about the plight of firefighters. Trevor Alder stated that most of the firefighters who died from PFAS-related diseases worked at stations with water wells. He told the EMC, “Do your job so I can do my job.”
Dr. Kelly McConnell, who said she has a PFAS-related disease that requires her to use a feeding tube, said that these rules provide “no actual protection from PFAS chemicals.”
Emily Donovan of Clean Cape Fear said that the EMC’s minimizing plan could not be taken seriously. They are just “regulating chemicals that are already off the market and calling it progress.” She said it was like begging the industry, “Please, please, pretty please” don’t poison us. Donovan added that we don’t ask hospitals to inspect themselves, why would we think industries with a history of poisoning people should? She spoke about New Jersey’s lawsuit against Chemours, formerly DuPont, and how that state won more than $2 billion while NC only received about $13 million even though it was the same company dumping the same poison. The reason for NC’s worse outcome, says Donovan, is that we don’t have the right regulations to protect our citizens. According to one speaker, the new rules would mean that North Carolina would have to sue each company in court at taxpayer expense to try to get money to clean up the messes the companies make.
At least 2.5 million people in North Carolina have PFAS in their drinking water that exceeds federal safety standards, according to a report from 2024. Dana Sargent, a former director of Cape Fear River Watch currently serving as director of community building for Audubon North Carolina, said she shouldn’t have to consider skipping baths to protect them from exposure to PFAS. Sargent also spoke about her brother, saying he died from a brain tumor likely linked to PFAS and asked, “How many deaths do you need? One should be enough.”
Another mom said, “I want to take my kids fishing, but does that mean I’m poisoning them?” She continued, “This is terrifying as a mother. How can this be okay at any level?” Kate Hudson said, “It’s about trust. People should be able to turn on their tap and know the water is safe.” Rosemary Schmitt added that drinking water shouldn’t “come with a list of side effects.”
Tyler Raines, a UNCW Environmental and Campus Fellow for the NC Conservation Network, is getting ready to graduate and wondered, “Do I stay here in Wilmington [after graduation] and get poisoned by PFAS, or do I go back to my home in Fuquay Varina and get poisoned by 1,4 Dioxane?”
Several speakers mentioned the dangers to wildlife due to PFAS. Lora Sharkey of Lower Cape Fear Wildlife Federation said, “Humans are not the only species suffering from PFAS contamination,” mentioning fish, shellfish, and dolphins. William McLellan, a marine mammologist, discussed his research with the local bottlenose dolphin population. He had identified testicular cancer in one dolphin’s corpse. He had also seen loss of pregnancy, and death of both the fetus and the mother in local dolphins. These are rare conditions that are related to PFAS in human studies. He suggested that all sources of PFAS should be removed from the Cape Fear River.
Concerns about narrow, voluntary rules
Vaughn Hagerty, a former journalist who broke the PFAS story for StarNews and is now the communications director of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA), called the rules “voluntary plans,” and said, “relying on the industry to police itself doesn’t work.” CFPUA Executive Director Kenneth Waldroup placed the future blame for the pollution and damage that will result from the new rules on the EMC, saying, “Responsibility will be laid directly at the feet of the people who made [these] bad decisions.” He accused the EMC of burying the problem and, “shifting the responsibility to downstream utilities” to clean it up.
Many attendees argued that, since there are nearly 15,000 different PFAS chemicals, regulating each one individually doesn’t make sense. Additionally, as these chemicals get banned, companies tweak them to make new chemicals that aren’t covered under the ban. One speaker asked, “Why not regulate them as a class as other states have done?” Colorado, Maine, California, Rhode Island, and Vermont are among the states that have implemented broad bans.
Many complained that the citizens being harmed by the chemicals are the ones being forced to pay for the cleanup instead of the responsible polluters.
Allie Sheffield stated, “PFAS should be banned,” and this new rule is allowing polluters to pollute more. She urged the CMS “not to adopt this rinky-dink rule.”
An outlier, and a lighter moment
One speaker, JoEllen Gay, vice-chair of the NC Pretreatment Consortium, a nonprofit that represents almost all of the state’s 125 waste treatment plants, seemed to be the only one taking an approach that didn’t include fully throwing out the new rules. Instead, she suggested having them only applied to 595 industrial companies instead of including the water treatment facilities as well. She explained that the plan would be burdensome to those companies and they should be given credits from existing permits instead. She also stated that non-detectable is not a working goal since even domestic sources could show a detection of PFAS.
There were a few lighter moments in the meeting, including when Jessica Thomas stated, “I’m representing my back yard,” before giving a history lesson about William Houston, whose effigy was burned in Wilmington in 1765 in protest of his part in the first taxes placed on the colonists under the Stamp Act of 1765. Mr. Houston was then forced by the citizens to resign. Thomas suggested that perhaps citizens needed to follow his example and “string [the EMC’s] effigy and light it up.” She finished her comments by holding up two purple balls in a Ziploc bag saying, “I bought a pair of balls for you since you don’t seem to have any.”
Economic and environmental impacts
Speakers like Linda Shier of Oak Island said that they didn’t do their homework before they moved to the Cape Fear region and they were now looking to leave as a result of the polluted water. Dr. Kathy Sohar said she decided to rent when she moved to Wilmington because she was concerned about investing in property in a place with these types of environmental issues. She went on to explain that these rules don’t make good long-term economic sense and harm industries like tourism. Ty Jacobus of Honeybird Organic Farm said that PFAS is destroying his business because of the contamination in their well water. He added, “Filtration is not a solution. It’s a band-aid.” He said, “Agriculture is the number one industry in North Carolina so if it’s all about money, consider that.”
Brunswick County resident Joanne Levitan said, “When industry pollutes our water, we all suffer.” Some people said they’ve had to buy expensive reverse osmosis filters, but not everyone can afford them or their alternative, bottled water, which poses its own environmental issues. Several speakers mentioned that PFAS pollution affected Black residents and people of color more, and one person added, “Environmental injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Blaire Johnson showed a photo of children and dogs playing in the toxic seafoam at Carolina Beach. A 2025 study showed that seafoam in area beaches was thousands of times higher in PFAS than the surrounding seawater and twice as high as allowed by EPA regulations. Johnson suggested, by analogy, that several Australian beaches were closed last summer due to toxic foam, damaging the tourism industry.
The big takeaway: Residents say they want better regulations
Donald Thaxton added, “North Carolina’s resources are the pride and joy of North Carolina,” but PFAS is ruining them. He added, “Wilmington is not the lagoon of the polluters.”
Peter Riovich summed the meeting up, “Everyone’s opposing [these rules]. I haven’t heard the benefits of your proposal….The only acceptable and safe level of PFAS is zero.”
Morgan Hooks of Cape Fear Riverwatch was one of the last to speak for the night. She had this to say to the EMC, “You can fix this. These people are pleading with you. Again. They’ve been doing this for years. They don’t believe you care. Show them you do.”
Written public comments will be accepted until June 15, 2026, and can be emailed to publiccomments@deq.nc.gov with the subject "PFAS monitoring and minimization" or mailed to Karen Preston, DEQ-DWR NPDES Permitting Section, 1617 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1617.
