CHAPEL HILL — EPA’s proposed settlement with Chemours fails to hold the polluter accountable for its toxic PFAS pollution, require comprehensive cleanup, or include court-enforceable protections against future pollution for North Carolinians, according to comments submitted by the Southern Environmental Law Center to EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice.

“This proposed settlement would leave North Carolina communities to keep paying the price for Chemours’ widespread PFAS pollution while the administration seeks to release the company from accountability,” said Kelly Moser, senior attorney and leader of the Water Program at the Southern Environmental Law Center which litigated against Chemours in North Carolina to stop its PFAS pollution of the Cape Fear River and drinking water source for over 500,000 people and secure testing and treatment for contaminated wells. “Rather than holding Chemours accountable, the deal appears designed to shield the company from meaningful consequences for the widespread harm its chemicals have caused. The message is hard to ignore: Chemours gets leniency while families get contamination. This leniency is especially alarming given EPA Administrator Zeldin has appointed Chemours’ scientists to agency advisory positions and Chemours is challenging the long-awaited PFAS drinking water standards, pushing to expand its operations, and continuing to release massive amounts of ultrashort-chain PFAS into waterways that serve hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians.”

The proposed settlement imposes inadequate penalties for Chemours’ pollution and limited obligations for cleanup based on a rationale that stronger consequences are off the table because the multi-billion-dollar company has “limited ability to pay.”

Although EPA and the Department of Justice have publicly characterized it as a “$450 million settlement,” that description is false and misleading. There is no requirement that Chemours pay or spend anywhere close to $450-million dollars; that figure is nowhere in the proposed agreement and has no basis in the actual terms. Instead, the purported settlement value is largely derived from an inadequate penalty, a spending cap, low stipulated penalties, and projects that may never occur and whose benefits remain uncertain. A table distinguishing the monetary amounts that actually appear in the settlement from rhetoric is available here.

For almost 90 years, Chemours and its predecessor, DuPont, unlawfully released toxic PFAS pollution from facilities in North Carolina, West Virginia, and New Jersey, contaminating rivers, groundwater, drinking water supplies, farmland, wildlife, and communities across the three states. As a result, over 500,000 North Carolinians unknowingly consumed contaminated drinking water; over 10,000 private wells were polluted in North Carolina; and families continue to live with the consequences of Chemours’ releases of these highly persistent toxic chemicals known as forever chemicals. Despite the extraordinary scope of harm, EPA has swept allegations involving drinking water contamination affecting millions of Americans into a resolution that largely asks the company to monitor itself and develop plans, while surrendering EPA’s claims regarding the company’s toxic contamination across multiple states.

Despite Chemours’ widespread PFAS contamination, EPA Administrator Zeldin recently selected two Chemours executives to be on EPA’s Science Advisory Board. Chemours and other industry groups are seeking to overturn drinking water limits for six PFAS, including GenX, in court to avoid financial responsibility for the costs of water treatment—costs that utilities are incurring largely because of PFAS contamination caused by Chemours’ pollution of people’s drinking water sources.

The settlement further illustrates a transparency problem with what appears to be the first public disclosure that an industrial chemical, carbooxohalide, is manufactured, processed, or used at Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility in North Carolina—and only at this facility. The proposed settlement imposes a series of restrictions and safety requirements governing Chemours’ carbooxohalide operations that strongly suggest carbooxohalide poses significant health, safety, or environmental concerns. Despite these revelations, the proposed settlement provides virtually no information about the chemical itself, the quantities involved, its emissions, its potential risks, or the scope of Chemours’ current and future operations involving the substance. Communities that have lived with the consequences of Chemours’ past contamination in North Carolina are entitled to more than assurances that protective measures exist. They are entitled to sufficient information to understand the chemical’s risks and evaluate whether measures are adequate to protect their and their family’s health, the water they drink, and the air they breathe.

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