Category Archives: Drinking Water

Obstructing Environmental Standards

January 26, 2024. In North Carolina, adopting a new state rule involves many steps and multiple levels of review. But the rulemaking process has recently obstructed a water quality standard in ways not intended by  the  N.C. Administrative Procedure Act (APA). As a result,  the rule setting a water quality standard for 1,4 dioxane — a toxic pollutant and likely human carcinogen — cannot go into effect even though there has been no legally supported objection to the rule.

1,4 dioxane. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified 1,4 dioxane (used in solvents and other products) as a toxic pollutant associated with a number of adverse health effects, including liver damage and increased cancer risk. EPA published those findings in a 2020 health risk assessment of 1.4 dioxane  that focused primarily on occupational exposure.  In 2023, EPA released a revised  health risk assessment  of 1,4 dioxane considering risk to the public through exposure in drinking water. The new assessment  concludes that 1,4 dioxane in drinking water  “presents an unreasonable risk to human health”. (The revised assessment was released for public comment in September 2023; it is not clear whether EPA has finalized the assessment since closure of the comment period.)

As early as 2015, drinking water systems using the Cape Fear River system as a water source detected 1,4 dioxane in their drinking water.  Those water systems include the Town of Pittsboro and the City of Fayetteville. Investigation of  1,4 dioxane releases to the river by the  N.C. Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)  led to upstream municipal wastewater systems.  As documented by DEQ, several cities — including Greensboro, Reidsville and Burlington —  have  periodically released wastewater containing high levels of  1,4 dioxane to the Cape Fear River system (which includes the Haw River).    In most cases, the 1,4 dioxane  could be traced back to a specific industrial facility discharging process water to the municipal sewer system.

As DEQ worked with these communities to address 1,4 dioxane spikes in their wastewater discharges, the N.C. Environment Management Commission (EMC) proposed and adopted a numerical water quality standard for 1,4 dioxane. A water quality standard establishes the safe concentration of a water pollutant in surface waters. DEQ permit writers then use the standard  to set appropriate limits on wastewater discharge permits (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System or “NPDES” permits)  to maintain a  safe level in the water.  In developing the standard for 1,4 dioxane, the EMC relied on state and federal studies to calculate a safe concentration of 1,4 dioxane in surface water.  The proposed state water quality standard of 0.35 micrograms per liter (or 0.35 parts per billion) aligned with the concentration EPA studies associated with higher cancer risk.

The EMC adopted the water quality standard for  1,4 dioxane standard in March 2022. Two years later, the 1,4 dioxane rule is still not in effect and it is not clear when or if it will be.

What went wrong?  Once a state agency adopts a rule, the N.C. Rules Review Commission (RRC) must review and approve the rule before it can go into effect.  Under the APA, the RRC can only object to a rule on four grounds:

1. The rulemaking agency didn’t have authority under state law to adopt the rule;

2. The rule language isn’t clear;

3. The rule isn’t reasonably necessary to implement state law  or a federal law or rule;

4. The agency failed to comply with APA rulemaking procedures.

In May 2022, the RRC  objected to the EMC’s 1,4 dioxane water quality standard. The RRC objection did not question the EMC’s authority to adopt the rule; the clarity of the standard; or the scientific basis for it. The objection was that the EMC failed to comply with APA rulemaking procedures because — in the opinion of the RRC — the fiscal analysis of the rule was flawed. But the APA does not allow the RRC to object to a rule based on the content of a fiscal analysis; the Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) has responsibility for certifying the analysis. In fact, RRC staff legal counsel had previously advised the RRC that it did not have the authority to object to a rule based on the content of a fiscal analysis approved by OSBM.

As consistently interpreted and applied in the past (by the Rules Review Commission itself), the EMC complied with APA rulemaking requirements by submitting an OSBM-certified fiscal analysis. After unsuccessful efforts to resolve the RRC objection,  the EMC authorized its legal counsel in September 2022 to challenge the RRC action in court as exceeding the RRC’s authority.  At the time, the  EMC voted by a nearly 2/3 majority to pursue judicial review of the RRC objection.

In January 2024 — after a turnover among EMC appointments —  a new EMC majority appointed by legislative leaders and the Commissioner of Agriculture voted to drop the legal action challenging the RRC objection. Dismissing the lawsuit allows the RRC objection to stand and prevents the 1,4 dioxane standard from going into effect. There is no path around the RRC objection.  Nothing in the APA supports the voiding of an environmental standard in the absence of any legitimate objection to the rule or the rule adoption process.

What next?  Another version of the 1,4 dioxane standard (based on the most recent EPA health risk criteria) has been included in a new package of water quality rules the EMC just began to work on.  EMC Chair J. D. Solomon has indicated an intent to move the 1,4 dioxane standard forward in that process. The problem is that the new rule will go through the same process as the original 1,4 dioxane standard — a process that required nearly two years for EMC adoption; additional months for RRC review;  and resulted in the rule being voided nearly four years after the rulemaking process began based on an RRC objection lacking any basis in the Administrative Procedure Act. It is unlikely that the local governments opposed to the original 1,4 dioxane standard (as reflected in their comments to the Rules Review Commission when the rule was under review)  will be more enthusiastic about the somewhat stricter standard in the new rulemaking package.

Meanwhile, DEQ continues to rely on the backstop of the “narrative” water quality standard in 15A NCAC 2B.0208 to address 1,4 dioxane. That rule  provides specific direction to DEQ permit writers on how to set  a water quality standard for a toxic pollutant that does not yet have a numerical standard in EMC rules.  In recent years, DEQ has relied on the rule to set in-stream pollutant concentrations and then wastewater permit limits for 1,4  dioxane and PFAS chemicals. In another legal twist, however, the City of Asheboro has challenged the enforceability of  15A NCAC 2B.0208 in an appeal of conditions on Asheboro’s renewed  NPDES permit  — including conditions related to 1,4 dioxane. That case is pending in the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Postscript: Yesterday, the Raleigh News and Observer reported that the City of Burlington detected high 1,4 dioxane levels (545 parts per billion) in wastewater samples taken at the South Burlington Wastewater Treatment Plant on January 23, 2024.  As noted above, EPA studies associated  0.35 ppb with a 1/1 million increased cancer risk and EPA has previously advised that 1,4 dioxane levels in drinking water should not exceed 35 ppb which correlates to a 1/10,000 increased cancer risk.

Burlington notified both DEQ and downstream water systems of the recent 1,4 dioxane spike (test results from the day before  had been only 2.4 ppb) and contacted an industrial facility in Burlington suspected to be the source.  The Town of Pittsboro, which has a drinking water intake in the Haw River downstream of the Burlington wastewater discharge,  immediately reduced its Haw River withdrawal and asked Pittsboro water system customers to conserve water until the slug of  1,4 dioxane  contaminated water passes the intake and concentrations  of 1,4 dioxane at the intake drop to safe levels.

GenX in the State Budget

June 18, 2018. Instead of acting on the GenX bill described in an earlier post, the legislature inserted GenX provisions into the state budget bill (Senate Bill 99). The provisions adopted in the budget differ from those in House Bill 972/Senate Bill 724  in several key ways:

♦ The budget provision expressly makes a Governor’s order appealable through an administration hearing. (The earlier post noted that a Governor’s order would likely be appealable under the state’s Administrative Procedures Act even if the bill did not specifically mention appeal rights.)

♦ Language has been added to c;larify that the grant of new enforcement power to the Governor does not prevent DEQ and the Environmental Management Commission from also using their existing enforcement power under other state laws to address PFAS. The new language eliminates confusion about the impact on DEQ’s ongoing enforcement cases against Chemours and confirms that DEQ can still go directly to court in future enforcement cases if necessary.

♦ The budget provision reduces the funds appropriated to the UNC Environmental Policy Collaboratory from $8 million to  just over $5 million and limits the scope of funded water quality research. Instead of supporting non-targeted monitoring for a broad range of unregulated pollutants, the funds could only be used for monitoring of PFAS.

♦ Funding for monitoring of  Cape Fear Public Utility Authority’s water supply has similarly been limited to monitoring for PFAS.

♦ The budget dropped funding  for additional resources in the Department of Health and Human Services to evaluate health risks associated with unregulated  water contaminants. The earlier House and Senate GenX bills had earmarked over $500,000  for DHHS; under the budget bill, DHHS receives no funding for toxicology and epidemiological study of contaminants in North Carolina’s water supply sources.

Funding proposed for DEQ did not change. DEQ  will receive $1.3 million in new funding related to PFAS contamination, although new staff positions created with the funding must be time-limited rather than permanent. The budget also provides funding for a mass spectrometer to be used in analyzing water samples for PFAS. The budget provision, however,  specifies a particular type of mass spectrometer that does not have as much technical capacity to identify other unregulated contaminants as DEQ had recommended.

The budget provision continues to require a person (or company) responsible for PFAS contamination to provide an alternative water source to the well owner.  The responsibility only exists if releases of the pollutant caused the well contamination. Requiring a causal connection between the pollution release and the well contamination follows the approach taken under existing state groundwater protection rules.  It is different from  2016 coal ash legislation that required Duke Energy to provide alternative water supply to well owners within a 1/2 mille perimeter around every coal ash pond even if coal ash disposal had not been proven to be the cause of the well contamination.

What do the changes mean?  Since the new Governor’s authority can trigger an administrative appeal  (which may  take a year or more to reach a final decision), it doesn’t provide a more direct or effective remedy than DEQ’s existing authority to request a court order. As a result, it isn’t likely the new authority will be used often if at all.

Narrowing the focus of the water quality monitoring funded through the UNC Environmental Policy Collaboratory to PFAS has a mixed effect. Investigation of  PFAS contamination will receive more resources, but none of the appropriated funds will go to identification of other unregulated contaminants in N.C. water supplies.

Removal of the DHHS funding leaves the department with extremely limited staff resources to evaluate human health risk when regulatory agencies or researchers identify a new unregulated contaminant in a water supply source.

Status. Governor Cooper vetoed the budget bill on several grounds. The House and Senate have overridden the veto, allowing the bill — including the revised GenX provisions — to  become law.

GenX Legislation and Unintended Consequences

May 18, 2018. Yesterday, the N.C. House and Senate introduced identical bills in another attempt to legislatively address the impact of GenX (a perflourinated compound) on the Cape Fear River and drinking water wells. See an earlier post for background on the GenX issue. In September of 2017,  the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) filed a lawsuit against  The Chemours Company under existing water quality laws and reached a partial consent order that requires Chemours to end all wastewater discharges of GenX to the river from its Fayetteville facility.  The consent order reserves DEQ’s right to ask the court to order Chemours to take additional actions related to GenX groundwater contamination and other violations. DEQ has also reviewed Chemours’ air emissions, which may be another source of  surface and groundwater contamination as GenX  returns to the ground in rainwater. Based on monitoring results, DEQ  has notified Chemours  of an intent to modify the plant’s air quality permit. Copies of documents related to the enforcement actions  can be found on DEQ’s Chemours enforcement webpage.

The two new bills, House Bill 972 and Senate Bill 724, appropriate money to address GenX and other per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS),  but also change environmental enforcement law and require specific steps to address GenX groundwater contamination.   This post focuses on the possible unintended consequences of provisions in the bill that affect environmental enforcement and remediation.

Section 1 of each bill creates a specific enforcement provision for contamination caused by GenX or other PFAS by adding a new paragraph to an existing enforcement law, G.S. 143-215.3,    authorizing  the Governor to order a facility to stop operations resulting in release of GenX or other PFAS. Although the intent may be to provide a quick response to PFAS pollution, the provision may actually slow or undercut DEQ’s ability to pursue enforcement actions against Chemours or a future source of PFAS pollution.

Under existing water and air quality laws,  DEQ can direct a facility to stop an illegal wastewater discharge or emission of air pollutants by issuing a Notice of Violation or compliance letter. If the violator fails to comply within the time allowed or DEQ believes the violation creates an imminent threat, DEQ can file a lawsuit and ask for a court-enforced  injunction requiring compliance.  Last year, DEQ used that authority (see G.S. 143-215.6C)  to file an action in superior court against Chemours. The lawsuit has already resulted in a partial consent order to  end all wastewater discharges of GenX to the Cape Fear River. Since then, DEQ has continued to investigate the scope of GenX groundwater contamination and has issued compliance letters to Chemours requiring initial steps to address sources of groundwater contamination (such as stormwater drainage). DEQ has the ability to go back to court if Chemours fails to follow through. As the permitting agency DEQ can also address both water and air quality impacts by changing the terms of the Chemours’ permits. DEQ has already notified Chemours of the department’s intent to modify the facility’s air quality permit, presumably to reduce air emissions of GenX.

The new  provision in H972 and S724 would allow the Governor to issue an administrative order to shut down releases of GenX or other PFAS. On its face, a Governor’s order sounds like a quicker and more direct way to stop the release of these pollutants. In reality, any order could be appealed in an administrative hearing and the administrative law judge has the power to prevent  the order from going into effect until there has been a final decision on the appeal. Although the bills don’t mention the possibility of an administrative appeal, the state’s Administrative Procedures Act (APA) creates that right. (See G.S. 150B-23 for the law on appealing state actions.)  An administrative appeal can take as much as a year, slowing enforcement.  Under existing water and air quality enforcement laws, DEQ can go directly to court for an injunction instead of issuing an order potentially leading to an administrative appeal hearing.

The new provision  raises questions about both the path forward on existing Chemours enforcement actions and the impact on future state enforcement actions in response to release of  PFAS from other facilities.

With respect to DEQ’s ongoing Chemours enforcement actions, one question is whether the  legislature intends the new provision to be the exclusive remedy for Chemours’ violations, overriding DEQ’s ability to go directly to the courts for an injunction. In the absence of clear legislative language to the contrary, courts can interpret more recent and more specific laws to override earlier and more general laws.  The risk would be that a court may interpret the new enforcement provision specifically addressing PFAS pollution to override existing  but more general water/air quality enforcement laws.  At the very least, the legislation needs to be clear about the relationship between the Governor’s new power and DEQ’s existing authority to go directly to court for an injunction.  If the new provision becomes the only enforcement path, the legislation could slow rather than accelerate enforcement against Chemours.

There may also be a need to harmonize the Governor’s power with DEQ’s permitting authority under the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act.  An order affecting wastewater discharges or permitted air emissions will likely require modification of facility permits. Under federal delegations of permitting authority to DEQ,  significant modification of a permit usually triggers requirements for public notice and EPA review.

The new provision also limits issuance of a Governor’s order in several ways that don’t apply when DEQ exercises its existing water quality and air quality enforcement authority:

♦  An order could only be issued for a  facility that has an NPDES (wastewater discharge) permit.  The order could not be used for a completely unpermitted source or to address air emissions causing PFAS  pollution if the source doesn’t  also have an NPDES permit.

♦ An order could not be issued  unless the facility had received more than one Notice of Violation in the previous two years.

♦ DEQ has to make  efforts to eliminate the unauthorized discharges for at least a year before an order can be issued.

The conditions were clearly written to cover Chemours. But if a PFAS pollution problem arises at another facility, the provision could hamstring DEQ’s ability to act unless and until all three  conditions have been met. Again, this creates a significant problem if the new provision becomes the only enforcement remedy for addressing PFAS pollution.

Many of the concerns raised by Section 1 could be addressed by clarifying that existing environmental enforcement laws/rules implemented by DEQ continue to apply, making the new provision an additional tool rather than the only remedy for PFAS pollution. Even then, it may  be necessary to provide guidance on how issuance of a Governor’s order affects both pending and future DEQ enforcement actions under those existing laws.

This section of H972 and S724  has a sunset date of December 31, 2020, which means it would be automatically repealed on that date unless the legislature acts to extend it.

Sec.4(a) Directs DEQ to develop a plan to assess and remediate groundwater and surface water contamination associated with PFAS. Again, the legislation doesn’t explain how the provision affects DEQ’s existing authority especially with respect to groundwater contamination. State groundwater rules require the person who caused the contamination to develop under DEQ supervision – and pay for – a plan to assess and remediate groundwater contamination. The bill language does not mention state groundwater rules or the polluter’s responsibility for assessment and remediation; it appears to put the entire responsibility for an assessment and remediation plan on DEQ.   This is likely another unintended result that could be fixed by cross-referencing  existing rules describing the polluter’s responsibility for assessment and remediation.

As a practical matter,  this is a bigger issue for groundwater assessment and remediation than for surface water pollution.  DEQ can often assess surface water impacts by taking in-stream samples and eliminate the impact by simply stopping or reducing the discharge.   Determining the extent of groundwater contamination and implementing a groundwater cleanup plan can be much more time, labor and money-intensive.

One other note.  Section 2 of the bill authorizes DEQ to order a person responsible for contaminating a drinking water well with GenX or another PFAS to provide a permanent alternative water supply to the well owner. The language looks very similar to the alternative water supply  provision in 2016 coal ash legislation.   The difference: the coal ash provision required Duke Energy to provide an alternative water supply  to every well owner within 1/2 mile of a coal ash impoundment; the GenX provision applies to individual wells on a case by case basis.  DEQ would need to order Chemours to provide alternative water supply to an individual well owner based on data linking the well contamination to Chemours as the source.  Again, the GenX provision doesn’t mention existing state groundwater rules that already require the person who caused groundwater contamination to  “mitigate any hazards resulting from exposure to the pollutants” and restore groundwater to meet state standards.  (15A NCAC 2L.0106).  On a quick review, the GenX alternative water supply provision seems to be consistent with  existing state groundwater rules but does not necessarily provide a speedier path to alternative water supply.  In either case, the burden is on the state to establish the cause and effect link between Chemours’ activity and contamination of individual wells.

GenX: The State Enforcement Case

November 14, 2017.  An earlier post discussed some of the issues surrounding detection of a perflourinated compound known as GenX  in the Cape Fear River and in water systems using the river as a drinking water source. On September 7, 2017, the  Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)  issued a Notice of Violation and filed a legal complaint against the Chemours Company alleging violations of the federal Clean Water Act and state groundwater rules related to GenX. This post looks at the specific allegations in the state enforcement case.  ( A copy of the entire complaint can be found on  DEQ’s GenX  webpage.)

One piece of background information —  Dupont  began manufacturing GenX at the Fayetteville Works in 2009, but transferred the operation and associated environmental permits to the Chemours Company in 2015.  The sequence of events surrounding GenX begins under Dupont management, but the enforcement case names only the Chemours Company — the current owner and permit holder — as defendant.

The enforcement case against Chemours makes two basic claims:

1. Chemours violated the Clean Water Act by discharging GenX to the Cape Fear River under a water quality permit that did not authorize any discharge of GenX.  The state claims neither Dupont nor Chemours  told DEQ that wastewater discharged from the Fayetteville Works to the Cape Fear River would contain GenX and other perflourinated compounds.   According to the complaint,  state water quality staff  understood that the GenX manufacturing plant opened in 2009 would use a “closed loop” system and dispose of all wastewater off-site.   In fact,  a consent agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Dupont under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)  only allowed manufacture of GenX  under conditions requiring Dupont to effectively eliminate GenX from both the wastewater discharge and air emissions associated with the manufacturing process.

The complaint alleged that Chemours,  in applying for its most recent National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit under the Clean Water Act,  did not tell DEQ that other operations at the Fayetteville Works generated wastewater containing GenX as a byproduct. (The implication is that Dupont had also failed to disclose the presence of GenX  as a byproduct when applying for earlier water quality permits.) Chemours discharged wastewater from those operations to the Cape Fear River.

DEQ alleges Chemours violated the Clean Water Act by failing to tell state permit writers that  wastewater from the Fayetteville Works contained GenX (and other perflourinated compounds) and by discharging GenX  to the Cape Fear River under an NPDES permit that did not authorize discharge of those compounds.

2. Chemours  violated state groundwater standards.    According to the DEQ complaint,   Chemours’ hazardous waste permit has required groundwater monitoring since at least 2003 and included sampling for PFOA (the older perflourinated compound replaced by GenX ).  After detection of PFOA  in the Cape Fear River in 2015, DEQ required supplemental groundwater monitoring to determine whether groundwater at the Fayetteville Works could be the source. It isn’t clear from the complaint whether the hazardous waste permit required monitoring for PFOA from the beginning and expanded the scope in 2015 or first required PFOA in 2015. DEQ did not specifically require monitoring for GenX until August of 2017. The initial sampling detected GenX in 13 of 14 monitoring wells on the grounds of the Fayetteville Works.

Under state rules, the  groundwater  standard for any contaminant that does not  occur naturally is the lowest measurable level  (the “practical quantification level” or “PQL”) unless the rules set a higher standard based on evaluation of health and environmental risk. Since GenX does not occur naturally and state rules set no other standard, the allowable concentration of GenX would be the PQL of 10 nanograms/liter (equivalent to 10 parts per billion).  The 2017 monitoring detected levels of GenX ranging from 519 ng/ltr to 61,300 ng/ltr. All five wells located adjacent to the Cape Fear River had levels of GenX exceeding 11,800 ng/ltr. DEQ found the test results documented widespread groundwater contamination on the Fayetteville Works site exceeding  both the 10 ng/ltr groundwater standard and the threshold for human health effects  identified by the state Dept. of Health and Human Services (140 ng/ltr level).

Status of the enforcement case.  The DEQ complaint asked, in part, that Chemours immediately stop any discharge of GenX and related compounds to the Cape Fear River.  On September 8, 2017 (the day after filing the enforcement case), DEQ entered into an agreement with Chemours to resolve the discharge issue. Under a partial consent agreement,  Chemours agreed to continue voluntary measures undertaken early in the summer to prevent discharge of process wastewater containing GenX to the Cape Fear River.  The partial consent agreement also required Chemours to take similar steps to prevent discharge of two other perflourinated compounds from the “single source of significance” of those compounds at the Fayetteville Works.

The partial consent agreement did not resolve all potential violations at the Fayetteville Works.  The consent agreement did not address any of the groundwater standard violations alleged in DEQ’s September 7, 2017 complaint. DEQ also expressly reserved the right to take additional enforcement action in the event of future unpermitted discharges or violations associated with other chemicals. In fact, DEQ issued a new Notice of Violation to Chemours today based on a previously unreported spill at the Fayetteville Works. That NOV  alleges that Chemours violated its NPDES permit by failing to notify DEQ of an October 6, 2017 spill of dimer acid flouride ( a precursor to GenX) from the manufacturing line.

Still to come. With respect to the groundwater violations, DEQ’s September complaint asked the court to order Chemours to:

♦ Remove, treat or control any source of perflourinated compounds at the Fayetteville Works that could contribute to groundwater contamination. Consistent with state groundwater rules, that  would need to be done under a plan approved by DEQ.

♦ Fully assess the extent of groundwater contamination and develop a plan to address the groundwater contamination. (Again, both the assessment and corrective action plans would be subject to DEQ approval).

It does not appear that Chemours has an approved groundwater assessment plan yet and the groundwater corrective action plan can only be developed once the assessment has been done. In the meantime, DEQ has directed Chemours to provide an alternative source of drinking water to 50 households near the Fayetteville Works whose water supply wells have been contaminated by perflourinated compounds.

DEQ’s September complaint focused on actions necessary to stop the  discharge of GenX to the Cape Fear River and address groundwater contamination,  but state law also authorizes DEQ to assess civil penalties for these violations. The maximum civil penalty for each violation of state water quality laws or rules is $25,000 and if a violation continues over a period of time, state law  authorizes DEQ to assess daily penalties.  (N.C. General Statute 143-215.6A.) The actual penalty amount per violation depends on a number of factors set out in the law, including the extent of harm and whether the violation was intentional. In the case of a continuing violation, DEQ would also have to decide what time period merits daily penalties. DEQ usually develops the penalty assessment separately from legal action to obtain compliance and has not yet proposed penalties for the Chemours violations.

The Legislative Response to GenX

September 10, 2017. At the end of its most recent one-week session, the N.C. General Assembly added GenX  provisions to an existing bill,  House Bill 56  (Amend Environmental Laws),  and passed the bill with little discussion.  Section 20 of H 56:

  1. Amends the state budget to give $185,000 to Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) — $100,000 to study water treatment methods to remove GenX from the water supply and $85,000 for ongoing monitoring of water withdrawn from the Cape Fear River.
  2. Allocates $250,000 to UNC-Wilmington to “identify and quantify GenX and measure the concentration of the chemicals in the sediments of the Cape Fear River, the extent to which the chemical biodegrades over time or bioaccumulates within local ecosystems, and what risk the contaminant poses to human health”. The provision requires a final report from these studies by April 1, 2018.
  3. Directs UNC-Chapel Hill to develop a proposal to (i) identify and acquire digital environmental monitoring and natural resource data and digitize analog data;  (ii)  create an online, searchable public database of  water quality permits, permit applications, and supporting documents; and (iii)  create a system for electronic filing of permit applications. The provision also directs UNC-CH to study the feasibility of housing the database at UNC rather than with the permitting agencies in the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
  4. Requires DEQ to report back to the legislature if the department has not issued a Notice of Violation to any person or company for discharge of GenX into the Cape Fear River by
    September 8.

The bill does not allocate any additional funding to either DEQ or the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Governor Cooper had requested $2.5 million for the two departments to provide more resources for water quality monitoring; inspection of permitted facilities; permitting (and particularly elimination of the backlog in permit renewals); and development of health advisories for unregulated contaminants. Instead, DEQ  faces a $1.8 million budget reduction for 2017-2018, continuing a trend of repeated cuts to the department’s budget over the last 10 years. (See an earlier blogpost for the effect of those budget reductions.)

How will House Bill 56 affect efforts to address GenX?  The bill supports efforts by Cape Fear Public Utility Authority to identify treatment systems capable of removing GenX  from the water; increase water quality monitoring; and learn more about the impact of  GenX. Much of the funding would offset the cost of efforts already underway by CFPUA.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority had begun pilot testing use of granular activated carbon and ion exchange systems to remove  GenX from the water several weeks before. The $100,000 appropriation to study water treatment alternatives could reimburse CFPUA for past and future expenses incurred in the pilot testing. The funding would not be sufficient to actually upgrade water treatment in the water systems affected by  GenX contamination. 

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority had also entered into a one-year  contract  with UNC-Wilmington for just under $65,000  to analyze raw water and treated water samples  for additional perflourinated compounds  and to advise the utility on water treatment. House Bill 56 does not specifically describe the intent of the $85,000 appropriation for water supply monitoring, but the funds could cover the existing CFPUA/UNC-W contract. (The water quality monitoring would supplement, but not replace,  monitoring done by the Department of Environmental Quality.)

The $250,000 in funding directed to UNC-Wilmington to study GenX  would support new research and could generate important information about persistence of GenX in the environment and public health risk. The 6-month timeframe for the study, however, allows only  a very short  time to gather data and reach conclusions.

The UNC-Chapel Hill feasibility study for a digitized public database of water quality permit information would be the first step in a very long term project.   Creating a permitting database outside the permitting agency will raise a number of  legal, practical, policy and funding issues:  how to protect confidential information in permit applications (such as trade secrets);  cost of digitizing analog data and creating a new database; and the complications of maintaining  a database (or databases) to meet the very different needs of permit writers and the public.  Whatever the outcome of the study, the benefits of increased public access to permitting databases would likely be far in the future and require funding not provided in House Bill 56. [Note: Currently, anything in the permit file that is not protected by state confidentiality laws can be obtained through a public records request.]

What has been left undone?  None of the funding in the bill would go toward keeping GenX and other unregulated contaminants out of the Cape Fear River and other water supply sources. Only state and federal regulators can adopt water quality standards for the Cape Fear River and set permit limits for the discharge of GenX and other emerging contaminants to the river; local water systems do not have that power.

The bill does not address the lack of resources in DEQ and DHHS to evaluate the health and environmental risk of compounds like GenX before contamination of a water supply causes a crisis. GenX issue is only the most recent of several controversies over unregulated contaminants in North Carolina water supplies. Just within the last four years, the state has faced similar concerns about hexavalent chromium in drinking water wells and 1,4 dioxane in the Haw River. In each instance, state agencies had to develop guidance on safe levels of the contaminant in the absence of a clear federal standard and decide how to use the risk analysis in state permitting and enforcement decisions.

The weakness of the GenX response in House Bill 56 is that it reacts to water supply contamination without taking steps to prevent it. Once a contaminant has entered a water supply source, water systems — and their customers — shoulder the financial burden of using technology to reduce contamination to safe levels through water treatment. The bill also focuses narrowly on GenX rather than the broader problem of emerging contaminants affecting state water supplies. Nothing in the bill strengthens the state’s ability to detect other emerging contaminants in water supply sources; enforce water quality permit conditions; or assess health and environmental risk.

Next steps. As of today, the Governor had not yet signed or vetoed House Bill 56; the Governor’s decision could be affected by any number of provisions in the bill beyond those responding to GenX.  DEQ has taken an enforcement action against Chemours based on both discharge to GenX to the Cape Fear River and detection of GenX in groundwater on the site. (More about the enforcement action in the next blogpost.)

The Laws in the Background of the GenX Issue

August 21, 2017.  In  June, residents of southeastern North Carolina learned of a previously unknown contaminant in the Cape Fear River;  a study undertaken by an N.C. State University researcher documented the presence of the perflourinated compound  known as “GenX” in a report published in December 2016. The river provides drinking water for Wilmington-New Hanover County and other water systems.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began studying the effects of perfluorinated compounds used in firefighting foam, water repellants, Teflon, and other products more than fifteen years ago.  EPA worked with chemical companies to phase-out the two compounds most commonly used, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), because of concerns about persistence in the environment and human health risk.  In 2000, 3M Corporation announced a phaseout of PFOS. Under a 2006 agreement with EPA, eight companies committed to phase out PFOA by 2015. In 2009, Dupont began manufacturing GenX,  a chemically distinct perflourinated compound,  at its Fayetteville plant as a replacement for PFOA. (The Chemours Company, a Dupont spin-off, now operates the Fayetteville plant.)

The discovery of an unregulated chemical with uncertain health and environmental risks in a water supply source created a high level of concern in the affected communities. It has also drawn attention to gaps in the safety net of federal environmental regulations with implications for all unregulated contaminants in water supplies.  In many ways, the GenX controversy parallels the earlier controversy in North Carolina over hexavalent chromium (a contaminant associated with coal ash) in drinking water wells. In each case, the absence of a federal standard —  or EPA’s failure to update a standard based on current science —  left the state struggling to evaluate health risk and develop an appropriate regulatory standard.

A number of news organizations have provided detailed coverage of the GenX controversy and Cape Fear Public Utility Authority posts key documents and monitoring results online . This post will focus on the key federal laws involved and the  gaps in those laws that the state may need to fill. Although I will use the GenX issue as an example, this blogpost should not be interpreted as an assessment of legal claims or liabilities associated GenX contamination in the Cape Fear River.

Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). EPA regulates manufacture and importation of chemicals under the  Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Two of the key requirements of the law:

♦ Section 5 requires manufacturers to give  EPA notice before manufacturing a new chemical. (EPA maintains a Toxic Substances Inventory of previously approved chemicals.)  Based on review of information submitted with the notice, EPA may  find the new chemical is “not likely to represent an unreasonable risk” and approve manufacture. But if EPA doesn’t have sufficient information to evaluate environmental and health effects or if the lack of information creates an unreasonable risk of harm, EPA can issue an order requiring additional testing or limiting release of the chemical to the environment. Concern that GenX may have risks similar to those already associated with PFOA and PFOS caused EPA to enter  a 2009 consent order that (among other conditions) required Dupont to effectively eliminate release of GenX in wastewater and air emissions from the  manufacturing operation.

♦ Section 8 of TSCA requires chemical manufacturers and distributors to inform EPA of any information the company obtains that would reasonably support a conclusion that a chemical presents a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment.  In 2005, EPA used Section 8 of TSCA to assess a penalty against Dupont for withholding information the company had on the environmental and health effects of PFOA. That EPA action ultimately led to the phaseout of PFOA and development of alternatives like GenX.

Regulatory Gaps –TSCA covers chemicals manufactured or imported into the United States. It does not apply to a chemical by-product of a manufacturing or industrial process.  The TSCA  consent order for GenX limits release of GenX to the environment by the manufacturer,  but not the discharge of GenX  unintentionally created as a result of an unrelated manufacturing or industrial process. As a result, TSCA can’t address all contaminant sources. The TSCA review process also puts EPA in the position of constantly chasing the next generation of potential contaminants.

Safe Drinking Water Act. EPA has adopted national drinking water standards for 88 contaminants. Public water systems must monitor for those contaminants and insure that   water delivered to its customers meets the national standard for each regulated contaminant. Given the number of compounds used in manufacturing or produced as a by-product of industrial activities, national drinking water standards clearly do not exist for many contaminants. EPA has not adopted a  drinking water standard for GenX or any other perfluorinated compounds. EPA has issued a health advisory for PFOA and PFOS (combined) of 70 parts per trillion based on longterm exposure, but a health advisory is not an enforceable drinking water standard. EPA has also said that the PFOA/PFOS  health advisory does not apply to other perflourinated compounds like GenX.  

EPA continues to study the need for a national drinking water standard for perflourinated compounds.  Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, EPA’s decision will be based on: likelihood the contaminants will be found in drinking water; the health effects; and the technical/economic feasibility of treating the water to reduce any health risk. It isn’t clear whether EPA will propose a drinking water standard for PFOA/PFOS and the decision to develop a standard for next generation alternatives like GenX would be even further in the future.

Regulatory Gaps —  EPA has not adopted a national drinking water standard for every contaminant that may be detected in a water source or in a public water system; some existing drinking water standards do not reflect the most recent science.  In the absence of a drinking water standard, an EPA  health advisory can provide guidance to the states on safe levels but health advisories  do not exist for all contaminants.  Many of the environmental and human health risks associated with PFOA and PFOS have been known for 10-15 years, but EPA has not yet proposed a drinking water standard and only issued a health advisory based on long-term exposure in 2016. In the absence of a national drinking water standard or health advisory, presence of significant levels of a contaminant in water supplies may require the state to develop a benchmark for safe drinking water.

Clean Water Act.  The Clean Water Act protects surface waters like lakes and rivers by requiring a permit to discharge waste to those waters.   National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System  (NPDES) permits allow wastewater treatment plants and industries  to discharge wastewater meeting specific pollutant limits. Like other states, North Carolina has assumed responsibility for issuance of NPDES permits in the state.

EPA has set technology-based wastewater limits for individual categories of industries, including chemical plants. But those limits do not cover all pollutants or every possible waste stream.  In the absence of an existing EPA limit or when faced with a new type of waste stream, the state permit writer must set a limit on a case-by-case basis based on factors set out in the Clean Water Act. That puts responsibility on the state water quality agency to determine the appropriate limits for these unregulated pollutants.

Regulatory Gaps — Existing state and federal water quality standards and guidelines for permitting wastewater discharges do not address every potential pollutant. In the absence of federal effluent guidelines for a particular pollutant, the burden will be on the state water quality permitting agency to look at any existing information on the environmental and health effects to set a permit limit.

The challenge for the state. These federal laws create frameworks for approval of the  manufacture and use of chemicals; release  of chemicals to the environment in wastewater; and protection of  drinking water sources.  But the EPA standards adopted under those laws are not comprehensive and often lag behind the emergence of new contaminants or evolving science on risk.  When an unregulated contaminant affects a drinking water source, the responsibility for dealing with the immediate environmental and public health concerns falls on the state.

Changing Cleanup Standards for Leaking USTs

Oct. 26, 2016. In June, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) released new guidance on remediation of groundwater contamination caused by leaking petroleum underground storage tanks (USTs). The guidance document significantly changes the approach to remediation of  high risk UST sites. Under rules adopted by the Environmental Management Commission (EMC), groundwater contamination at high risk UST sites must be remediated to meet state groundwater quality standards if that is feasible. 15A NCAC 2L.0407(b).

The new guidance directs environmental consultants to assume the cleanup standard for most high risk sites will be  “Gross Contaminant Levels”, which represent contamination at  levels  as much as 1000 X the  groundwater protection or drinking water standards. The guidance raises a number of questions about the impact of more limited cleanup on groundwater and property owners; consistency with EMC rules; and whether the new guidance should have gone through rulemaking  to allow for public comment and adoption by the EMC.

UST Rules. The UST program operates under “risk-based” remediation  rules  that allow less groundwater remediation on sites posing a low risk to public health, safety and the environment and require more extensive remediation on high risk sites.  Existing UST rules require petroleum-contaminated sites to be classified as high, intermediate or low risk based on site conditions and assign a cleanup standard to each risk classification. High risk sites must be remediated to meet the state’s groundwater protection standards to the extent feasible. The groundwater standards set limits  for individual contaminants at the level safe for unrestricted use of the groundwater  — including use as a drinking water supply. Intermediate risk UST sites only have to be remediated to “Gross Contaminant Levels”, which allow contamination at levels as much as 1000 X  the groundwater protection standard or drinking water standard to remain at the end of remediation. Low risk sites may not require any remediation even though contaminant levels  greatly exceed groundwater protection standards.

Under existing rules adopted by the Environmental Management Commission, UST risk classifications are based on a snapshot of conditions around the petroleum release and the likelihood that petroleum contamination will reach water supply wells or create some other imminent health, safety or environmental hazard.  Under  EMC rules (15A NCAC .0406), a UST site is considered “high risk”  if:

(a)  a water supply well… has been contaminated by the release or discharge;
(b)  a drinking water well is located within 1000 feet of the contamination source;
(c)  a water supply well not used for drinking water is located within 250 feet of the source;
(d)  the groundwater within 500 feet of the contamination source could be a future water supply source because there is no other source of water supply;
(e)  the vapors from the discharge or release pose a serious threat of explosion due to accumulation of the vapors in a confined space; or
(f)  the discharge or release poses an imminent danger to public health, public safety, or the environment.

New DEQ guidance on high risk sites. 
North Carolina Petroleum UST Release Corrective Action Phase Project Management: A Calibrated Risk-Based Corrective Action Decision & Implementation Guide, effective June 1, 2016, moves away from the principle of  remediating groundwater at high risk UST sites  to meet state groundwater protection standards.  Instead, the guidance assumes most  sites classified as “high risk” can be remediated only to Gross Contaminant Levels (GCLs).

The guidance document cites data indicating that groundwater contamination plumes contract over time, reducing risk to nearby wells that have not already been contaminated.  Based on state laws directing DEQ to consider factors that limit  risk to nearby wells, DEQ has directed remediation companies to assume older high risk UST sites can be remediated to Gross Contaminant Levels. Under the new guidance, the key factor will be the stability of the contaminant plume. If the plume has stabilized or become sufficiently predictable for DEQ to conclude the contamination does not represent an expanding threat, the cleanup will largely rely on “monitored natural attenuation” of the contamination (natural reduction in contaminant concentrations over time) and the cleanup standard will be based on the GCLs.

A few observations about the new guidance:

♦ The guidance document acknowledges the new remediation guidelines have been driven by a  lack of sufficient state funds to fully remediate even high risk UST sites.

♦ The idea of reviewing high risk classifications based on the age of the site and stability of the plume makes sense, but the new guidance appears to focus on just one risk factor — proximity of the UST’s petroleum release  to existing water supply wells.  The guidance shifts to much more limited cleanup as long as the plume has stabilized and/or alternative water supply is available to well owners affected by petroleum contamination.

The guidance does not appear to consider another factor listed in the Environmental Management Commission’s  risk classification rule — whether groundwater within 500 feet of the UST release may be needed as a future water supply. In areas where groundwater represents the only local water supply source, the EMC risk classification rule intended to protect the groundwater as a potential water supply even in the absence of existing water supply wells.  The new guidance document seems to focus solely on the potential impact to existing wells.

♦  Reliance on GCLs as the final cleanup standard means higher levels of petroleum contamination remain in the groundwater at the completion of remediation. In the absence of extended monitoring, making GCLs the default remediation standard for plumes close to existing water supply wells or in areas where water supply wells may be installed in the future transfers risk from the UST owner to nearby property owners.  UST risk classifications rely on a snapshot of conditions around the petroleum release.  A change in conditions can lower risk (as the guidance document assumes), but conditions can also change in ways that increase risk.  Installation of a new water supply well  or changed  use of an existing well can affect the behavior of the contaminant plume, exposing well users to petroleum contamination.  Given that possibility,  greater monitoring of  high risk sites remediated only to gross contaminant levels may be needed.

♦  Since the guidance document changes implementation of the UST rules,  it likely would be considered a “rule” under the state’s Administrative Procedure Act.  In addition to creating a presumption that  gross contaminant levels will be the cleanup standard for all UST sites — a departure from the existing EMC rule — the guidance document establishes specific triggers for reexamination of an existing site classification. The new DEQ guidance may or may not be good policy, but any policy generally applicable to UST owners and operators would be considered a rule and the Environmental Management Commission has rule-making authority over the UST program. Failure to use the rule-making process also sidesteps any opportunity for comment by UST owners/operators, remediation companies, adjacent property owners or other members of the public on the potential impact of the changes.

♦  The change in UST remediation standards is only the latest step back from protection of groundwater as a water supply resource important to the state’s future.  A significant number of North Carolinians rely on groundwater for water supply either; around 50% of the population drinks water from private water supply wells or well-based water systems. Farms  often rely on water supply wells for irrigation and water supply for animals. In recent years, the direction of state policy has moved consistently toward less remediation of groundwater contamination because of the cost to the state or the cost to the polluter. The question is whether those cost/benefit calculations given enough consideration to the long-term costs of groundwater contamination.

House-Senate Compromise on Watershed Rules

June 30, 2016. The House has begun debate on a  compromise version of the 2016-2017 budget bill (House Bill 1030) that resolves differences between House and Senate budget proposals. The new budget bill includes a modified version of a Senate provision on watershed-based water quality rules. See an earlier post  for more on the original Senate provision in Sec. 14.13 of the budget bill. The significant pieces of the compromise provision:

The scope  of the budget provision has been reduced. The new version of Sec. 14.13 only applies to nutrient rules adopted for the Falls Lake and Jordan Lake watersheds.

The provision no longer sunsets existing nutrient rules. The budget provision still funds a UNC study of nutrient rules (focused on the Falls Lake and Jordan Lake rules) and directs the Environmental Management Commission to review and readopt  those nutrient management rules based on recommendations from the study.  But the bill no longer automatically sunsets existing rules.

The UNC study of nutrient management strategies.  The budget provision now funds the study for six years at $500,000 per year ($3 million for the entire study) and has separate report-back dates for the two watersheds — December 31, 2018 for  Jordan Lake and December 21, 2021 for Falls Lake. In part, the provision requires UNC to compare water quality trends  in Falls Lake and Jordan Lake to implementation of the different parts of the nutrient strategies. Since a number of the nutrient rules have not yet gone into effect because of legislative delays, evaluating the effectiveness of the rules based on water quality trends will be difficult. That is particularly true for wastewater discharge limits and stormwater controls that have never been implemented or only partially implemented in the two watersheds.

Delayed implementation of the Jordan Lake and Falls Lake rules. The provision further delays implementation of the nutrient management rules until at least 2019 for the Jordan Lake watershed and 2022 for the Falls Lake watershed.

DEQ study of in-situ technologies to address nutrient-related water quality problems. The budget provision continues to require a DEQ study of in situ technologies to reduce nutrient problems — now focused on algaecides and phosphorus-locking technologies. The DEQ study will be entirely separate from the UNC study of nutrient management strategies and  receives a separate appropriation of  $1.3 million for a trial of in situ technologies.    The final report will be due on March 1, 2018.

Exclusion of areas within the Jordan Lake watershed from stormwater requirements. The compromise  budget includes a new  subsection 14.13(f)  that says new impervious surface added in the Jordan Lake watershed between July 31, 2013  and December 2020 (after study and readopting of the rules as required under the budget provision) should not be counted as built-upon area for purposes of developing nutrient reduction targets under the Jordan Lake stormwater rules.  It isn’t entirely clear what this means.

Under  federal Clean Water Act requirements, the state has an obligation to cap discharges of any pollutant causing impaired water quality. These caps (called a Total Maximum Daily Load  or “TMDL”) must be approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Jordan Lake rules cap nutrient loading at a level necessary to address impaired water quality in the Jordan Lake reservoir; meeting the TMDL  requires a reduction  in nutrient loading  from the   baseline years  of 1997-2001. The rules then allocate the reductions proportionately to the different arms of Jordan Lake and to major nutrient sources in those watersheds – wastewater dischargers, stormwater runoff from developed areas, and agricultural activities.

So  the new Sec. 14.13(f) raises several issues –

  1. The new subsection  is written as though local governments in the Jordan Lake watershed develop their own stormwater nutrient reduction targets and can change the reduction target by excluding newly developed areas.  In reality, the reduction targets have been based on  allocation of the  reductions required  to meet the Jordan Lake TMDL under  EMC rules and a watershed model developed by DEQ.
  2. It  assumes that the nutrient reduction target assigned to stormwater would change based on development over this 7-year time period, but the target is based on reduction from the historic baseline of 1997-2001. The one thing that changes by delaying implementation of the Jordan Lake stormwater rules is that more areas will fall under requirements for stormwater retrofits of existing development rather than stormwater rules for new development projects.
  3. If the intent is to exclude these recently developed areas from future implementation of  Jordan Lake stormwater rules for new or existing development, DEQ may have to allocate greater reductions to other nutrient sources in order to meet the Jordan Lake TMDL approved by EPA.

A new cross-reference to Chesapeake Bay stormwater measures. Another new subsection, Sec. 14.13(i),  requires the state to allow stormwater measures approved by the Chesapeake Bay Commission for use in meeting the Chesapeake Bay  TMDL to also be used to meet the Jordan Lake  and Falls Lake TMDLs  based on the same nutrient reduction credit allowed under the Chesapeake Bay program.  The Chesapeake Bay Program (rather than the Chesapeake Bay Commission) maintains the Chesapeake Bay TMDL model and seems to be the gatekeeper for pollution reduction credits included in the model. Credits for nutrient removal under the Chesapeake Bay model  will likely turn out to be a range based on the type of stormwater measure; the area; the volume of stormwater treated; etc. It isn’t immediately clear  what — if any — stormwater measures would be authorized under this provision that are not already allowed under state rules.

The Future of Watershed-Based Water Quality Rules

June 22, 2016. A controversial water quality provision in the N.C. Senate’s proposed budget would repeal (and perhaps replace –that is less certain) all state rules adopted over the last twenty years to address pollution problems caused by excess nutrients.  Sec. 14.13 in the Senate version of House Bill 1030 further delays full implementation of the Falls Lake and Jordan Lake rules; creates a  $2 million study of nutrient management programs; and repeals all existing water quality rules addressing nutrients pollution effective December 31, 2020.

The Senate Proposal.  The provision requires the state’s Environmental Management Commission (EMC) to adopt new nutrient management rules based on the study results, but repeals all  existing rules at the end of 2020  even if no alternative  rules are in place.  In addition to Jordan Lake  and Falls Lake, the repeal/replace provision would affect water quality rules in the Tar-Pamlico River Basin; the Neuse River Basin; the Catawba River Basin; the Randleman Reservoir watershed; and the endangered species management plan in the Yadkin-PeeDee River’s Goose Creek watershed. It would also apply to any other riparian buffer requirements identified by the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).   Still hoping for an alternative to  rules, the Senate budget also appropriates $500,000  to  study use of freshwater mussels to reduce the water quality impact of excess  nutrients.

In most cases, state nutrient management rules also satisfy a federal Clean Water Act requirement to reduce the discharge of a pollutant (in this case nitrogen and/or phosphorus) causing impaired water quality. In North Carolina’s  “nutrient sensitive” river basins and watersheds,  the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  has approved the nutrient reduction targets in state rules as meeting Clean Water Act  requirements.   To achieve the reduction targets, the rules require reductions in nutrient  discharges by wastewater treatment plants and nutrient runoff from agriculture and development activities. Walking away from the nutrient reduction targets has implications for Clean Water Act enforcement and the state’s delegated water quality permitting programs.

Although the Goose Creek rules rely on similar pollution reduction tools (including riparian buffers and stormwater controls),  those rules protect endangered species habitat.  The rules resulted from a lengthy negotiation with the  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service which has responsibility for enforcing the federal Endangered Species Act. Repeal of the rules would likely bring both U.S. Fish and Wildlife  and EPA into the conversation.

Nothing similar to the Senate provision appears in the House version of the budget or in any other legislation pending in the House.  The two chambers are currently negotiating this (and other) differences between the House and Senate budget bills.

Have the Nutrient Rules Failed? The Senate provision describes the state’s existing nutrient management  programs as failures. In reality, legislation has prevented full implementation of the Falls Lake and Jordan Lake nutrient rules.  The rules that have been fully implemented  — such as those in the Neuse River and Tar River basins — significantly reduced nutrient loading from wastewater discharges, agriculture and stormwater runoff.  In judging the effectiveness of watershed-based strategies, some things to keep in mind: 1.  Population growth and development in the watersheds continued to increase; and 2. Existing nutrient reduction strategies do not address all potential nutrient sources (smaller wastewater treatment plants; failing septic tanks; atmospheric deposition of nitrogen; and soil erosion).

DEQ has tracked the effect of nutrient rules in the Neuse River and Tar-Pamlico River basins; some of the results can be found here.  A  number of independent academic researchers have also studied the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico  river basin rules.  All of the studies confirm that sources covered by the rules significantly reduced their nutrient discharges. Wastewater treatment plants met the goal of reducing nitrogen discharges by 30% from the baseline years even as population and wastewater flows increased. Agriculture met or exceeded the 30% reduction goal for agricultural operations through use of  Best Management Practices. A recent EMC report confirmed  the value of  riparian buffers as part of a watershed-based plan to reduce nutrient runoff from developed areas.

Complicating the picture is the fact that  total  in-stream nutrient concentrations  have not consistently remained below  baseline levels.  A DEQ  study completed in 2008 found that in-stream concentrations of inorganic forms of nitrogen  (nitrates and ammonia) declined at the monitoring sites, but  increases in organic nitrogen offset those reductions.   The rules haven’t  failed; given population growth and increased development in the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico river basins,   nitrogen concentrations would have been higher in the absence of the rules. But the rules have not fully solved the problem of nutrient over-enrichment.

Opposition to the Nutrient Rules.  Opposition has tended to be strongest in the communities on the Haw River arm of the Jordan Lake watershed affected by the Jordan Lake rules. (The Haw River watershed includes the cities of Greensboro and Burlington.) Since EMC adoption of the Jordan Lake rules in 2009,  legislation to repeal or delay implementation of the rules has been introduced every year.  Objections  have focused on the cost of wastewater treatment plant upgrades to meet tighter discharge limits;  expansion of  stormwater programs;  and the development impact of new riparian buffer requirements. To these upstream Haw River communities, the costs have no local benefit; water quality improvements benefit downstream communities. (Although many of the downstream communities have met similar requirements under the Neuse River rules for years to benefit the Neuse River estuary.)

The City of Durham and Durham County, affected by both the Falls Lake and the Jordan Lake rules, also have concerns about the feasibility and cost of meeting nutrient reduction goals.

Also in the background — riparian buffer requirements have long been unpopular with real estate developers and homebuilders in all of the river basins/watersheds where buffers have been part of a nutrient reduction strategy.

DEQ’s Position.   DEQ has not taken a public position on the Senate proposal, but a February presentation by DEQ Assistant Secretary Tom Reeder to the legislature’s Environmental Review Commission questioned the effectiveness of the watershed-based nutrient rules.  Reeder’s presentation tended to emphasize the cost of the nutrient rules and  limited impact on instream nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations.  Asked what alternative to the nutrient management rules would protect the Falls Lake and Jordan Lake drinking water supplies, Reeder responded that drinking water treatment may become more expensive. The presentation suggested little DEQ commitment to defend watershed-based nutrient rules and a willingness to shift the cost of impaired water quality to communities using  Falls Lake and Jordan Lake as drinking water sources. Reeder’s presentation did not  address the impacts of a failure to reduce excess nutrients  on natural resources such as fisheries; recreational use of these rivers, lakes and estuaries; or compliance with the Clean Water Act.

Possible compromises.  Past studies of the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico rules suggest a need to fill gaps in the nutrient strategies, but do not provide a  scientific case for  abandoning watershed-based nutrient reduction strategies. Nearly seven years after final adoption of the Jordan Lake rules, opponents have not identified an alternative approach to protect drinking water  and meet Clean Water Act requirements.

At the same time, the  EMC’s recent riparian buffer report  identified potential buffer rule changes to ease the burden on property owners while maintaining the buffer’s  water quality benefits.  The legislature could also look at the possibility of  authorizing cost-sharing arrangements to allocate some of the upstream cost of water quality improvements to  the  downstream communities that will benefit. The idea surfaced briefly during development of the Falls Lake and Jordan Lake rules, but wasn’t pursued at the time.

Reforming Riparian Buffers Out of Existence

May 7, 2015.  Yesterday, the N.C. House approved House Bill 760 (Regulatory Reform Act of 2015) after adopting several amendments. House Bill 760 has  attracted a lot of media attention because of  the renewable energy provisions.  Less attention has been paid to part of the bill that will significantly weaken use of riparian buffers to reduce water pollution.

An earlier post  described the original riparian buffer provisions in House Bill 760. By amendment,  the House changed the provision on measurement of riparian buffers adjacent to coastal wetlands.  The new language requires the buffer to be measured from the normal water level, recognizing that some coastal wetlands regularly flood on the tides. The bill continues to have confusing language on  local government authority  to adopt riparian buffer ordinances outside of the river basins and watersheds covered by state buffer rules. Amendments  improved those provisions a bit,  but I am not sure even the amended bill  allows for all of the circumstances in which a local government may need to adopt a buffer ordinance to meet state and federal environmental standards.

But in what may be the most under-discussed section  of House Bill 760, the bill  still creates an exceptionally broad exemption from riparian buffer rules that apply in the state’s nutrient impaired river basins and watersheds. None of the amendments  to House Bill 760 narrowed the scope of the  buffer exemption.  In  areas covered by state nutrient sensitive waters (NSW)  buffer rules, the bill exempts all tracts of land platted before the buffer rules went into effect — even if the property could be developed for its intended purpose in compliance with the buffer requirement. (There are already exemptions and variances that cover previously platted lots that cannot be developed in full compliance with the buffer requirement.) The only condition on the exemption:

Other than the applicable buffer rule, the use of the tract complies with either of the following:

a. The rules and other laws regulating and applicable to that tract on the effective date for the applicable buffer rule set out in subsection (a) of this section.

b.The current rules, if the application of those rules to the tract was initiated after the effective date for the applicable buffer rule by the unit of local government with jurisdiction over the tract and not at the request of the property owner.

The conditions  don’t narrow the exemption  much — if at all.  Enforcing (a)  requires someone in the present to  determine whether use of the property complies with laws and rules in effect as much as 15 years ago.  And (b) appears to be the “Get Out of Jail Free” card that allows a property owner to claim the exemption based on meeting all current local ordinances other than the buffer rule. Unless  I am missing something, the property owner can just opt out of the riparian buffer requirement as long as a development project meets other current standards.

The exemption applies whether the riparian buffer rules are enforced by the state or by a local government with  delegated authority to enforce the  buffer requirements.  The exemption also seems to apply to both undeveloped properties and to properties already developed and currently in compliance with the buffer requirements.  If so, owners of developed properties would be free to clear vegetation and create new encroachments in the buffer. (Failure of the bill to distinguish between developed and undeveloped properties in applying the exemption criteria may have led to some unintended consequences —  although the exemption language is so aggressively broad,  I am not sure that is the case.)

The buffer  rules are  part of  broader  water quality restoration plans designed to meet  federal Clean Water Act requirements. The Clean Water Act requires the state  to adopt a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) —  a cap —  for any pollutant causing impaired water quality. A number of state  water bodies, including the Neuse River estuary, Falls Lake and Jordan Reservoir,   have had impaired water quality due to excess nitrogen and phosphorus.   For those river basins and watersheds, the nutrient management rules provide the underpinning  for  TMDLs that set nitrogen and phosphorus reduction targets.

North Carolina ‘s longstanding  policy has been to share the burden of pollution reduction among all of the major nutrient sources so the rules include tighter controls on wastewater dischargers; measures to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus leaving agricultural lands; and stormwater controls and riparian buffer requirements to reduce nutrient runoff from developed areas.  Each set of nutrient management rules reflects a long negotiation  involving  all of the  interests  affected — local governments, agriculture, landowners, real estate developers, environmental organizations — to balance the pollution reduction burden.

The House Bill 760 buffer exemption has the potential to upset the balance of the nutrient management plans and jeopardize the state’s ability to meet nutrient reduction targets in the TMDLs.  Understanding the impact of the exemption will require the answers to a number of questions yet to be asked or answered in the legislative debate:

1.  How many properties in each nutrient sensitive  river basin or watershed potentially qualify for the exemption and what percentage of riparian area  could be affected?

2.  How much nutrient reduction has the Division of Water Resources credited to protection of the riparian buffers in the approved TMDLs?

3.   Would the exemption affect the state’s ability to meet nutrient reduction goals for these impaired water bodies?

4.  Would the state have to ask for more nutrient reductions from other sources (such as wastewater treatment plants and agricultural operations) to make up the difference?

The bill now goes to the Senate, which has more often been the starting point for legislation to  limit use of stormwater controls and riparian buffers to restore water quality in impaired waters.