BILL FOR 'FOREVER CHEMICALS' MANUFACTURERS TO PAY NORTH CAROLINA WATER SYSTEMS ADVANCES

North Carolina's top environmental regulator could order manufacturers of "forever chemicals" to help pay for water system cleanup upgrades whenever they are found responsible for discharges that contaminate drinking water beyond acceptable levels, under legislation advanced by a state House committee this week.

The measure was sought by Republican lawmakers from the Wilmington area, where upstream discharges into the Cape Fear River of a kind of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances - also called PFAS - have contributed to public utilities serving hundreds of thousands of people to spend large amounts to filter them out. Accumulating scientific evidence suggests such chemicals, which resist breaking down, can cause harm to humans.

One bill sponsor said it's appropriate for companies that produced such chemicals and released them into the environment to cover the costs for cleaning up the water.

"It is not fair for the ratepayers to have to pay this bill while the people who are actually responsible for making this stuff from scratch that got into those utilities aren't having to foot the bill," Rep. Ted Davis of New Hanover County told the House Environment Committee. The panel approved the measure with bipartisan support.

The bill, if ultimately enacted, certainly would threaten more costs for The Chemours Co., which a state investigation found had discharged for decades a type of PFAS from its Fayetteville Works plant in Bladen County, reaching the air, the river and groundwater. The discharges weren't made widely public until 2017.