What is Hidden in Our Environment?

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Are you or have you ever thought about the way our waste management system is servicing us or where some of the places are even located? Well, I recently read a disturbing article that made me apprehensive about a local waste management company not that far from where I live. The article dated October 23, 2023, stated that Fayetteville Works Plant, had been authorized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to import hazardous materials from the Netherlands. I live in Selma, NC. As a Black American, what really alarmed me was that a substantial number of these facilities are located in poor non- white populations. At the time of this paper, places like El Dorado, Arkansas had 47% of Black residents and more than 22% at or below the poverty line, following was East Liverpool, Ohio a predominantly white town with 29% of the people at or below the poverty line and finally, Deer Park, Texas with 37% of its residents as Latino. Disturbing but noted in other situations as well, I will not elaborate on that now.

The first request by Dordrecht, Chemours Netherlands facility for export/import of GenX wastewater was made in 2018 which was rejected by the EPA for inadequate paperwork inclusive of obsolete data. Exactly what is GenX and why should we be concerned about the export of this wastewater? Well, GenX is known as a “forever chemical” which causes lifetime illnesses in the human body like testicular, kidney, liver and pancreatic cancers, low birth weight, reproductive disorders, depressed immune systems, and high cholesterol. The transport of this wastewater could cause devastation to the lives of the American people forever especially since accidents do happen all the time. The Chemours’s plant resubmitted the missing documents causing the EPA to authorize their submission during the summer of 2023, with conditional consent. Due to international law, it has been stated that the EPA had no authority to block their original import of GenX which governs shipments of hazardous and nonhazardous waste. Therefore, the plan had been scheduled within the next year for the Chemours facility in Dordrecht, Netherlands to export 4 million pounds of GenX wastewater to Fayetteville Works. The reasoning for this decision, as reported by NC Newsline and to accept this change, was that the NC plant reuses and recycles the imported wastewater which reduces the need to manufacture larger volumes of GenX.

Another interesting fact about this fiasco is that two EPA websites, the PFAS and e-Manifest show that Fayetteville Works plant shipped at least 37.5 tons of GenX and PFAS Compounds to Deer Park and other hazardous waste facilities in the U.S. since 2018. PFAS are a group of man-made chemicals used in a variety of products that contaminate the water source. Decisions to authorize this plan to transport the wastewater were made without notification to the Department of Environmental Quality (QEQ) which means that state regulators were not informed of the imports.

Finally, the EPA reversed the decision to import the cancerous water treatment materials into Fayetteville Works as encouraged by a letter from Governor Cooper on November 3, 2023 to cease the transport.This is a huge victory for the people of North Carolina!

What do you think about import/exports? Should we as citizens be concerned and or made aware of things entering our borders?

Articles:

• EPA explain why it authorized imports of GenX from Netherlands to NC
• Failure to notify DEQ
• North Carolina Environmental Quality