GenX, Environmental Justice, and North

Carolina’s Legacy of Pollution

Christine Billings

Nicholas Krebs Jatu F. Nugrohorukmi Cameron Smith Mackenzie Todd

December 8, 2017

Department of Public and International Affairs Leutze Hall, University of North Carolina Wilmington Wilmington, NC 28403

GenX, Environmental Justice, and North Carolina’s Legacy of Pollution

Final Project Fall Semester 2017

Prepared For Dr. Weinkle’s MCOP 595 Prepared By University of North Carolina at Wilmington Coastal and Ocean Policy Program

The cover page pictures were provided by the EPA and StarNews Online.

Maps throughout this paper were created using ArcGIS software by Esri. ArcGIS and ArcMap are the intellectual property of Esri and are used herein under license. Copyright © Esri. All Rights Reserved. For more information about Esri software, please visit www.esri.com.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Rob Hart of UNC Wilmington Department of History, Dr. Larry Cahoon of UNC Wilmington Department of Marine Biology, and Kemp Burdette of Cape Fear River Watch.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ...... i Introduction ...... 1 Literature Review ...... 4 Methods ...... 8 Trends ...... 10 Conditions ...... 15 Discussion ...... 16 Alternatives ...... 19 Conclusion ...... 22 References ...... 23

GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW

Introduction

The citizens of Wilmington are recently concerned with Cape Fear River contamination from GenX and some other unknown chemical substances. In June 2017, the chemical company Chemours announced publicly that their Fayetteville, NC plant had been discharging the chemical GenX into the Cape Fear River since 1980 (Wagner & Buckland, 2017). GenX is the trade name of the ammonium salt of perfluoro-2-propoxypropanoic acid, a fluorinated hydrocarbon (Sun et al., 2016). Fluorinated hydrocarbons are human-made substances which do not occur naturally, and their very strong carbon and fluorine bonds do not break down except under extremely high temperatures, so they will not decompose in the environment (Beekman et al., 2016). The scientists from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), North Carolina State University, and Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) detected GenX and other perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in the Cape Fear River and the water treatment facilities (Sun et al., 2016). The water treatment plant obtains its water from the Cape Fear River, treats up to 24.5 million gallons of water per day and distributes drinking water to approximately 137 thousand people in New Hanover County (see Figure 1).

Fig. 1. The Lower Cape Fear Region, including the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant, where GenX was discharged, and Wilmington, where public outcry about GenX is increasing (Data source: NC Department of Transportation, 2017).

Many people are worried about what the chemical compound can do to the body since there is no clear information regarding the compound. They can protect themselves by

1 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW consuming bottled water or installing a reverse osmosis filter for their tap water. However, not everyone in New Hanover County can afford these alternatives, and it raises an environmental injustice issue. Wilmington has a significant population of people of color, particularly African American and Hispanic people (Fig. 2), and their communities have historically been underserved with information and infrastructure.

Fig. 2. Minority populations in Wilmington, NC (Data source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2016) The GenX case in Wilmington is an example of serious environmental pollution that keeps occurring in the United States, regardless the available regulation to control it. GenX is a replacement for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), an eight-carbon chain PFC that is much more widely studied. Chemical industries have been manufacturing various kinds of PFCs since the early 20th century, using a process known as electrochemical fluorination, where hydrogen fluoride (HF) is combined with straight chain hydrocarbons and electricity to replace the hydrogen atoms with fluorines (Lindstrom, Strynar, & Libelo, 2011). They are used in a variety of applications, including water- and grease- resistant coatings for paper, plastics, carpets, and textiles, as well as aviation firefighting foam (U.S. EPA, 2015b). We are exposed to these compounds through food, drinking water, food packaging, consumer products, and house dust. The EPA Science Advisory Board has classified PFOAs as “likely to be carcinogenic in humans”, and animal studies have shown developmental effects and mammary gland development effects (Post, Cohn, & Cooper, 2012). After decades of manufacture and use of PFOA and other polyfluorinated compounds, in the late 1990s, the development of mass spectrometry made it possible to accurately determine the levels of PFCs in water, soil, and living creatures. Studies using this technique revealed PFCs in the blood of over 99% of humans, as well as in wildlife all around the world, including in areas far from humans, such as whales in the middle of the ocean (Lindstrom et al., 2011). PFOA is highly water soluble and accumulates in the blood serum and liver in animals including humans, and even small concentrations in drinking water can lead to high concentrations in the body. It has a half-life of several years in the human body, even if exposure is completely stopped (Post et al., 2012). A growing body of evidence shows that PFOA has a variety of negative effects, including hypertension, decreased response to vaccines, liver damage, and kidney and testicular cancer (Grandjean & Clapp, 2015).

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It is also persistent in the environment which makes it a toxicological concern (Fromme, Tittlemier, Völkel, Wilhelm, & Twardella, 2009). In 2006, EPA created 2010/2015 PFOA Stewardship Program involving eight major companies in the U.S. to phase out the use and emission of PFOA to the environment, because of its high risk to public health. The scientists at Chemours claimed that GenX with its six-carbon chain is a less harmful alternative than other PFCs with longer carbon chains. However, the evidence for this claim is not conclusive. Due to scientific advancement, every year new contaminants emerge with unknown effects on the environment. The government has already put up some regulation to control the damaging impacts. The regulations such as the Clean Water Act (CWA), Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA), and Executive Order 12898 have primary goals that focus on eliminating discharge of toxins, lowering risk associated with toxins in our water, and improving environmental justice for minority populations. The CWA aims to have zero discharge of pollutants, have fishable and swimmable waters, and no toxins in toxic amounts (Adler, Landman, & Cameron, 1993). The SDWA is providing a framework in which the EPA, state, and public can work together to protect clean water (U.S. EPA, 2004). The SDWA provides barriers to pollution through source water protection, treatment, distribution system integrity, and public information and has a goal of no adverse effects to the public (no loss of life or property) (U.S. EPA, 2004). The TSCA addresses the importation, production, and disposal of certain chemicals, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) (U.S. EPA, 2016b). TSCA states that providing information about the effect of a substance is the responsibility of the manufacturer, and that an authority should exist to regulate and take action if chemicals are found to be hazardous, and to assure that innovation and commerce do not present an unreasonable risk (15 U.S. Code). These goals also try to provide framework for interagency coordination between federal, state, and local governments. People are distraught because the regulations, which are supposed to protect them from being exposed to toxic chemicals, are not always proven to be effective. Having toxins in the environment and our drinking water means these Acts are not being upheld. The effectiveness of these policy tools is highly questionable and has not adequately protected the public from many toxic contaminants. This paper provides an overview of background literature, methods used, trends, conditions, a discussion, alternatives, and a conclusion. It proceeds in seven sections. The next section provides a literature review about the regulations related to safe and clean water, environmental justice, and the condition of our drinking water in the U.S. The following section includes core methods used, continued with environmental trends in North Carolina are explored, followed by the conditions of the current science being done on a particular pollutant, GenX. Then this paper suggests alternatives to address the discussed problems, followed by a conclusion.

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Literature Review

Pollution has been a national concern since the 1960s (Bryant, 2006). The United States’ waters were in crisis before the enactment of Clean Water Act in 1972 and Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974. Almost one-third of U.S. waters were polluted, and less than 10 percent of the watersheds were unpolluted or moderately contaminated (Adler et al., 1993). The U.S. Federal Government established the Federal Water Pollution Act in 1948 and followed by amendments in 1972. The public afterward knew the regulation as the Clean Water Act (CWA). The CWA’s purpose is to achieve zero discharge of pollutants, fishable and swimmable waters, and no chemicals in a toxic amount in the public waters (U.S. EPA, 2015a). The CWA gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) authority to implement pollution control programs such as setting wastewater standards for industry and work together with related state agencies to reach the goals. The EPA enforces this act by requiring all entities disposing of pollutants in such a way to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Emission System (NPDES) permit. In many cases, the EPA authorizes state agencies to administer these permits. Another issue that highly related to CWA is the access to safe drinking water. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was enacted in 1974 to protect public health by regulating the levels of various contaminants in public drinking water supplies by establishing maximum contaminant levels (MCLs). These contaminants are limited to a list of 88 chemical and microbial contaminants, including just 53 organic chemicals. The act gives mandate the EPA to establish national health-based standards for drinking water to protect against both naturally- occurring and man-made toxic compound that may exist in drinking water. The act was also providing a framework for EPA to work together with states, and the public to protect clean water (U.S. EPA, 2004). The CWA and SDWA enactment showed significant progress such as the diminished total discharge of toxic compounds due to the pollutant control and swimmable waters that previously heavily polluted. Despite the success, water quality problems still persist throughout the country. Even worst, with the scientific advancement, the act now has to deal with the new chemical compounds with unknown risk. In order to regulate the emergence of new chemicals from industries, the U.S. Congress passed the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) in 1976. TSCA provides EPA with the authority to require reporting, record keeping, testing and restrictions relating to chemical substances or mixtures. To date, the EPA has only tested about 200 of the 84,000 chemicals listed under TSCA. In conjunction with CWA, these laws are used to protect the public from harmful contaminants. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of these policy tools is also questionable and has not adequately protected the public from many contaminants. One such state agency is North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ), which previously operated as North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR). This agency is responsible for monitoring the many pollutants, including GenX, that Chemours and other entities discharge. For GenX, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has a goal of less than 140 ppt in the state’s waters (NC DHHS, 2017). Despite the recent success of NCDEQ in achieving this level of pollution, the issue has brought the agency’s past regulatory practices into question. While Chemours’ NPDES permit did not disclose the discharge of the perfluorinated compound as

4 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW required, there are reasons to believe that NCDENR was aware of, but not monitoring, the discharge.

Contamination and exposure to perfluorinated compounds are not unique to present day Wilmington. The GenX issue is only one of many instances in U.S. history in which a chemical manufacturer has illegally discharged a chemical into a body of water. Thus, in the early 2000s the EPA started the PFOA Stewardship Program 2010/2015. This was essentially a non-binding agreement between the EPA and the eight largest PFOA manufacturers that helped to phase out PFOA production in the U.S. (Lindstrom et al., 2011). While the policy was successful in stopping PFOA production, it did not stop production of PFOA replacements, which are now causing similar problems. The stewardship program cannot effectively improve the CWA enforcement, particularly to stop PFOA pollution problem. Case studies from West Virginia and New Jersey below illustrate several of the key issues with EPA enforcement.

As in North Carolina, West Virginia has a state agency with authority from the EPA to enforce environmental laws within the state. The state agency, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP), is in charge of issuing NPDES permits and monitoring discharges. In 2001, an attorney who became aware of PFOA pollution from a Dupont plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia alerted the EPA that Dupont was in violation of the Clean Water Act. The attorney sent documents proving that Dupont knew about the dangers of PFOA for years, but had not fully disclosed this information to authorities. However, it is likely that the WVDEP knew some type of problem existed. The attorney alleged that the director of the WVDEP, Eli McCoy, sent Dupont a letter in 1996 to help the company diffuse any enforcement measures. Shortly after, McCoy left the agency and began working for a consulting firm that Dupont hired. The relationships between the state agency and the company became even more questionable when Dupont hired three of the attorneys who were previously handling the PFOA problem for WVDEP. Unfortunately, a very similar storyline emerged when the EPA became directly involved in the early 2000s. By 2004, the two previous deputy administrators of the EPA were working for Dupont on its PFOA problem. Ultimately, the company was able to negotiate all of its agreements with the EPA to be completely voluntary. While the company paid the largest civil administrative fine ever stemming from an environmental statute, it was only $10.5 million of a maximum $300 million (Lerner, 2015).

Shortly after Dupont’s West Virginia case, New Jersey realized that Dupont was releasing the same pollutant into their drinking water. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) assembled a team of researchers known as the New Jersey Drinking Water Quality Institute to examine the contaminant and determine a drinking water standard for the state. When the head of the Division of Science, Research and Technology at NJDEP, Eileen Murphy, met with executives from Dupont, there was a big disagreement over PFOA toxicity. Dupont’s communications team - which still included a former EPA deputy administrator - addressed the New Jersey governor, the state’s Economic Development Office and the head of NJDEP. Shortly thereafter, the NJDEP commissioner asked Murphy to stop work on a published article about PFOA. Despite her boss’s disapproval, Murphy published and was subsequently demoted. NJDEP also disbanded its water quality group and replaced it with the Science Advisory Board, which included three former Dupont scientists. The state did not change drinking water standards and the company was never penalized (Lerner, 2015).

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The case above provides an example of environmental injustice, which often occurs in pollution problems. Although pollution has been a concern since the 1960s, the environmental justice movement only started in the 1980s and the movement to appeal on the drinking water regulatory policy picked up momentum in the early 1990s (Pontius, 2000). EPA define environmental justice as: the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.

All people and communities are entitled to equal protection of environmental and public health laws and regulation (Bullard, 1996). Bullard also wrote, “whether by conscious design or institutional neglect, communities of color in urban ghettos, in rural ‘poverty pockets’, or on economically impoverished Native American reservations face some of the worst environmental devastation in the nation.” Professor Bullard’s statement shows environmental racism which Chavis, an African American civil right leader, defines as: racial discrimination in environmental policymaking, the enforcement of regulation and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in the community, and the history of excluding people of color from leadership of the ecology movement.

Scholars have proven Bullard’s statement to be true (Brulle & Pellow, 2006). Environmental inequality and health disparities often occur at the same time although scholars often treat both as two separate subjects. Brulle and Pellow (2006) view environmental inequality more as a result of social dynamic in the society instead of perpetrator-victim model. They connect social hierarchies and exposure to the environmental risk. Perreault (2014) notes that water issues cannot be separated from water’s role as “a hybrid socio-nature.” Water exists without human influences through natural cycles (rainfall, aquifers, oceans, soil moisture, evaporation etc.), and at the same time is involved in human labor and social action within production processes (irrigation, water law, sewer systems, etc.). Water always has meaning within discourse and symbolism in cultural beliefs, historical memory, and social practice. Therefore, water is vital within society and often imitates relations of social power. Water plays an important role when we start to discuss accumulation by dispossession (Harvey, 2003), “a process of the accumulation of water and water rights through such processes as water grabbing, service privatization and pollution.” Bullard (1996) further explains that industries or public policy inadvertently conduct unjust, unfair, or illegal treatment which include: unequal execution of environmental, civil rights, and public health laws; contact discrepancy of some populations to harmful compounds or toxins in the home, school, neighborhood, and workplace; faulty assumptions in risk management; discriminatory zoning and land use practices; and exclusionary policies and practices that limit certain individuals and groups from public participation. Cory and Rahman, (2009) highlight selective enforcement which noticeably differs from the conventional model of economic deterrence theory. The regulation pursues polluters with trivial penalties, compares to the cost of compliance. Scholars should assess environmental justice by looking at the spatial coincidence between environmental disamenities and disadvantaged populations prior to an analysis of causation and the role of intent.

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Furthermore, the water-pollution-related issue almost always corresponds with environmental injustice. Through Executive Order on Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations, President Bill Clinton mandated all agencies to ensure that all programs and policies should not practice the discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. In connection with the executive order, EPA created the Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ, previously known as the Office of Environmental Equity) as the interagency working group on environmental justice (U.S. EPA, 2016a). It devises strategic plan to achieve goals, where drinking water issue was mentioned in the third goal, “demonstrate progress on significant national environmental justice challenges” by 2020 (U.S. EPA, 2016a). The success to achieve this purpose and safe and clean water related regulations’ goals remains to be seen.

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Methods

Natural resource problems tend to be highly complex. Competing interests among various groups, with different perspectives, throughout large geographic areas, and over long spans of time, often lead to conflicts. This paper examines water pollution examples in GenX pollution throughout the United States. Clark (2002) identifies social context mapping and problem orientation methods in ‘The Policy Process’. The social process is the interaction of various individuals and entities who are involved in a conflict. Understanding the social context of water pollution will help clarify the underlying problem such as knowing who the problem affects, what are their perspectives, how they value the problem and what is the achieved outcomes. For every social process, there is a context in which the process exists. Problem orientation clarifies the goals, explains trends, examines the conditions, and provides alternatives. In finding a resolution to these conflicts, it is helpful to understand several key features about those involved and their relation to the problem(s). Once these features are carefully examined, resource managers can use contextual mapping to organize their understanding of the situation as a whole.

The first step in contextual mapping is identification of participants - commonly referred to as stakeholders. These terms refer to individuals, groups and institutions that may have an interest in the outcome of a particular social process. Participants include, those who are affected by an issue, those who can make useful contributions to the process, and even those who simply demand to participate. Once the stakeholders are identified, the perspective of each individual, group or institution, is to be considered. A stakeholder’s perspective is comprised of their demands, expectations, and identification. In addition to their unique perspectives, every participant either has or desires assets or resources that may be categorized as different types of values. These assets or resources are referred to as base values, while the assets and resources a participant aims to acquire are referred to as scope values. The next step in mapping the social process is to define the situation(s) in which social interactions between stakeholders take place. With this information in mind, an analyst may then begin to consider how stakeholders will use their assets. The ways in which people manipulate their base values to pursue their scope values are known as strategies. Throughout the process, events will have short-term results known as outcomes. These outcomes can be considered in terms of changes in the distribution of values. Long-term impacts of the social process are referred to as effects. Effects may include changes to values, as well as practices and institutions.

Policy makers tend to focus on finding solutions without fully understanding problems. Being “solution minded” rather than “problem minded” can lead to hasty, inadequate recommendations that cause new problems. In addition to understanding participants, understanding problems in their entirety is a crucial part of finding an effective solution. Problem orientation involves five tasks that can help an analyst understand - and address - problems comprehensively. The first task is to clarify the often conflicting goals - preferred outcomes - of participants. Secondly, analysts should seek to understand and describe the current trends; whether or not the social process is moving toward or away from participants’ goals. It is important to recognize what factors, relationships and conditions have helped create

8 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW these trends as well, and thus the third task for an analyst is to analyze conditions. This task may involve qualitative or quantitative modeling to explain trends. The analyst can use this information to begin projecting future developments - the fourth task. Effective projections will recognize multiple scenarios and evaluate which ones are most likely. With this information in mind, the final task of problem orientation is to create and select alternatives that will help participants move toward a goal.

Context mapping The present study uses dependable, creative, and available data. The data and information are from peer reviewed articles, government agencies, and news sources. We based recommendations on standards observed, and made sure that the expectations are identified, realistic, and can be implemented in a prompt manner. We made sure the alternatives meet the current rules and are as unbiased as possible, based on existing facts. Through this analysis, we considered participants, situations, and effects for the social context of the problem. To achieve this goal, we made a table that outlines the participants in the GenX problem for the lower Cape Fear Area. In orienting the problem, we clarified goals in the Introduction, explained trends in Trends, analyzed conditions in Conditions, discussed participants and their perspectives and values in Discussion, and created four alternatives.

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Trends

Environmental problems occur as the side effect of human use of natural resources to fulfill their needs. In the use of natural resources such as water, which constitutes social power, the government should protect the ‘human right to water.’ The human right to water is a basic human right to access sufficient amounts of clean water to meet basic needs and human dignity (Perreault, 2014). The government has created regulations with the goals of providing access to safe and clean water (CWA and SDWA) and preventing pollution from emerging contaminants (TSCA). The goals are made to protect the ‘human right to water’. U.S. citizen accept this goal as an important value. The infringement of these goals that unfortunately still occurs mean an obstruction to justice and the ideal of democracy. The CWA, SDWA, and TSCA have short and long-term targets to reach and their full effectiveness remains to be seen. Below are the trends of environmental pollution that have happened in North Carolina and the United States.

Industrial Pollution Crime

North Carolina has a history of pollution crime by industry. One example is the story of PCBs. PCBs are man-made chemicals composed of carbon, hydrogen, and chlorine atoms. They were first manufactured in the US in 1929, and were used for decades in a wide variety of applications including transformers, capacitors, and heat exchangers (U.S. EPA, 2017). In 1976, the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) mandated the safe disposal by incineration of PCBs and banned new manufacture of the chemicals. Ward Transformer, a North Carolina company, had been spilling thousands of gallons of PCB-contaminated water from its Raleigh plant since the company’s founding in 1964. When TSCA became law, the company decided it was too expensive to pay to incinerate the PCBs safely at one of two EPA-approved sites, and resorted to other means, committing an unusual environmental crime (Siceloff, 2014).

For many nights in 1978, black-painted trucks driven by two of the company president’s relatives drove the highways of fourteen counties in rural North Carolina, home to some of the state’s poorest residents, and sprayed an estimated total of 30,000 gallons of PCBs on the highway shoulder. The residents along those highways experienced serious health problems including skin rashes and eye and throat irritation, and the crime was quickly uncovered. The men were eventually caught and convicted of the crime, and served a few years in federal prison (Ward, the company president behind the scheme, served only nine months). The state began cleanup of the polluted soil along the highways, trucking it to a landfill in Warren County, which was another environmental justice issue--Warren county is mostly black and largely poor, and residents felt they were being taken advantage of. The community wanted change and their values were clear through their protests. However, the state continued forward and built a landfill for the contaminated dirt, assuring the residents it would not leak.

It did leak, contaminating local waters where many people fish for subsistence, and in 2001 the state had to come back and detoxify the dirt by heating it to a high temperature. Meanwhile, years passed before the EPA made the Ward Transformer site a Superfund site in 2003, and detoxified 400,000 cubic yards of soil over a three-year period (Siceloff, 2014). Certain individuals who are a part of the working class, low income, and

10 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW people of color whose health may be impaired are at higher risk for environmental threats (Bullard & Wright, 1993).

PCBs are hydrophobic, meaning they do not dissolve in water, but they sink to the sediments at the bottom of lakes and streams, where bottom-feeding fish ingests them. PCBs concentrated in the bodies, bio accumulates, sickening the animals and people who eat them. Today, the authority routinely closes the Raleigh-area lakes and streams for fishing because of the health risk from eating PCB-contaminated fish; however, many people continue to fish and eat what they catch, because they will go hungry without it. These contaminants are also leaching into groundwater from the landfills and sickening residents. Testing is still ongoing in to see how successful past cleanup efforts have been and how much still remains to be done, and the dangers still posed to human health, which disproportionately affect some of North Carolina’s most disadvantaged residents (U.S. EPA, 2017).

These chemicals do not decompose in the environment and can have adverse health impacts. From 1999 to 2008, perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS), a kind of PFCs, has decreased in concentration because of discontinuing industrial production. On the other hand, PFOA concentrations have remained essentially unchanged. Another type of PFCs, perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) decreased from 1999 to 2006 then began increasing from 2007 to 2008, and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) concentrations show an upward trend (Kato, Wong, Jia, Kuklenyik, & Calafat, 2011). The decreased or increased use in production generally cause this trend. Kato et al. (2011) conducted a study on ‘Trends in Exposure to Polyfluoroalkyl Chemicals in the U.S Population from: 1999- 2008’. Below is a plot from the study (Fig. 3), representing the increase of blood serum concentrations of PFCs, especially PFOS.

Figure 3. PFCs in the US: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2008. Source: (Kato et al., 2011)

The story of PCBs in North Carolina has some parallels to the local GenX story. Like PFCs, PCBs do not break down easily in the environment, and so unless they are specifically targeted and removed, they will remain in the environment for many years to come. The industries all over the world manufactured PCBs for decades before their hazards were understood, and they remain widespread. Additionally, the pollution from both kinds of

11 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW substances is an environmental justice issue, where a company quietly disposed of a harmful chemical in an unsafe way for decades before scientists, regulators, or the public were able to stop them. Poor people are more harshly affected in both cases. With PCBs, because of the location of the dumping and subsequent landfill site, while for PFCs, because although they are in everyone’s water, they can only be removed with an expensive filter, or avoided by buying large amounts of bottled water (U.S. EPA, 2017). These trends show that manufacturing has just evolved its use of most PCBs and PFCs.

Favoring Industry over Environment

The Southeastern United States has a unique history of plantation-economy and residual impact from the effects of industrial policy on the region’s ecology. The South in the latter period of the 1970s had a number of factors promoting a “good business climate”, including low business taxes, a good infrastructure of municipal services, eager labor force and a minimum of business regulations (Bullard, 1990). This rise intensified land-use conflicts revolving around neighborhood and business interests. Government and business elites became primary players in influencing land-use decisions and growth potentialities rather than trained planners. Therefore, this growth pitted neighborhood interests against interests of industrial expansion; however, economic boosters could count on the promise of jobs as an efficient strategy of neutralizing local opposition to growth projects (Bullard, 1990). The key words for this extensive growth, especially in terms of sustaining support from the working-class majority, is the claim that growth "makes jobs." The developers, builders, and chambers of commerce aggressively promote this claim and becomes part of the statesman talk of editorialists and political officials. Such people do not speak of growth as useful to profits; instead, they speak of it as necessary for making jobs (Bullard, 1990). Competition intensified as communities attempted to expand their workforce and lure new industries away from other locations. There was a clear preference for clean industries that require highly skilled workers over dirty industries that use unskilled workers (Bullard, 1990). Many communities could not afford to be choosy. Those communities that failed to penetrate the clean industry market were left with a choice of dirty industry or no industry at all. These disparities typify the changing industrial pattern in the South (Bullard, 1990).

Given the nature of economic booster campaigns and industry-based politics, city leaders endorse tradeoffs, while local citizens who live near the plant may object to the siting decision to build (Bullard, 1990). Bullard’s study in his book, “Dumping in Dixie”, surveyed residents in West Dallas and Emelle in Texas and asked them if they felt their community derived employment gains from the industrial facility that was built in town. Approximately 62 percent of the household heads saw no improvement in the employment of local residents as a direct result of the nearby industrial facility. Failure of the industry to deliver on its promise of jobs appears to have hardened local citizen animosity toward the facility (Bullard, 1990). A continued trend of local politicians favoring industry over the health of its residents and surrounding environment is not favoring its residents equally. It is the job of the politicians who are elected to do what is best for the residents of the town and or city they represent, to try to weigh all costs and benefits of building an industry that could potentially harm the residents from contamination.

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Water pollution remains a major issue to the drinking water of the United States. More than half of America’s rivers, lakes and streams are not safe for fishing, swimming or drinking (Fields, 2015). Studies find that industrial facilities allegedly dump more than 206 million pounds of toxic pollution into our waterways every year. Many polluting industries and their trade associations oppose more regulation from the Clean Water Act and use their wealth to attempt to influence policy. Since 2006, Supreme Court decisions--Rapanos v. the United States and Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers--have created confusion about the scope of the Clean Water Act, leaving more than 2 million miles of streams and 20 million acres of wetlands across the country at risk and lacking clear protection under the Clean Water Act. Since these decisions, hundreds of Clean Water Act violations have gone unpunished because of this legal limbo (Fields, 2015).

Additionally, polluters have amassed power by making campaign contributions to key lawmakers, from members of committees that regulate pollution and development to members who may make key votes on issues in which they have a vested interest. Corporations also often pay a premium for lobbyists with the best access and influence such as individuals who used to be elected or regulatory officials themselves. For instance, the ten parent companies that allegedly discharged the most industrial dumping in 2012 spent more than $53 million on lobbying in 2014 and contributed more than $9.4 million to candidates for federal office in the 2014 election cycle (Fields, 2015). The American Farm Bureau spent more than $2 million on lobbying in 2014, with nine of its ten registered lobbyists spending at least some of their time lobbying against efforts to protect our air and water (Fields, 2015). Many of these worst polluters are repeat offenders, such as Dupont. These parent companies often own more than one facility that discharges high levels of toxins into local waterways. This has been a recent trend where interests are systematically polluting our rivers, lakes, and streams. The history of North Carolina favoring industry over human health and the environment is a trend that led to the contamination of GenX in the Cape Fear River.

Science, Knowledge & Politics

There has been a current trend of science and politics becoming too intertwined for the understanding of the public majority, therefore limiting understanding and participation on environmental issues that may be affecting them. If scientists evaluate the research findings of their peers on the basis of their political perspectives, then “scientific” debate among academic risks simply becoming political debate in the guise of science (Pielke, Jr., 2006). From the perspective of the public or policy makers, scientific and political debate on many environmental issues already have become indistinguishable (Pielke, Jr., 2006). Situations like this limit the role of science in the development of creative and possible policy options. For issues in which policy options are clearly defined and the political lines are drawn there is little room for interpretation, such as abortion politics which science had little to offer (Pielke, Jr., 2006). However, cases where policy options are unclear, poorly formed or subject to change is when the politicization of science by scientists may stunt policy development on important issues in which science has a positive role to play (Pielke, Jr., 2006). Policymaking can suffer when scientists politicize science in the form of overt political advocacy. This means, instead of working to develop new policy options that might transform political debates, many scientists are

13 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW falling in line behind existing political agendas that are already in gridlock, which serves to reinforce existing political battles (Pielke, Jr., 2006).

Pielke Jr. (2006) further describes how critical it is to differentiate scientific results from their policy significance. Communication of what results mean is not the same as assessment of what it signifies for alternative courses of action. This assessment of significance of action depends upon how trends, conditions, and projections are related to policy alternatives and their implications for valued outcomes such as human health, environmental sustainability and economic prosperity (Pielke, Jr., 2006). Essentially, if decision-makers wish to know what a piece of science means, they usually turn to political advocates for answers, in effect creating a world where almost all science is filtered through existing special interests, according to Pielke. He suggests that a better alternative is for the scientific community to take some responsibility to address the policy significance of scientific results. This essentially means to not just simply “communicate” better to the policymakers, but developing the capability to place science into policy context (Pielke, Jr., 2006). To create independence from science and partisan politics, science has an obligation to provide independent guidance on the significance of science for a wide scope of policy alternatives (Pielke, Jr., 2006). This would have the effect of depoliticizing science in policy debate without having to achieve the separation of science from politics (Pielke, Jr., 2006).

According to Professor Spears from her book, “Baptized in PCBs”, throughout history, society considers pollution as “the price of progress”. An immense distance, physical and social, separates decision-makers who deem the pollution a “price worth paying”, people paying the highest price. However, to truly calculate the cost of pollution, knowledge of its scope and risks are required, which the general public usually does not have. So long as the consequences of pollution remain concealed in corporate archives and behind boardroom doors, no one outside the problem can assess hazards and benefits of PCB production (Spears, 2014). Spears also define the term “toxic knowledge” as interdisciplinary. In a straightforward sense, knowledge of toxicity is having the awareness of chemical compounds, their properties and effects. Beyond official silences and the corporate withholding of knowledge, those who wish to know and address toxic exposures confront multiple unknowns and uncertainties. Patricia Yaeger brought insight to the unspoken awareness of social hierarchies as “a toxic knowledge of race and place” (Spears, 2014). Meaning, to uncover “toxic knowledge” is to bare the unseen but intuitively understood toxicity of deeply rooted unequal social relationships as marked on particular landscapes (Spears, 2014). This idea of “toxic knowledge” bares the question, how can citizens participate in an age dominated by complex technologies and expert decisions? This idea of “toxic knowledge” is a trend in the GenX case where Chemours had knowledge of the toxicity of PCBs however, not all social classes and/or races in Wilmington have the knowledge of the toxicity they deserve to have.

14 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW

Conditions

In the social process, the categories of conditioning factors used to account for the reasons that events and social processes happen as they do can include culture, class, interest, personality, and level of crisis. According to Clark in “The Policy Process”, people behave in certain ways because of past and current experience with particular cultures and subcultures. Cultures may be global, national, regional, local, or restricted to a city. Class experiences also influence behavior. The existence of social classes shape and share values in different ways. Personality, the basic behavioral pattern people use to deal with self and others, is another way to account for individual behavior (Clark, 2002). Finally, the level of crisis is a condition affecting cultures, classes, interests, and personalities. In this situation crises are identified as events or processes that may have life-threatening outcomes and effects on people and institutions (Clark, 2002). Ultimately, the explanation for individual and collective behavior lies in the social process, defined as humans pursuing values through institutions using resources (Clark, 2002). It is extremely important that decision-makers acknowledge all potential stakeholders in the early stages of examining a particular social process. Some participants may be very obvious to begin with--for example, in our case, Chemours and NCDEQ. However, failing to recognize the less-obvious stakeholders in an issue can seriously impact the outcome and often leads to the creation of additional problems. Thus, a proper analysis will be extremely inclusive in its outset. Once there is additional insight, it may be appropriate to begin thinking more selectively about the participants. This involves research as well as speculation. To properly understand a stakeholder’s perspective, one can begin by simply researching what it is the stakeholder wants. These demands are usually evident in the stakeholder’s public statements and actions. Chemours, NCDEQ, the EPA, and even citizen watch groups have websites that detail their demands and beliefs. Once the analyst understands the demand aspect of a stakeholder’s perspective, it is appropriate to attempt to understand the stakeholders’ expectations and identity. Expectations include any past or present assumptions that a participant has made, while identity refers to the way that a participant views itself. An important aspect of a stakeholder’s identity is whether it is more parochial or universal. These aspects of the stakeholder perspective are not always publicly available and may require the analyst to make inferences based on observed behavior.

The values that a participant currently has are known as base values, while those that a participant desires are known as scope values. In the social process framework, there are eight different value categories: power, enlightenment (knowledge), wealth, well-being, skill, affection, respect, and rectitude (ethics). The values encompass all of the objects or situations participants may possess or desire, though participants will rarely express their assets and goals in terms of the eight values. Furthermore, participants often fail to utilize all of their values in policy processes. Thus, analysts should use an integrated approach to understanding each stakeholder’s values. We made assumptions on participants’ goals based on previous case studies, websites, and promotional materials.

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Discussion

The present conditions of the GenX pollution controversy are largely a result of the trends discussed above, including environmental injustices, both from industries and discriminatory policies; lack of enforcement of regulations; and North Carolina’s history of placing friendliness to industry above the health of its citizens. Participants, situations, and effects were considered when outlining the conditions. Participants are the people this pollution impacts, those discharging the chemical, the entities responsible for regulation and enforcement and people who can help provide a solution including: Chemours Company, Wilmington residents, Scientists, NCDEQ, and Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA). Table 1 provides an analysis of the participants’ perspectives, demands, past and future expectations, identifications, and base values.

Table 1. Participants, perspectives, and base values of GenX problem in Cape Fear River

Residents of Participants: Chemours Company Scientists/Academia Wilmington NCDEQ CFPUA Perspectives: Parochial or Universal Parochial Mixed Parochial Mixed Parochial Science-based policies; Well-being, Power, respect Skill, Pro-industry Policies; Enlightenment & power & & enlightenment & Demands Wealth, skill & power respect enlightenment enlightenment respect

More staff and Provide clean funding to water to Continued production, Have been complete task residents; Expectations: short & long-term Integration of science drinking load and enforce Inadequate Past profit and policy polluted water the regulation funding

Scientists, Continuous NCDEQ & Better support from CFPUA will enforcement and county/city; Continued production, work together to cooperation effective Expectations: short & long-term Integration of science clean up the from companies methods to clean Future profit and policy water on regulation water Scientists/chemists who are fueling On protection of innovation, company Tourist public health Essential shareholders attraction, water and drinking organization; pressuring them to can be a symbol; water; "Sustainability, innovate for greater "port city"/beach regulators and service, Identifications profit Objective researchers town protectors stewardship" Power, Power, Enlightenment, enlightenment, Power, Wealth, Skill & Well- Enlightenment, well-being & Power & enlightenment, Base Values: being respect & rectitude respect rectitude skill & respect

16 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW

The next step in mapping a social process is to define the situation(s) in which social interactions between stakeholders take place. Situation refers to both spatial and temporal location, institutionalization and whether or not there is a crisis. While the spatial orientation of a social process refers to the location(s) in which stakeholders either directly or indirectly interact with one another, the temporal dimension is the timing of events within the social process. Institutionalization refers to the degree of organization in a situation, which determines how values are allocated in a particular context. Lastly, it is important to determine whether or not the situation is in a state of crisis, as this will have a great impact upon the way people behave. The situation as a whole will often change throughout the social process as a result of changing location, institutionalization and state of crisis. In our case, the situations could be in the newspapers, as representatives from Chemours and NCDEQ answer questions that the public can then have access to. Another situation could be thought of as people’s tap water, where the stakeholders’ actions--Chemours stopping its discharge, or consumers who can afford to buying their own reverse osmosis filters--play out in Wilmington residents’ homes. Some Wilmington residents certainly think there is a crisis, and are extremely upset. The temporal dimension includes not only the time since the Wilmington Star News broke the GenX story in summer 2017, but also the several decades that Chemours has admitted they were discharging GenX since the 1980s from their Fayetteville plant.

According to Clark (2002), participants often use a combination of four basic types of strategies. Diplomatic strategy utilizes communication between leaders of elite groups, while ideological strategies involve communication to a wider public. In contrast to these two communicative strategies, there are also economic and military strategies. Economic strategies are those involving the production and distribution of goods and services, such as boycotts. Military strategies seek to use resources as weapons and are uncommon in natural resource problems. Participants may change their strategies over time. It is important for analysts not only to understand the stakeholders’ strategies, but also to assess whether or not the strategies are appropriate and effective. In our case, most participants have used one of the two communicative strategies, with Chemours and NCDEQ using diplomatic strategies as high-level individuals in these two organizations communicate through phone or email. Scientists and academics have also used a diplomatic strategy; although they may intend to reach a wide audience, their public communications are mainly in scientific journals, which are expensive to gain access to and difficult to understand without years of study, effectively limiting the communication to a few elites. Chemours and NCDEQ have also used ideological strategies by putting information on their websites and sending representatives to talk to the local press for news stories. The residents of Wilmington have used ideological strategies, as with facebook groups and nonprofit advocacy groups, and some have resorted to buying bottled water rather than drinking tap water, which could be seen as an economic strategy although it is unlikely to have a direct impact on Chemours or the CFPUA.

Social processes have short-term, culminating events known as outcomes, which can be evaluated in terms of the change in the distribution of values. This of course influences future social processes. An analyst may determine an outcome by examining changes in values both during and after the social process. Additionally, the analyst should seek to understand the relationship between the desired outcome(s) and the actual outcome(s). This information can

17 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW help decision makers know in advance how various policies will likely impact stakeholder values. In our case, a short-term outcome has been a loss of the base value respect for the Chemours company and CFPUA. The residents of Wilmington have to some extent transferred the respect they may have once had for those organizations to the NCDEQ as they look for someone to step up and solve the GenX problem. In addition, CFPUA and Chemours have lost some of their wealth, as the CFPUA is considering plans to install a reverse osmosis filter system in its water treatment plant, and Chemours has had to pay to contain and incinerate GenX rather than discharging it into the Cape Fear River as before. However, Chemours and CFPUA have not lost the power that they continue to hold in the region, or the skill of their employees. As upset as Wilmington residents are, the CFPUA still has a monopoly on providing tap water to the area, and Chemours is still a successful, worldwide company, employing many talented chemists. The company continues to have huge sales of a variety of products that most of us still use.

In addition to these short-term outcomes are the long-term effects that the social process has on not only values, but also practices and institutions. With respect to values, effects can be seen as a net change in values that results from all of the outcomes in a social process. Changes to institutional practices or the emergence of new value-institutions are also effects of the social process. Like outcomes, analysts can use their knowledge of the social process to predict the effects on institutions, practices, and values. In our case, the knowledge about GenX is still limited, and the long-term effects are not yet clear. We could predict that Chemours will lose some more of its wealth in possible fines as well as continued costs to incinerate GenX, as well as some of its power as some consumers turn away from its products. However, Chemours is a large and wealthy company so the current GenX issue, although it seems like a huge problem locally to Wilmington residents, may not have much long-term effect. Wilmington residents have gained more enlightenment about tap water and what is in it, but it is unclear whether this enlightenment will continue to grow. When faced with all the other contaminants that are also in the river, residents may simply turn away from the issue of water treatment once the GenX scare dies down. CFPUA has lost some respect and rectitude, and it may not gain them back in the future. However, it is likely to still hold on to its power. Scientists and academia have not been very involved in communicating with the other stakeholders, except an elite level through diplomatic strategies, so it is unlikely their base values will change much in the long term unless they make a commitment to be more involved with ideological strategies of communication that would reach a wider audience.

18 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW

Alternatives

The trends described above have shown that we are not moving towards the goals, which are eliminating discharge of toxins, lowering risks associated with toxins in our water, and improving environmental justice for vulnerable populations. We need to reduce the existing problems and consider alternatives to address the problems. The alternatives provided here will hopefully reach the initial goals, which we can apply to GenX problems in Cape Fear River. In identifying alternatives, we will examine what the government can do and assess the possible modifications to the present policy.

1. Evaluate the current enforcement of the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Toxic Substance Control Act and strengthen the commitment to reach the goals.

Current agencies who are dealing with the enforcement are overwhelmed by the procedure defined in the act. NCDEQ does not have sufficient funding and staff to oversee the permitting process for the entire chemical industries in North Carolina and therefore create a loophole. Strengthening the agencies could mean better enhancing permitting and renewal processes for industries to improve accountability of state officials. Increased funding could be used to study the health risks posed by the emerging contaminants.

A reform proposal first offered in 2010 by Senator Frank Lautenberg included a central demand of reformers: requiring chemical manufacturers to demonstrate that their chemicals are safe before marketing them. Currently, under TSCA, the EPA must demonstrate that a chemical poses an “unreasonable risk of injury” to health and the environment before imposing restrictions. Lautenberg’s legislation would shift the burden of proof from the EPA to industry and require proof of “reasonable certainty of no harm” before chemicals could be marketed (Spears, 2014). Without greater authority and resources, the EPA cannot enforce premarket testing of chemicals. This proposed legislation is aimed to ensure corporations can no longer hide unfavorable health data by citing “confidential business information” (Spears, 2014). Further provisions of the bill would also address aggregate and cumulative exposures to chemicals and increase protection for “vulnerable populations”, particularly children (Spears, 2014). According to Spears, the strongest antidotes to the toxic poisoning of a town are openness and democracy. Justice requires genuine transparency, not the orchestrated transparency of consultancies. Democracy requires messy, prolonged, polarizing, vigorous debate (Spears, 2014). The question remains however, is Wilmington capable of this change and willing to become more participant inclusive and effective in policy making?

2. Force the polluters to pay for the treatment process to clean the water to the drinking water standards defined by EPA.

A class action lawsuit could be brought to hold the polluters responsible for their actions. Although we might expect settlement in pollution cases, there should be a mechanism in

19 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW place where the polluters pay for the clean-up process. The polluters should also pay for the monitoring process conducted by the independent agency or organization after the cleanup process to make sure that the residents have access to clean and safe drinking water. This punishment should create a deterrent effect that prevents industries from polluting the public goods, and rewards the ones who do clean up their messes or avoid pollution discharge in the first place.

3. Provide framework for interagency coordination and/or a neutral advisory panel.

Government agencies should set aside their political differences and start to address the apparent problem, statewide contamination of waters which are public trust resources. The strengthening of NCDEQ is essential to fix the permitting process without leaving the safety measures behind. The public need a strict requirement for industries to disclose all their discharge, known or unknown substances. When the permitting process cannot stop pollution problems, law enforcement needs to be involved in investigating the responsible party to hold them accountable. NC DHHS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should assess the long-term health effects of emerging contaminants. Scientists should be involved in a neutral advisory panel with the primary purpose of supporting the government to make informed decisions.

Creating “honest brokers of policy options” as suggested by Pielke, Jr. (2006)would allow scientists to engage more substantively in policy debate and not take sides. Scientific results always have some degree of uncertainty, and the task of political advocacy involves considerations that go beyond science (Pielke, Jr., 2006). If the scientific community wishes to claim independence from partisan politics then they need to provide independent guidance on the significance of science for a wide scope of policy alternatives (Pielke, Jr., 2006). Setting up a neutral advisory panel would allow scientists to focus on their job of advancing knowledge, without getting drawn into political debates that could affect the way they interpret their data. Although the public often sees science as black-and-white and providing clear-cut answers, science is truly never complete, but an ongoing process of testing and re-testing and always being skeptical and open to new knowledge.

4. Increase the dissemination of information and education to raise the awareness of how to advocate for communities faced with pollution and emerging contaminants.

Educating the public does not ensure change but it does allow for democracy. Studies show that low income and minority communities receive unequal environmental pollution and inequitable environmental enforcement practices because of participation of citizens, community involvement, access to information, and effective use of that information (Kellogg & Mathur, 2003). When educating the public Kellogg and Mathur found that a multifaceted approach was best (2003). Participation of the community is what causes change thus educating the public about their condition, local policy, and then teaching them how to use that information is crucial.

For example, in their 2003 study, Kellog and Mathur found that even though government agencies were increasingly using the internet to disseminate information to the public, they were also facing staffing decreases that made them less able to answer information requests through

20 GenX, EJ, and Pollution in NC Dept. of Public and International Affairs, UNCW traditional methods of phone or in-person conversations. This meant that those who did not have free and regular access to the internet and basic computer skills were less able to access the information they needed than before. However, several initiatives exist to help bring older or lower-income city residents up to speed on using the internet to search for and find complex information from government agencies that affected their neighborhoods. The programs, for example the Sustainable Cleveland Partnership, would train a small number of community leaders at no cost to them, and provide them with certificates. Once these leaders were fluent in accessing and interpreting online government information, they would teach others; in this way the people in disadvantaged communities were empowered to advocate for themselves and produce real change affecting their daily lives (Kellogg & Mathur, 2003).

Another example involves the PCB case in Anniston from “Baptized in PCBs”. This case shows the need for precaution and for addressing toxic chemical exposures, not after the fact, but before damage is done. Activists from the town remain concerned that uncertainties about the degree of harm are used as a wedge against restricting dangerous chemicals rather than a reason for caution in marketing them (Spears, 2014). Spears states that a reinvigorated conception of justice will shift the burden of proof to manufacturers to demonstrate a reasonable certainty of no harm. Decisions regarding toxic chemical safety would value multiple sources of knowledge, require greater corporate transparency, and invite inclusive, meaningful public participation in decision-making (Spears, 2014). This is the perfect case scenario for any city in the United States that is facing pollution burdens from industry. Although this idea of more transparency and citizen knowledge might be hard to achieve, it is something that state governments should be working towards to better serve and protect their communities.

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Conclusion

The way forward to clean water is not clear, despite a history of increasing federal regulation and policy, with the CWA, SDWA, and TSCA. These policies were intended to be enforced at the state level and were designed to protect citizens from point-source pollution by industry, but many problems still exist with North Carolina’s water. A history of racial and economic segregation makes it difficult for people in economically disadvantaged communities to become politically involved and make their voices heard. In addition, the conflation of science and politics makes it harder to sort out usable scientific information from opinion and misdirection.

The way people interact with water is always complicated and leads to the clashing of views and values. North Carolina’s legacy of leading industries down from the North by looking the other way at their harmful business practices is deeply ingrained and difficult to work against, and has led to delayed and inadequate addressing of pollution crimes in many past cases, even when evidence pointing to the harm being caused by the pollution has been clearly available. Despite these difficulties, a way forward is available. If some policies are implemented, as discussed in the Alternatives section, we may be able to make some progress against the wicked problem of water pollution--in our GenX case, and in other cases around the US and the world.

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