Brunswick Environmental Action Team
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Emily Donovan via ActionNetwork.org <info@email.actionnetwork.org>
Date: Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 9:08 AM
Subject: URGENT: Action needed on PFAS in NC
Hello Friends!
We need you to ACT right now on PFAS contamination in North Carolina. Please sign-up to give virtual public comments this Tuesday, July 20th at 6:00pm. NC DEQ is holding a virtual public hearing on proposed new surface water quality standards. Click here to register.
These proposed standards were recommended by the Environmental Management Commission (EMC). This triennial review only happens once every three years and the EMC did not include PFAS/GenX!! By the way, the EMC is made up of 15 members, including 9 appointed by the Governor, 3 by the Senate Pro Tempore, and 3 by the Speaker of the House.
We have already paid the ultimate price. We were poisoned by PFAS for decades. Our blood was contaminated without our consent. It's time NC DEQ puts OUR needs first.
We cannot wait another three years for action on PFAS. We deserve surface water quality standards ASAP and DEQ has the power to correct this oversight.
Use this link to register:
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx...
Surface water quality standards are used to protect our rivers, lakes and streams. Over 1.5 million North Carolinians rely on the Cape Fear River as their primary source of drinking water.
Multiple studies confirm NC has some of the worst PFAS pollution in the nation. DEQ must create surface water quality standards for PFAS so the burden to remove these “forever chemicals” from drinking water sources falls on the polluters—not innocent ratepayers.
A growing body of research suggests these “forever chemicals” are toxic at trace amounts and have lasting health impacts. Many North Carolinians have been chronically exposure to large quantities of PFAS for decades.
PFAS exposures are associated with immune suppression, developmental effects during pregnancy or breastfeeding, thyroid problems, increases in cholesterol levels which leads to stroke or heart attacks, and a number of cancers—including thyroid, kidney, bladder and testicular cancers.
We need you to make your voices heard! When you give your public comments tell DEQ why this matters to you. Explain how PFAS contamination has personally impacted your lives.
Demand DEQ do the following:
Immediately adopt a surface water quality standard for PFAS as a class at a health protective level of 1 ppt for the sum total concentration of all PFAS.
Establishing a 1 ppt surface water quality standard for the sum total of all PFAS will stop the spread of newly released PFAS at the source--instead of placing the burden on drinking water utilities. It will also protect our natural wildlife and aquatic life from unnecessary PFAS contamination. This health protective level is supported by multiple research studies.
You have until noon on Tuesday, July 20th to sign-up to speak. Please show up and bring your friends. Can we count on you to get three friends to join you? Click here to register to speak.
Thank you so much for helping us remove PFAS from our air, soil, water and food supply.
Sincerely,
Emily Donovan & your Clean Cape Fear leadership team
for 2021. For the Zoom link, please go to:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81477228617
Get More Information about BEAT Calendar Events by clicking on the event date and scrolling up or down. Additional information about the event such as time, location/address and description of the event (and other links) are provided in this event calendar when possible.
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE BEAT LETTER OF SUPPORT FOR the Brunswick County NAACP’s proposed Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Multi-Use Greenway/Blueway Trail, Brunswick County, North Carolina
FYI: An Informative PDF about PFAS as it Relates to Brunswick County in 2020 - by Eugene Rozenbaoum of LG Chem
"What to do with a Beach, a Barrier Island , and a Tidal Creek named Jinks?"
Presentations by Dr. Len Pietrafesa and Dr. Richard Hilderman on Thursday, October 4, 2018
On the Brunswick County Coast we are blessed with all three, but do you know why they are there and how they work ? What role do they play in the coastal process? Where does beach sand come from? Why do beaches grow, shrink, and move? Why do we have shoreline erosion ? Why Tubbs Inlet ? What happened to Madd Inlet? What is a flood tide? What is an ebb tide? What about their deltas? What role does a barrier island play within our marsh environment and ecology?
Also. the dredging of North and South Jinks Creek has been a controversial and emotional issue in Sunset Beach for the past two years. It was one of the main foci of the Sunset Beach Environmental Resources Committee, the issue that led all of the members of the ERC to resign, and the proposed dredging of Jinks Creek that spurred the re-birth of the Brunswick Environmental Action Team. Unfortunately, as discussion of the issue began and has continued, there has been little public education on the relevance of the geography of Sunset Beach to this issue or on the relevance of our waterways, wetlands, and shores to deciding whether dredging should occur or not.
These are the questions that Dr. Len Pietrafesa and Dr. Richard Hilderman addressed in extremely informative and lively presentations and questions-and-answers at Seaside United Methodist Church, in Sunset Beach, on October 4th.
For the record, Dr. Len Pietrafesa is Research Scholar at Coastal Carolina University and Professor Emeritus at North Carolina State University in Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences. He is an expert in cyclone and hurricane wind force and wind-wave-current coupled interactions. Dr. Richard Hilderman was the Founding Chair of the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry and Director of the Genomic Institute at Clemson University and has dedicated an enormous number of hours studying this issue.
