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
Round 2: Speaking to DAQ/DEQ in Columbus
County to Express Opposition to Permitting the
Use of the Highly Toxic Methyl Bromide Near a
School and Several Communities on May 15, 2018
The May 3rd meeting sponsored by the Division of Air Quality of the Department of Environmental Quality brought out so many local citizens who wanted to express their opposition to the local use of methyl bromide that a second meeting had to be scheduled. The second meeting occurred on Monday, May 15th and even more citizens attended!
The issue was a variance that an Australian company, Malec Brothers, had applied for to use the highly toxic compound, methyl bromide, in the fumigation of logs that were to be exported to China. The company's plan would have released into the air extraordinarily high levels of methyl bromide - a product banned in most countries in the early 2000s - near a middle school in Delco (just over the Brunswick County line in Columbus County ) and several nearby small communities. Both Morehead City and Wilmington rejected the idea, so the company turned to Columbus County.
Dr. Dwight Willis spoke at the May 3rd meeting and both Dan George and Marilyn Priddy spoke at the May 15th meeting, and like all of the local residents who spoke, were very eloquent in objecting to this permit.