One year later, Cumberland County tainted water lawsuit against Chemours still unresolved
A year ago, the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners sued The Chemours Co. on accusations its Fayetteville Works factory on the Bladen-Cumberland county line had contaminated drinking water wells of county residents with toxic chemicals since the 1970s.
A year later, the people in Gray’s Creek in southern Cumberland County are still using bottled water and filtration systems — as they have for several years. The Chemours emissions of “forever chemicals,” called PFAS and GenX, into the air and water surrounding the Fayetteville Works factory were first made public in 2017. Residents in the vicinity are still waiting for a public water system that the county commissioners want to build for them.
These “forever chemicals” do not break down in the environment, researchers say. They are associated with cancer, poor child development, liver problems, kidney problems, reduced immune system response, and other health issues.
Here’s an update:
Help on the way?$15M awarded to build water lines to Gray’s Creek homes, schools with contaminated wells
What happened since the lawsuit was filed?
After Cumberland County filed the lawsuit last March in Cumberland County Superior Court, Chemours and its co-defendants got the case moved to federal court in May. They asked the federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit.
The county asked the federal judge to send the case back to Cumberland County Superior Court. The federal judge did this in June.
In July, the defendants asked for a Superior Court judge to dismiss the lawsuit. Their motions are still pending.
Due to the complexity of the issues in the lawsuit, there is a request pending from the parties and Senior Resident Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons to have Superior Court Judge Michael O'Foghludha take over. O'Foghludha has experience in this type of litigation, says the request to the chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Early this year, paperwork was filed so several lawyers from out-of-state can represent Cumberland County.
Lawsuit filed:Cumberland sues Chemours alleging 'blatant disregard' for environmental pollution
Suit alleges corporate shell game to avoid liability
Cumberland County sued five entities.
Two of them are the Chemours Co., and its subsidiary, the Chemours Company FC, LLC, which owns the Fayetteville Works factory.
The other three are:
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. It built the Fayetteville Works factory in 1971 and then spun off Chemours as a separate company in July 2015.
DuPont de Nemours Inc., a “new” version of DuPont created in 2019.
And agricultural seed and chemical company Corteva Inc., also created in 2019.
After the old DuPont spun off Chemours in July 2015, the lawsuit says, it merged with chemical company Dow to form DowDuPont.
DowDuPont broke up into three companies in 2019. One of these was the “new” DuPont, and another was named Corteva. Corteva is an agricultural chemicals and seed company.
Cumberland County’s lawsuit alleges the corporate spin-off of Chemours in 2015 followed by the DowDuPont merger in 2015 and the Corteva and new DuPont spinoffs in 2019 were designed to shield the new companies from liability for the chemical contamination of the environment.
Senior North Carolina reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@fayobserver.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: PFAS contaminated water lawsuit against Chemours still underway in NC
