LELAND — A lab test by an organization known as the Environmental Working Group says a water sample from a Brunswick County school has 185.9 parts per trillion of PFAS in tap water, an amount higher than any found in measurements it conducted in 31 states and the District of Columbia.

School and Brunswick County officials, however, say testing has been done weekly and unsafe levels have not been detected.

A release from EWG said the results from this testing “confirm that the number of Americans exposed to PFAS from contaminated tap water has been dramatically underestimated by previous studies, both from the Environmental Protection Agency and EWG’s own research.”

The EPA’s limit for PFOA and PFOS is 70 parts per trillion.

In response, Brunswick County Schools released a statement saying water is tested weekly by Brunswick County Government and no safety advisory has been issued. It said it would, in an effort “to ease minds,” provide a bottled water option at Belville Elementary School. In addition, the county issued a separate statement that said it had already started a proactive response “project to install an advanced low-pressure reverse osmosis treatment system at the Northwest Water Treatment Plant.”

PFAS is an acronymn for a family of chemical compounds known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. This includes GenX, the contaminant discovered in the Cape Fear River that was first reported in June 2017 by the Wilmington newspaper, The StarNews.

The river contamination is linked to the Chemours Co., a chemical industry giant that has a plant in Bladen County along the Cumberland County line between Tar Heel and Fayetteville. Chemours is part of the Fayetteville Works Site, a land facility that includes Kuraray and DuPont plants.

The Cape Fear River supplies drinking water downstream to multiple municipalities, including Wilmington.

Wilmington tested at 50.5 parts per trillion for toxic chemicals in tap water, the EWG said.

EWG’s samples were collected by staff or volunteers between May and December of last year, the report said. EWG said the samples were “analyzed by an accredited independent laboratory for 30 different PFAS chemicals, a tiny fraction of the thousands of compounds in the family of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.”

The EWG’s website states that the water sample was collected from Belville Elementary by Emily Donovan, a co-founder of the grassroots group Clean Cape Fear. The group is known for its ongoing fight against Chemours and DuPont.

“I’m devastated to see my children’s school at the top of this nationwide study,” she said. “Belville is the largest elementary school in southeastern North Carolina. This is wrong. I’m so sad. My PTO should be asking for cookie and cupcake donations, but instead parents are regularly asked to donate gallons of bottled water. America is better than this. We need to start acting that way.”

PFAS are not regulated, and water tests results are not required to be made public by utilities that participate in testing. The results are also not obligated to be shared with agencies or the EPA.

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Water at Brunswickschool cited in report

Emily M. Williams

Bladen Journal

Emily M. Williams can be reached at 910-247-9133 or ewilliams@bladenjournal.com.