Free-Flowing PFAS Allowed Under HB 600 - Please Reject

Practically speaking, this amendment would mean that toxic chemicals without numeric standards (like PFAS, 1,4-dioxane, etc.) could not be limited in discharge permits -- resulting in free -flowing toxic contamination.

This is in blatant violation of the Clean Water Act which requires that technology-based limits be the “minimum level of control that must be imposed in a permit” regardless of whether water quality standards exist or would be triggered by the discharge (40 C.F.R. §125.3(a)).

DEQ would also not be able to set permit limits using narrative water quality standards, including the narrative toxic substances standard which limits the amount of toxic chemicals that can be dumped into our waters.

None of the permits that DEQ has issued on Chemours to this point would have been legal under this rule leaving many of your constituents' drinking water, and your watershed on the whole -- severely contaminated.


Please send your letter today. We have addressed it to all the Senators and House members in the Cape Fear Basin, as well as sponsors of HB 600 and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Energy and Environment, which introduced this amendment. We have written it for you but please feel free to make it your own.