Don't play politics with GenX mess

Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, August 10, 2017.

In the worrisome saga of GenX pollution in the Cape Fear River, the to-do list is long. As the investigation proceeds, we expect the list will grow longer. The emission of the possible carcinogen from the Chemours plant on the Cumberland-Bladen county line raises a host of questions — especially among the people who live downstream from the chemical plant, who depend on the river for their drinking water and, to a somewhat lesser degree, for their recreation and for seafood.

For longtime residents of the region, the concerns are especially troubling. The chemical is used in the manufacture of Teflon and has apparently flowed into the the Cape Fear from the plant, formerly DuPont, since somewhere around 1980. That’s going on 40 years. Chemours only recently agreed to prevent GenX from entering the river. What are the implications of such long-term ingestion? Is it safe to eat fish coming from the river? What about swimming? And researchers are finding substantial residues of GenX in the river. Is it possible to clean it up, or will the natural flow of the river do the job? What can the state do to regulate discharge of GenX, and some of the chemical’s related compounds that have never been studied for safety but are also found in the river? Like some sections of the river, the law may be murky on that. And yet, all of those compounds are in a family of chemicals that is considered carcinogenic.

Unfortunately, those aren’t the kind of questions that a group of seven Republican state senators asked Gov. Roy Cooper about the GenX situation in a letter they released Wednesday. Instead, they wanted to know whether federal subpoenas have been served on the governor’s office, as they were on the Department of Environmental Quality. A federal grand jury is investigating the GenX pollution; the DEQ welcomed the subpoenas and officials say they’re happy to cooperate in as broad a probe as possible.

The senators also want to know when was the first time people in the administration talked with Chemours about GenX, and asked why the governor sought a probe by the State Bureau of Investigation after DEQ Secretary Michael Regan said Chemours didn’t break the law. They complained in the letter of “multiple inconsistencies in your administration’s handling of this crisis” and asked, “Can the public have confidence in DEQ when it says this chemical is no longer being discharged?”

We’re having a hard time seeing this confrontational approach as anything but an attempt by the senators to turn the GenX pollution story into a political football. We certainly saw no such grilling of Gov. Pat McCrory when a coal-ash impoundment burst at a Duke Energy plant in Eden and turned the bed of the Dan River a slimy gray. There was little debate about the need to clean it up, and pretty easy agreement that the state needed tougher standards for the toxic ash from present or former coal-burning power plants. So why do this now, other than to politicize what should be an apolitical exercise in good and responsible governance? The people — Democrat, Republican and independent — whose water has been tainted by GenX for more than three decades are worried half to death. They’re also angry that their government — both Democrat and Republican during that time span — allowed that pollution for so many years.

We hope this ad hoc Senate delegation uses some common sense here and initiates an effective, bipartisan effort to give the people some answers — and some clean water. Those found playing politics with what may be a life-and-death threat may pay dearly for it at the polls next year. And they should.

http://www.fayobserver.com/opinion/20170810/our-view-dont-play-politics-with-genx-mess