Raleigh, NC – The North Carolina attorney general has partnered with a national law firm with extensive experience in PFAS litigation, signaling a potentially significant expansion of the state’s legal efforts against companies that put these “chemicals forever” in the air and in the air. water in North Carolina.
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Josh Stein confirmed this week that the state has an agreement with Kelley Drye, a company with eight offices across the country, none in North Carolina. Among other things, the company’s website reports that it is involved in more than 20 state and federal disputes across the country over PFAS, a chemical family that includes GenX and other long-lasting compounds that can build up in the body and cause health problems. .
“We have a prominent team of lawyers dedicated to helping clients deal with PFAS contamination and we are lawyers in some of the largest and most important PFAS litigation in the country, both for public and private clients,” says the company’s website.
Among other things, the company is involved in hundreds of cases across the country about chemicals used in fire-fighting foam, which were consolidated in a United States District Court in South Carolina.
On Monday, Stein announced that his office had “launched a formal investigation into manufacturers and other parties responsible for substance or polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) contamination in North Carolina”, but he did not mention the partnership with Kelley Drye until WRAL News asked about this specifically.
In the announcement, Stein’s office also described the investigation as an expansion of an investigation already underway. Her spokeswoman said it was not a criminal investigation.
Stein’s office worked for years at PFAS with the state’s Environmental Quality Department, who went to court to enforce air and water pollution rules against Chemours, a chemical company with a large facility near the county line. of Bladen-Cumberland.
That facility discharged GenX into the Cape Fear River for years, a fact largely unknown until 2017, when the Wilmington Star News published an exhibition looking at the concentrations of chemicals in the area’s drinking water.
Chemours largely stopped unloading the chemical and spent millions of dollars on air purifiers and other measures to prevent GenX from entering the atmosphere, soil and water. A type of PFAS and a common chemical around the world used to make Teflon, fire-fighting foam and other modern conveniences, GenX has been found in people’s blood, food and water.
This chemical and others in the PFAS family are widespread. Among other places, they were found in the drinking water supply of Cary and Greensboro, none of which is downstream of the Chemours plant. Chemicals cannot be removed from drinking water sources using traditional methods, and tens of millions of dollars in water plant upgrades are planned.
The health effects of chemicals are not fully understood, but they can increase the risk of cancer, among other things.
Stein’s announcement signaled an expansion of state efforts, potentially beyond Chemours’ production lines, saying he wants to “understand the extent of damage to North Carolina’s natural resources caused by contamination of GenX and other PFAS chemicals and further assess contamination in other parts of North Carolina’s surface, soil and groundwater. “
“My office will not hesitate to take legal action against any polluter, if that is necessary to maintain the safety of the people of North Carolina,” said Stein in the statement.
A Chemours spokeswoman said the company has invested more than $ 100 million to control emissions on its Fayetteville Works website and is now “destroying more than 99% of our site’s atmospheric PFAS emissions” and has stopped putting wastewater on the Cape Fear River in 2017.
“As far as we know, the commitments we have made and the actions we have taken and continue to take are more robust than the shares of any other company in North Carolina,” said spokeswoman Lisa Randall in a statement. “We would like to encourage other sources of PFAS across the state to do the same.”
Stein’s office did not want to release his contract with Kelley Drye. State law allows them to keep this secret until any potential legal process is completed. At that point, the state would have to disclose the contingency fees paid to an outside attorney.
Bill Jackson, co-chairman of Kelley Drye’s national environmental law practice group in Houston, did not return a phone message asking for comment.
In addition to the continuous application of the Environmental Quality Department against Chemours, which has judicial supervision, there are at least three lawsuits against the company, all at various stages of the process:
- A possible collective action seeking compensation on behalf of people whose water has been contaminated. The case is about three years old and is mired in discoveries. It has not yet been certified as a class action.
- Another case looking for water contamination damage, but hitting well owners near the plant.
- An action brought by Brunswick County and the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which provide drinking water in the Wilmington area.
A federal grand jury analyzed Chemours’ layoffs that ended earlier this year without prosecuting criminal charges, the company told shareholders in a routine report earlier this month.