Attorneys representing Cape Fear Public Utility Authority in its lawsuit against Chemours and DuPont have filed a response with the federal district court for the Eastern District of North Carolina objecting to the companies’ motion to seal CFPUA’s summary judgment briefing and more than 180 of the companies’ documents submitted as evidence in the case.
CFPUA’s objection was filed on Monday, April 14. The documents requested to be sealed by the companies include an extensive record of Chemours’ and DuPont’s decades of releases of GenX and other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from their chemical manufacturing plant on the Cape Fear River. The river is the source of most of the raw water CFPUA treats and distributes to its customers in Wilmington and New Hanover County.
“Chemours and DuPont have burdened our community with their pollution since 1980. These companies’ decades of pollution forced CFPUA to spend tens of millions of dollars to build and operate new Granular Activated Carbon filters to remove their PFAS from water we treat at the Sweeney Water Treatment Plant,” said CFPUA Executive Director Kenneth Waldroup.
“I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that they now want to keep our community from seeing the detailed record of what they did – and what they failed to do – in the course of their PFAS pollution. We, however, firmly believe our customers and our community deserve to know.”
CFPUA’s objection to the motion to seal was joined by others, including from Clean Cape Fear, which submitted an online petition with more than 1,500 signatures; from Cape Fear River Watch in conjunction with the Southern Environmental Law Center and other groups; and from Janice Gaines, vice president of the Rockhill Community Organization, which represents residents in a Castle Hayne-area neighborhood.