Testing reveals month-old GenX spill in Cape Fear River

[TexasTowelie]

Raleigh, N.C. — Environmental regulators say they're investigating possible enforcement action after discovering that Chemours spilled a GenX precursor into the Cape Fear River in early October.

In a press release Thursday afternoon, officials with the state Department of Environmental Quality said preliminary data revealed a spike in the levels of GenX in untreated water near the chemical company's Fayetteville Works facility in Bladen County. After contacting the company, DEQ spokesman Jamie Kritzer said Chemours officials revealed that workers had spilled dimer acid fluoride during planned maintenance at the plant Oct. 6.

Dimer acid fluoride effectively breaks down in water into the equivalent of GenX, a poorly studied and unregulated contaminant in a family of chemicals linked to cancer and other negative health effects. Kritzer said it's unclear how much of the chemical leaked or how long it spilled into the Cape Fear River.

"We are investigating all angles of this spill and what's happened as it relates to the spill," Kritzer said.

Read more: http://www.wral.com/testing-reveals-month-old-genx-spill-in-cape-fear-river/17103149/

[appal_jack]

1. Beware the halogens:

Fluorine, Chlorine, and Bromine are nothing but trouble, except of course that they offer a devil's bargain of useful chemistry: teflon, gore tex, solvents, plastics, fire suppression chemicals, all sorts of drugs and biocides, etc.

Decades ago, I joined (in a very minor way) GreenPeace's efforts to ban chlorine chemistry from manufacturing and industry. At the time, most sensible people viewed the campaign as a madman's quest. However mad the idea may be, getting halogens out of our industrial ecology may be necessary for the sake of our food web, groundwater, and health.

k&r,

-app