Chemours expansion plans infuriate environmentalists

By Greg Barnes

North Carolina environmental groups are outraged over the Chemours chemical corporation’s plans to expand its Fayetteville Works plant in Bladen County.

Chemours announced in a statement Tuesday that it will hold two public information sessions on plans to expand its manufacturing capabilities at the plant, which sits just over the Cumberland County line.

The planned expansion would “support an increase in domestic production in the semiconductor, transportation, clean energy, consumer electronics, and communications industries,” according to the statement.

Little more is known about the expansion plans because the company said it will not provide interviews before the public sessions.

Chemours has been under a consent order since 2019 to clean up decades of per- and polyfluoroalkyl contamination — also known as PFAS or forever chemicals — that have been emitted from the plant into the air and the Cape Fear River. The contamination has affected thousands of people from Cumberland County to the coast. Many will no longer drink the tap water from their homes without filtration.

“Chemours’ decision to propose this plan when so many still lack safe drinking water due to its reckless handling of toxic chemicals shows where its priorities lie,” Geoff Gisler, a senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said in an email.

Chemours is expected to provide more details of its expansion plans at the two public sessions. The first one is set for 5 to 7 p.m. on Sept. 20 in the Bladen Community College auditorium in Dublin. The second is scheduled for the same time the next day at the Leland Cultural Arts Center.

At least until then, Chemours will remain mum on specific details of its proposed expansion, company spokeswoman Lisa Randall said in an email.

So people won’t know whether Chemours plans to produce more PFAS at the plant, although production of semiconductors and electronic components typically contain the forever chemicals. People also won’t know how many jobs will be created and the average wage of those jobs, or how Chemours plans to keep surrounding areas safe from pollutants.

Sharon Martin, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Quality, said Chemours has not submitted applications related to its proposed expansion to the DEQ.

“DEQ remains focused on the immediate need to address the PFAS contamination from Chemours and its impacts to North Carolinians throughout the Cape Fear River basin and the continuing

NC Senate leader Phil Berger, left, and Gov. Roy Cooper, right, have disagreed for years over Medicaid expansion in North Carolina. But that may be changing as the Senate plans to vote on it on June 1, 2022.

Julia Wall / Travis Long

RALEIGH

Doctors and hospitals have spent years pushing for Medicaid expansion in North Carolina. But now that Republican leaders have proposed a bill that would do just that, some are now either lukewarm on the bill or even actively opposed.

In large part, that’s because the bill also contains a number of other health care policy changes that threaten to upend other parts of the medical industry.

Chip Baggett is CEO of the North Carolina Medical Society, an influential lobbying group for doctors. He said they still support Medicaid expansion, but they oppose the way the legislature is currently proposing that it happen — namely, with so many unrelated policy changes tacked on.

“It’s all muddied up,” he said.

The opposition from some outside groups to parts of the bill hasn’t stopped the bill from quickly moving forward at the legislature, at least for now. The Senate backed the measure nearly unanimously Wednesday in the first of two votes.

If approved, the federal government might pay North Carolina $1.5 billion, similar to a signing bonus — plus 90% of the costs of covering uninsured North Carolinians, an estimated $8 billion per year.

Gov. Roy Cooper and other Democrats have long clamored for Medicaid expansion. Republicans in North Carolina have remained largely opposed to it even as GOP-led states elsewhere approved it in recent years. But that has now changed, at least in the N.C. Senate. And while powerful Republicans like Senate leader Phil Berger have changed their position to support Medicaid expansion, it’s also clear that they intend to use the bill to chip away at other rules and regulations in the health care industry.

What’s in the bill?

Industry groups including Baggett’s say some of the various rules and regulations that the bill targets are useful to improve safety in health care settings, or reduce costs.

But critics of those rules — who include, importantly, powerful Republicans who are now supporting Medicaid expansion tied to the other changes — dismiss those claims. They say the industry complaints are really just about special interests looking out for themselves.

“Nobody likes to be knocked off the top and

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