Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration is suing a manufacturer accused of dumping pollutants into the river that serves as the main source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians. The state initiated the lawsuit Tuesday, just a few days after the N.C. General Assembly voted to spend $435,000 to start looking into the alleged pollution. It came to light in June but has allegedly been going on for decades.
The plant in question is now owned by Chemours, a spin-off of DuPont, which previously owned the plant. State lawmakers and others have accused both companies of secretly dumping pollutants into the Cape Fear River from the plant, located south of Fayetteville, for nearly 40 years. The lawsuit filed Tuesday against Chemours by Cooper’s environmental department seeks “to address environmental contamination caused by Chemours’ release of certain chemical manufacturing byproducts” into the Cape Fear River from its Fayetteville Works plant, the state’s lawyers wrote. The Cape Fear River runs for 202 miles from Chatham County to the Atlantic Ocean near Wilmington. Many of the cities near its path in southeastern North Carolina get their drinking water from the river, including Fayetteville and Wilmington. Several chemicals are being […]
Full article: NC sues company accused of polluting Cape Fear River