Despite GenX worries, well water can bring own set of concerns.
Concerned about contamination in the region’s groundwater, Rick Catlin, an environmental engineer and former state legislator, is pushing New Hanover County to adopt a permitting system for private wells.
“We want to make sure people aren’t putting wells in near contaminated sites,” Catlin said.
The safety of the region’s drinking water has been in question after a StarNews story earlier this month revealed researchers had found GenX, a man-made chemical used in Teflon and a host of other products, in the Cape Fear River and the drinking water supply of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA).
Chemours, a Delaware-based chemical company that makes the chemical at a plant roughly 100 miles up the Cape Fear River from Wilmington, announced this week it will take steps to capture all wastewater containing the GenX chemical, remove the substance and dispose of it.
“In the confined aquifers, I would not think there would be an issue (with GenX),” Shew said.
Personally, for me, I’d like to do substitute for the drinking water for now.” Statewide, national issue During a meeting earlier this week with New Hanover County Manager Chris Coudriet and Health Director Phillip Tarte, Catlin shared his map of known contamination sites with the county officials.
“When you put it on a map and plot it, it is not just relegated to New Hanover County,” Tarte said.
“We have these known (contamination) sites,” Coudriet said.
“By ordinance, once a customer is connected to our system,” a CFPUA spokeswoman wrote, “they are not permitted to disconnect and move to an alternate water source.” Reporter Adam Wagner can be reached at 910-343-2389 or Adam.Wagner@GateHouseMedia.com.