Are ‘forever chemicals’ harmful? My family’s frightening NC story.

When you see a politician on TV it’s easy to assume he’s acting more in his own interest than ours. But that wasn’t the case on Oct. 18.

That’s when EPA Administrator Michael Regan returned to Raleigh and announced new rules to protect people from PFAS, dropping the hammer on polluters.

Known as “forever chemicals” because they take years to decompose, PFAS are pervasive in products like nonstick cookware, dental floss, stain-resistant, waterproof and fire-retardant fabrics, and fast-food wrappers. That means they’re in just about everyone’s body.

Over time, PFAS wreak havoc on our health. Research links these chemicals to birth defects, hypothyroidism, and rare cancers. Cue my family’s story.

In 2010, my husband Jamie was diagnosed with Wilms Tumor — a rare kidney cancer that never strikes adults — until it did.

Oncologists were puzzled, and we were terrified. It took a month for pathologists around the country to identify Jamie’s cancer. Surgeons had to break a rib to remove an 11-pound tumor. He endured 18 weeks of chemotherapy and years of pain and uncertainty.

A 40-year-old man with a rare pediatric disease. This wasn’t normal. It wasn’t natural. And he wasn’t alone.

Just a month ago, Jamie and I fell into conversation at the beach with two gentlemen we’d never met before. Both had recently been diagnosed with kidney cancer. Three relatively young, healthy people with no family history of kidney cancer. Unable to otherwise explain it, in each case the doctors believe it likely stemmed from a lifetime of drinking Wilmington’s water.

That’s because in 2017, scientists detected a PFAS called GenX in the Cape Fear River, which supplies drinking water to millions of North Carolinians, including my family and our cancer-stricken friends. Researchers traced the source to the Fayetteville plant where Chemours makes GenX.

Four years later, too many Eastern North Carolinians still drink bottled water because our well or tap is too contaminated. It turns out Chemours had been dumping GenX into our water for decades.

The problem goes way beyond our backyard. PFAS have been found in Pittsboro and Greensboro’s water, in military firefighting foam, and in states across America fighting their own battles against Chemours, 3M, and DuPont.

This fight is personal for me and millions of Americans. After decades of deaf ears from Washington, Regan, an eastern N.C. native, has heard us. Only nine months into this administration, he and President Biden are stepping up so that state and local governments don’t have to fend for themselves.

As Gov. Roy Cooper’s Secretary of Environmental Quality, Regan acted swiftly to hold Chemours accountable, revoking their discharge permit and levying record fines. Now he’s bringing that mission to the rest of America. With his decisive leadership, the EPA will:

▪ Set a safe national drinking water concentration for PFAS

▪ Classify PFAS as a hazardous substance under the Superfund law

▪ Force Chemours to publicly disclose their dirty deeds’ impacts on our health

▪ Make Chemours pay for the damage, not the people they’re poisoning.

Luckily, Jamie and our new friends are alive, but to prevent deaths and strengthen Regan’s rules, Congress must urgently pass the $10 billion for PFAS cleanup in Biden’s Build Back Better Act. And, the U.S. Senate must pass the House’s bipartisan PFAS Action Act, which my Republican congressman David Rouzer championed with Democrats Deborah Ross and G.K. Butterfield.

Clean water is everyone’s right, and guaranteeing it is our government’s job. Next year, I’ll only vote for leaders who care more about people than profit. I hope you’ll join me.

This story was originally published November 1, 2021 at 12:56 PM.