RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper wants to tackle an emerging problem of water and air pollution from industrial chemicals by beefing up the state’s health and environmental agencies, a move legislators have resisted.
Cooper proposed Tuesday spending $14 million, devoting half of it to finding sources of water contamination, or collecting and analyzing data on how to handle perfluorinated compounds like GenX.
Legislators in February failed to agree on even $2 million more for the Department of Environmental Quality.
State regulators said in new court documents this week that the operators of a chemical plant near Fayetteville have lied for years about discharging compounds that have contaminated water in Wilmington, as much as 100 miles (161 kilometers) downstream. The Chemours Company did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment.
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