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North Carolina leaders are urging a federal judge to reject a proposed settlement with chemical company Chemours, saying that the deal “does nothing” for the state after Chemours leaked toxins into the Cape Fear River for decades.
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Gov. Josh Stein said in a Thursday statement that “the EPA is cutting a deal with Chemours that does next to nothing for North Carolinians and allows polluters to choose what to clean up and where.”
In June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a settlement with Chemours, in which the company agreed to pay civil penalties and fund cleanup programs. The company leaked PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” into local waterways from its facilities in three states, including North Carolina. PFAS is a family of chemical compounds that can build up in the bloodstream, causing serious health risks.
While the EPA said Chemours’ payments from the settlement are “estimated to exceed $450 million,” the settlement doesn’t require Chemours to spend that amount, and there’s no requirement for the company to spend any money in North Carolina, where its facility is in Fayetteville.
After the settlement was announced, people had about a month to file comments and feedback on the court case, which is being overseen by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
With comments now closed, it’s up to the Department of Justice to decide whether the settlement will take effect.
According to an EPA news release from June, the settlement would require the company to pay a $22.5 million penalty and spend up to $90 million to reduce PFAS discharges. Up to $60 million would go toward cleanup efforts in West Virginia, EPA stated, and up to $280 million would go to supply clean drinking water near Chemours’ facilities in New Jersey and West Virginia.
In exchange, the EPA would resolve Chemours’ Clean Water Act violations without any litigation, including over 200 from the company’s Fayetteville Works facility, about 80 miles south of Raleigh.
According to court documents, the state of West Virginia agreed to the deal before it was made public. North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson told the News & Observer last month that his office wasn’t aware of the EPA’s complaint until the week that the settlement was announced.
An EPA summary of the settlement from June states that Chemours would be required to “evaluate options and implement corresponding controls to reduce releases of PFAS and other toxic chemicals from its facility in North Carolina.” However, there’s no guarantee that any of the money will go to North Carolina.
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A Chemours spokesperson told the News & Observer on Friday that the settlement didn’t require any money to go to North Carolina because the company has already put money towards cleanup in the state.
“When crafting this settlement agreement, U.S. EPA and DOJ understood that Chemours had already invested $400+ million in North Carolina to significantly reduce PFAS emissions from Fayetteville Works and $160 [million] in our private well testing program to mitigate off-site impacts in the surrounding communities,” the spokesperson, Jess Loizeaux, said in an email.
Chemours’ stock price climbed about 6% on June 24, the day that the settlement was announced. Since then, the company’s stock has tumbled by nearly 22%.
The deal has drawn resounding criticism from both state leaders and environmental advocates.
Jackson and Reid Wilson, secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality, joined Stein in filing comments denouncing the deal, according to their statement from Thursday. They’re urging the federal judge to reject the proposed settlement, and to instead negotiate openly with North Carolina.
The Southern Environmental Law Center also filed comments in the court case, decrying the deal’s “leniency.”
Kelly Moser, a senior attorney with the center, said most of the dollar amounts in the EPA’s announcement don’t actually appear in the settlement itself.
“In reality, those numbers were really kind of pulled out of thin air,” Moser told The N&O. “They are not reflected in the settlement, so we’re not exactly sure where those numbers came from … and there’s very little tangible work to be done. There’s no guarantee that any of the money is going to be spent in any state, and definitely not in North Carolina.”
This story is available free to all readers thanks to financial support from the Hartfield Foundation and Green South Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. If you would like to help support local journalism, please consider a digital subscription, which you can get here.
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This story was originally published July 31, 2026 at 4:00 PM.