"What’s GenX Still Doing In The Water Downstream Of A Chemours Plant?"

"Despite efforts to prevent the industrial fluoroether from getting into North Carolina drinking water, it’s still present. Scientists are racing to find out why".

"Larry Cahoon found out two weeks before most of his neighbors that their tap water held a cocktail of never-before-seen industrial chemicals.

Last May, Cahoon invited a handful of scientists to talk with a local group working to restore striped bass and other migratory fish in North Carolina’s Cape Fear River. At that event, one of the panelists discussed a recently published study that found perfluorinated ethers in a municipal drinking water system that draws from the river (Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 2016, DOI:10.1021/acs.estlett.6b00398).

Cahoon, a University of North Carolina, Wilmington, biology professor who studies aquatic ecology, had read the paper and surmised that the chemicals came from a Chemours plant on the outskirts of Fayetteville, N.C. But the study did not name the town with the contaminated tap water."

Cheryl Hogue reports for Chemical & Engineering News in the issue dated February 12, 2018.