Home Care In Haw River, NC

The City of Burlington’s south wastewater treatment plant released toxic 1,4-Dioxane into the Haw River, test results show, and the contamination reached Pittsboro’s drinking water supply.

The Town of Pittsboro issued a press release at 9:30 Thursday night, reporting that on Monday the chemical was detected in treated drinking water at 11.9 parts per billion. The EPA has not established a maximum level of 1,4-Dioxane in drinking water, but has set a health advisory goal of 35 ppb. However, that level is far less protective than the goal set for the chemical in rivers and streams, which is just 0.35 ppb.

Since traditional drinking water treatment can’t remove 1,4-Dioxane, it’s difficult for utilities without expensive advanced systems to meet the 0.35 ppb goal.

“It appears that a significant quantity of 1,4 dioxane was released into the Burlington wastewater treatment system and discharged into the Haw River before routine testing could indicate the presence of the substance in their discharge,” Colby Sawyer, Pittsboro’s public information officer wrote.

1,4-Dioxane is a “probable” carcinogen, according to federal health authorities.

The City of Burlington released the slug of 1,4-Dioxane into the Haw River about a week earlier than it arrived in Pittsboro. On July 17, testing showed the concentration of 1,4-Dioxane leaving the Burlington south plant was 160 ppb. A day later, the level had decreased to 86.9 ppb, and by July 19, it was 57.8 ppb.

“When a release of this type occurs, most of the substance flows downstream together,” Sawyer wrote. “The dilution and speed of travel of this bulked substance, or slug, is based on how fast and at what volume the river is flowing.”

Burlington is 30 miles upstream of Pittsboro.

The chemical entered Burlington’s wastewater treatment plant via one of the City’s industrial customers, although that company has not been publicly identified.

In 2020, the Haw River Assembly, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, and the City of Burlington reached a memorandum of agreement to identify sources of 1,4-Dioxane and to reduce its discharge.

Treated water recently taken from the Haw had higher levels of the chemical than water in holding tanks, which were below 2 ppb.

Test samples taken in Pittsboro on Wednesday indicate that the concentration of 1,4 dioxane in the Town’s finished water continues to decrease. That indicates the slug of 1,4-Dioxane “has likely already passed the Town’s water intake, meaning that concentrations will continue to decrease,” according to Sawyer.

However Pittsboro’s water treatment plant is drawing only the minimally required amounts from the Haw to keep the water system functional. The town is encouraging water customers within, or serviced by, the Town of Pittsboro to conserve water by reducing or eliminating non-essential water uses. These uses include landscape irrigation, washing vehicles and houses, filling pools.

“These water conservation measures are voluntary actions our customers can take to assist our water plant staff; there is no danger of losing the Town’s water supply,” Sawyer wrote.

With elevated amounts of 1,4-dioxane heading down the Haw River last week, some drinking water customers in Apex and Cary have been wondering about their own water.

After all, the Haw does empty into Jordan Lake, the drinking water source for the two western Wake County municipalities.

Jamie Revels, the Town of Cary’s utilities director, was unequivocal: A 1,4-dioxane spill that comes down the Haw from Burlington is unlikely to affect drinking water for Apex and Cary.

“The drinking water is perfectly fine in Cary,” Revels told The News & Observer.

Pittsboro has reported that the “slug” of 1,4-dioxane seems to have moved downstream past the town, and preventive measures seem to have limited the amount of the chemical drawn into the town’s drinking water system. Samples taken Wednesday found 1,4-dioxane at one of five sample sites, at levels just over one part per billion.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers 1,4-dioxane, which is used as a solvent and stabilizer, likely to be a human carcinogen. The agency has set a lifetime health advisory level of 35 parts per billion in drinking water.

Here’s what Cary and Apex residents should know about 1,4-dioxane releases on the Haw River:

The Haw meets Jordan Lake on the lake’s southern end, near the dam.

The drinking water intake for Cary and Apex — they share a water system — is about six miles northeast, in Jordan Lake about 500 feet from the eastern landing of U.S. 64.

That intake is “upstream” from the Haw, Revels said, adding that it’s unlikely that concentrated amounts of 1,4-dioxane will work their way north on the lake.

“There’s still a natural current to the lake that is taking the water from an upstream to a downstream direction, down to where the dam is. The water goes over the dam and it goes down the Cape Fear River from there,” Revels said.

There are, of course, other utilities downstream on the Cape Fear River, including the Fayetteville Public Works, Brunswick County’s public utilities and the Wilmington-area Cape Fear Public Utility Authority.

The reservoir that provides Apex and Cary’s drinking water contains an average of 70 billion gallons.

Even if a contaminant makes its way downstream, Revels said, its concentration will be greatly diluted in the sheer size of Jordan Lake.

“That’s many thousand times greater than the daily release of all the wastewater from Burlington,” Revels said.

The South Burlington Wastewater Treatment Plant, where the slug of 1,4-dioxane made its way into the Haw, has a capacity of 12 million gallons a day and averages seven to eight million gallons daily.

Burlington reported a different 1,4-dioxane release last Sept. 14.

Cary had its water tested at the intake four times in the following month, according to records that are available online. Starting on Sept. 22 and ending on Oct. 11, none those tests detected 1,4-dioxane.

“They have these from time to time and we do extra testing,” Revels said, “and every time we do extra testing it doesn’t show that we’re seeing anything noteworthy or detectable at our intake facility.”.

This story was produced with 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 signing up for a digital subscription, which you can do here.

NC Reality Check is an N&O series holding those in power accountable and shining a light on public issues that affect the Triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email [email protected]

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Chatham County

January 31, 2024 5:30 AM

This story was originally published February 1, 2024, 11:17 AM.

Investigators say they found a cancer-causing chemical was dumped into the Haw River.

Credit: WFMY News 2

The City of Burlington believes Apollo Chemical dumped 1,4 Dioxane into the Haw River. The Town of Pittsboro is feeling the effects.

PITTSBORO, N.C. — A nearby town is suing a Burlington chemical company over alleged chemical dumping.

The town of Pittsboro said Apollo Chemical violated the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

The city of Burlington said the company dumped toxic chemicals into the Haw River. City investigators said they found 1,4-Dioxane in the water — a compound that can cause cancer.

"Our water sources are not connected to the Haw River. The South Burlington Wastewater Treatment Plant discharges into the Great Alamance Creek, just upstream of where it discharges to the Haw River. Anybody downstream of that potentially could be affected," City of Burlington's Water Resources Director Bob Patterson said.

Pittsboro gets its water directly from the river.

Town leaders said they haven't discovered levels of the toxin in their water just yet.

Burlington ordered the company to stop production and asked the state to force Apollo to follow a treatment program.

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RELATED: Chemicals from a Burlington company ended up in the Haw River, Pittsboro feels the impact

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The Haw River Assembly is asking Disney and its partners to limit the environmental impacts of the 1,500-acre Chatham County development that will carry the company’s iconic name.

Disney and partner DMB Development are planning to build 4,000 residences across 1,500 acres of the 8,500-acre Chatham Park development that is growing northeast of Pittsboro. Those will include single-family and multi-family homes, as well as some homes for people who are at least 55 years old.

“As you move from concept to development plans for Disney’s Asteria, we urge you to go above and beyond what Chatham Park has codified in their Elements, in order to protect the Haw River and the environment you will be building in,” wrote Haw Riverkeeper Emily Sutton.

Chiosso and Sutton asked Disney to protect the existing tree canopy, build larger stormwater basins than required under Chatham Park’s rules, and work to protect Pittsboro residents — and Asteria’s future residents — from pollution in the region’s drinking water.

“It would be a smart move for Disney to incorporate stakeholder input on the front end, to really understand the landscape and community and the values of this community that they are moving into,” Sutton said in an interview.

Disney Signature Experiences did not respond to an email seeking comment on the issues raised by the Haw River Assembly letter. Neither did DMB, the Arizona-based developer that Disney has said will manage the construction.

Third-party builders will actually construct the homes, with sales expected to start by 2027. When the project is finished, the development will be branded and managed by Disney.

“The Chatham Park development has gone through a rigorous approval process including both state and local environmental reviews and Asteria will be developed in accordance with these approvals,” Vanessa Jordan, an executive vice president for Preston Development Company, said in an email.

Preston is Chatham Park’s master developer.

The proposed development is still in very early stages. Asteria representatives held a high-level meeting with Pittsboro officials, Colby Sawyer, a town spokesman, told The N&O.

“They have shared all of the information that was contained in their public press release. They conveyed that to us verbally,” Sawyer said, adding that town officials would become more involved when the developers submit site plans.

Here are the concerns raised and how the Haw River Assembly would like to see them addressed.

Neither Chatham Park nor Disney have publicly disclosed where Asteria will be built. But Sutton is worried about the potential impact if it’s built on 1,500 acres sandwiched between U.S. 64 to the west and the Haw River to the east.

“It’s the most sensitive habitat. It’s a lot of mature growth forest. and so this particular area of the larger Chatham Park development is especially concerning,” Sutton said.

Protecting the tree canopy would help link habitats for species that depend on the forest, said the letter to Disney. It would also help buffer the impacts of climate change by providing shade in hotter summers and helping soak up flood waters.

The Haw River Assembly has long called for additional tree protection for the area Chatham Park wants to develop.

Chatham Park’s development rules call for trees to cover 20% to 25% of residential areas, depending on how many trees are already there, as well as 12% to 15% of non-residential and mixed-use areas.

Pittsboro’s Conservation Ordinance Review Committee previously recommended an ordinance that would require tree canopy to cover 20% to 60% of residential lots depending on their size, 30% of multi-family and commercial lots and 40% of industrial or mixed-use lots.

That’s what Sutton and the Haw River Assembly would like to see at Asteria.

Sutton and the Haw River Assembly are closely monitoring sediment pollution in the Haw River basin, especially around Chatham Park.

To Sutton, a key problem is that stormwater basins in Chatham Park have been built to handle what are called 10 year storms, or storms that have a 1-in-10 chance of happening in a given year. That is inadequate, Sutton said, to keep pace with the more frequent heavy rainfalls caused by climate change.

“That sediment isn’t given enough retention time to settle out of the water before it spills over into the neighboring creek. So that’s when we get bright orange streams because that sediment has yet to settle out,” Sutton said.

Between 2018 and 2023, Chatham County’s Watershed Protection Department issued 23 citations to developers associated with Chatham Park’s North Village. Kara Lusk, a county spokeswoman, said 16 of those were related to land disturbance and seven were related to residential construction.

None resulted in civil penalties, Lusk said.

Sutton and the Haw River Assembly would like to see Asteria build stormwater basins that can manage a larger 100-year rainfall, a precipitation event that has a 1-in-100 chance of happening in a given year.

The Haw River Assembly also called on Disney to protect ephemeral streams, or seasonal streams, with buffers. Chatham Park’s existing development rules do not require any buffer for ephemeral streams.

Even as it’s grown, Pittsboro has had to deal with contamination coming downstream, particularly hazardous 1,4-dioxane. To address that, Pittsboro agreed last year to merge its water and wastewater system with Sanford, an agreement in which Sanford will supply drinking water to the Chatham County town as soon as late 2026.

Sutton warns, though, that Sanford’s location at the confluence of the Deep and the Haw rivers leaves it vulnerable to both forever chemicals and 1,4-dioxane.

The utility is planning to install granular activated carbon technology that can capture PFAS, but Sutton warned it has no such treatment in place for 1,4-dioxane, a chemical used as industrial solvent that the Environmental Protection Agency has labeled a “probable human carcinogen.”

That’s where Sutton would like the developers to play a role.

“Disney could put pressure on Sanford or contribute funding to Sanford to make sure that the Town of Pittsboro and the people who will move to Asteria are confident that their drinking water isn’t laden with these industrial toxins,” Sutton said.

This story was produced with 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 signing up for a digital subscription, which you can do here.

This story was originally published January 25, 2024, 11:54 AM.

919-829-4669

Adam Wagner covers climate change and other environmental issues in North Carolina. His work is produced with financial support from the Hartfield Foundation and Green South Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. Wagner’s previous work at The News & Observer included coverage of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and North Carolina’s recovery from recent hurricanes. He previously worked at the Wilmington StarNews.

Burlington officials confirmed Wednesday that Apollo Chemical is the suspected source of a recent industrial chemical discharge into the Haw River.

High levels of 1,4-dioxane, a probable carcinogen shown to cause liver and kidney damage, were released into the river from a Burlington municipal wastewater treatment plant on Sept. 14.

The river and its watershed provide drinking water to nearly one million people living in and near Greensboro, Burlington, Chapel Hill, Cary and Durham. Pittsboro’s drinking water intake is about 30 miles downstream of Burlington.

Burlington Water Resource Lab staff say they honed in on the chemical manufacturer as the source by testing water in the area serviced by the South Burlington Wastewater Treatment plant.

The recent discharge of 1,4-dioxane showed levels as much as 1,300 times the health advisory goal the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made. It’s the second report this year of contamination of the toxic chemical in Pittsboro’s drinking water supply after sampling revealed high levels of 1,4-dioxane at Pittsboro’s intake and in the town’s finished drinking water.

Last week, the Burlington Water Resources Department said they informed state environmental officials and downstream sources of the recent discharge, as well as Aqua North Carolina, which purchases water from Pittsboro for about 800 customers in the area.

John Vernon, a spokesperson for Burlington, says staff has met with management at Apollo and is testing it's effluent daily. Test results since the Sept. 14 slug have been declining.

Apollo Chemical did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“The industry is also reviewing its manufacturing process to identify if precursors in those processes are combining to form 1,4-dioxane in the effluent as an unintended by-product. While those samples are being tested, the water resources staff is continuing to investigate other sewer outfalls that service manufacturing,” Vernon said.

Traditional drinking water plants can’t remove the chemical without an expensive, advanced system that could cost tens of millions of dollars to upgrade.

Pittsboro is offering free reverse osmosis treated water to Pittsboro water customers and customers of Aqua NC who receive their water from the town of Pittsboro through Friday at 5p.m. at Chatham Marketplace, a grocery store at 480 Hillsboro St, Pittsboro, NC 27312 during regular hours. Customers can use code 64261 to fill jugs and bottles for free.The town encouraged customers to bring their own containers.

Colby Sawyer, a Pittsboro emergency management coordinator, says lower levels of 1,4-dioxane in raw water samples taken earlier this week indicate the slug of chemicals has passed the town's water intake.

She encourages Pittsboro residents to sign up for water alerts on the town's website.

A sample from South Burlington Wastewater taken on Sept. 22 was rush-tested and showed decreased levels of the chemical to below the EPA's health advisory goal. However, the levels are still above the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality's in-stream target value for drinking water supplies.

“Water Resource staff expects effluent testing results to continue to decline,” Vernon said.

Burlington has ramped up testing after a recent settlement between the city and Haw River Assembly, a non-profit organization, requiring companies to better track and control forever chemicals, also known as PFAS.

“Burlington has the tools to regulate their industrial dischargers through their pretreatment program, through those permits and we're hopeful that they will use that same investigation process to identify the sources of 1,4-dioxane within their system,” said Emily Sutton the Haw Riverkeeper with the Haw River Assembly.

The settlement also requires new or expanding companies to disclose if and how they plan to use PFAS and 1,4-dioxane and how they will control contamination.

“It is our right to have safe, drinkable, fishable, swimmable water,” said Sutton.