EPA Hearing - 1,4-dioxane pollution

There is an EPA sponsored public hearing regarding 1,4-dioxane pollution originating in Asheboro, NC. Please read the information below for more details. This is a good opportunity to learn how individual citizens can make a difference and speak-up yourself, if desired. Talking points are listed.

Your voice matters: Ask EPA to protect downstream residents from toxic 1,4-dioxane!
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is holding a public hearing for community members to weigh in on 1,4-dioxane pollution. This is an important opportunity to ask EPA to stand strong and protect North Carolinians from toxic chemical pollution!
About the hearing:
DATE: Wednesday, October 22
TIME: 6:00-9:00 p.m. (doors at 5:00 p.m.)
WHERE: JB and Claire Davis Corporate Training Center at Randolph Community College
413 Industrial Park Ave. Asheboro, NC
*EPA recommends pre-registering at least 72 hours in advance to make a comment.
How to make a comment:
The talking points below can also be used to help inform your comments; however, you do not need to be an expert to weigh in. What’s most important is that EPA hears from community members that want the strongest protections from 1,4-dioxane as possible.
Comments should be brief; each speaker is limited to three minutes. Personalized comments will have the biggest impact. Please begin your comments by stating where you live and why clean drinking water is important to you or your family. If you can accurately identify yourself as a business owner, parent or grandparent, or someone who drinks surface water downstream from Asheboro, please do.
Talking points

• Asheboro threatens the drinking water of up to 900,000 North Carolinians in communities including Sanford, Fayetteville, and Wilmington, in addition to Harnett, Chatham, Brunswick, and Pender counties. Further, communities including Pittsboro, Holly Springs, and Fuquay-Varina will be impacted when they start buying water from Sanford.
• Conventional treatment systems can’t remove 1,4-dioxane from drinking water.
• Asheboro has discharged 1,4-dioxane at levels as high as 3,520 parts per billion (ppb). This is 163 times the concentration limit that our state environmental agency tried to set for the plant. The state of North Carolina has determined that the chemical is toxic and poses a cancer risk at levels above just 0.35 ppb.
• 1,4-dioxane is a clear liquid used by industry and sometimes created as a byproduct of manufacturing PET plastics.
• EPA has classified the chemical as a likely human carcinogen. Long-term exposure can also damage the liver and kidneys.
• NC has some of the worst 1,4-dioxane pollution in the nation. In fact, North Carolinians are exposed to concentrations that may be more than double the national average exposure to the chemical.
• In January, EPA confirmed that Asheboro’s 1,4-dioxane pollution must be limited and that the state environmental agency has the authority to control the city’s discharges. Now, Asheboro wants EPA to reverse course.
• EPA must stand strong and reaffirm that Asheboro must control its 1,4-dioxane pollution.

What is the history of 1,4-dioxane pollution in NC?
For at least ten years, NC families have been exposed to high concentrations of 1,4-dioxane in their drinking water. The city of Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant dumps 1,4-dioxane, a cancer-causing chemical, into Hasketts Creek, from which it flows into the Deep and Cape Fear Rivers and burdens downstream communities.
In 2023, the NC Department of Environmental Quality put strong limits on 1,4 dioxane discharges in Asheboro’s wastewater permit, but the city sued and an administrative court blocked those limits. That case is on appeal. The EPA has stepped in and ordered that the city’s pollution be controlled, but now special interests are pushing for the EPA to back down and have requested this hearing.
Where is the pollution coming from?
Asheboro accepts waste from StarPet, a massive factory owned by a global company operating in north Asheboro. The facility manufactures PET polymers that are used in plastic bottles and polyester. The Great Oak Landfill, which has high levels of 1,4-dioxane contamination, also sends waste to the plant.