Despite growing evidence linking PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” to serious health and environmental risks, federal limits for these chemicals won’t take full effect until 2031.
The Cape Fear River, stretching 200 miles from the heart of North Carolina to the Atlantic Ocean, is identified as one of the most toxic rivers throughout North America. Neighbors and environmentalists point upstream to the Chemours Fayetteville plant, where they’ve been dumping toxic waste into the river for decades.
“We found out there was PFAS in our well in 2022, five years after we were aware there was a PFAS problem in the river here in Wilmington,” said Ty Jacobus – owner of Honeybird Organic Farm located in the outskirts of Wilmington, NC.
PFAS are manmade chemicals, used for decades in everything from cookware to cosmetics. They’ve left a toxic legacy across America. For Ty Jacobus, that legacy literally flows through his backyard. The Cape Fear River watershed has been considered a dumping ground for 40 years, first from Dupont, the makers of Teflon, and now its spin-off, Chemours.
“We got rid of our chickens, shut down sales immediately, and I went to work on operations getting everything cleaned up,” said Jacobus.
His once-thriving farm now sits idle – dead plants remain where thriving produce once draped tomato vines. Poisoned water contaminated his crops, animals and even his eggs – which tested at 225 times the federal safety guideline. According to the EPA, drinking water should have below four parts per trillion, but legal doesn’t necessarily mean safe. Some communities face much higher contamination rates.
“PFAS is everywhere, in everything – and in all of us,” said Dr. Linda Birnbaum, scientist emeritus at the National Institute of Health Sciences.
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Short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS are a family of more than 15,000 synthetic chemicals. Praised for their nonstick and stain-resistant properties, they’re also nearly indestructible, earning the name “forever chemicals.”
“Science is saying this is a bad group of chemicals, useful, but dangerous,” Dr. Birnbaum said.
She explains PFAS are a huge class of some 15,000 chemicals – found in almost anything water-resistant, heat-resistant, or nonstick – including rain jackets, firefighting foam, cookware, and food packaging.
“It’s in certain kinds of makeup, stain-resistant clothing, water-repellent hiking boots and rain gear, computer chips, and cell phones,” said Dr. Birnbaum.
As for the harm these chemicals cause when consumed? “It’s still being studied — but it’s not good.”
“What I’m talking about are hundreds and hundreds of studies,” she explained. “The human observational studies have been done across multiple populations, in different parts of the world, by independent investigators. We know these chemicals are associated with increased rates of cancer, fertility issues, preterm birth, and low birth weight. They disrupt our endocrine systems, especially the thyroid, and most importantly, they suppress our immune systems, reducing the body’s ability to fight infections and respond to vaccines. They also appear to increase the risk of autoimmunity. And I haven’t even mentioned their toxicity across various organ systems, especially the liver, where they can lead to elevated cholesterol, which raises the risk of heart disease. Kidney toxicity is another concern.”
Finally, she explains PFAS is pervasive and intrusive. If you live near a plant producing it, it’s in your air. Then it leeches into the soil and contaminates the water. And if it’s being dumped into the ground or waterways, it flows downstream and contaminates everything in its path.
Like so many in North Carolina, Ty Jacobus discovered that even farming organically couldn’t protect him from decades-old contamination — hidden until a 2019 investigation by the Wilmington Star-News brought it to light.
“I’ve been trying to sell my house. I’m below DEQ levels, but since my neighbors are highly contaminated, I can’t sell my home,” said one concerned resident at a public meeting held by Chemours. “Are y’all gonna buy my house?”
The company representative acknowledged the community’s frustration, then had the man removed by police after speaking up.
Under a legal agreement, the Chemours Fayetteville plant is required to track and reduce PFAS pollution in the air, soil, and water. Yet scientists have identified more than 300 chemicals still present in the Cape Fear River, with the potential for many more that remain undetected by current testing methods. Dana Sargent formerly led the Cape Fear River Watch, leading lawsuits against the state of North Carolina and Chemours to disclose and test for PFAS compounds beyond the small number of compounds being regulated.
“The groundwater is impossible to clean,” said Sargent. “So, what we’ve done is try to provide filtration for folks whose groundwater is contaminated. A lot of people fall through the cracks, Ty being one of them. He didn’t sample for chemicals that the consent order covers, he sampled for chemicals that Dupont made – and Dupont is no longer the name of the company, it’s Chemours, so they’re not liable for the chemicals Dupont made, which is absolutely abhorrent.”
She adds this kind of contamination isn’t isolated, and a nationwide map from the Environmental Working Group shows PFAS pollution in public drinking water across all 50 states. View the map here.
Investigative journalist Mariah Blake has spent years uncovering the worldwide spread of PFAS. Her recent book, They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals, traces PFAS back to the World War II Manhattan Project. The same chemicals used to enrich uranium later became the key ingredient in firefighting foam, spreading across military bases and airports for decades.
“And in fact, the U.S. government researched them as part of this top-secret medical research program that happened under the Manhattan Project. And they knew as early as 1947 that they were highly toxic and that they were accumulating in human blood,” she said.
She notes these chemicals have traveled far beyond labs and factories, showing up even in isolated regions of Earth: “They permeate snow on Mount Everest and fall with rain around the world,” and are found in the bodies of virtually every person on the planet, even in polar bears in the Arctic.
“Military bases are some of the most contaminated sites anywhere in the world,” said Blake. “In fact, the levels of PFAs in the groundwater around these sites is not only a thousand times the EPA’s safety limit, but often times a million times the EPA’s safety limit.”
Yet despite these staggering levels of contamination, the EPA has recently moved to roll back PFAS regulations, delaying enforcement, cutting staff, and even considering a rule that would block states from creating their own bans.
Critics argue this violates the Safe Drinking Water Act and puts already vulnerable communities at even greater risk.
In a statement to CBN News, the EPA said it’s “committed to addressing PFAS in drinking water” and ensuring its actions “follow the law, follow the science.” While the agency is upholding rules for older PFAS chemicals like PFOA and PFOS — which are no longer produced in the U.S. — it’s loosening restrictions on newer compounds like GenX, citing procedural legal concerns.
Critics say that the move gives the industry more room to keep producing these toxic compounds. The Chemours plant declined our request for an interview.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration recently canceled nearly $15 million in federal research into PFAS contamination on farmland, including studies on how toxic sludge and pesticides move into crops, livestock, and nearby water sources. According to The Guardian, the program had been funding 10 university-led projects before it was abruptly cut in May, prompting backlash from public health advocates. Only two of the studies have since had their funding reinstated.
“If a company comes under pressure to phase out one chemical, they often just replace it with another chemical that has similar structures and properties, but one that hasn’t been vetted for safety,” said Blake. “That chemical often ends up being just as harmful.”
Still, more than 30 states have passed some 150 bills restricting PFAS, including 18 full or partial bans on consumer products. Companies like 3M have committed to phasing out these chemicals by the end of this year.
Today, Ty Jacobus’ farm is PFAS-free, although it took years of self-educating and thousands of dollars to get here. While federal standards remain years away, communities nationwide are coming together to seek clean water, accountability, and a safer future.
“I do think a lot of it is money,” said Dr. Birnbaum. “What eventually makes a difference is getting people to know and people to care. The market speaks, when people don’t want a product, they’ll stop buying it, and that will lead to change.”
