This past month, I helped pass a bill that directs the state to tap into a network of scientific resources with the UNC system for investigating water quality and implications of the GenX contamination of the Cape Fear River, discovered this past summer.
I helped introduce this measure, which highlights, among other things, the availability of mass spectrometers within the state, as opposed to buying one, which was funded in a N.C. House version of the bill.
The bill also provides $2.4 million for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and dedicates $2 million already in the budget of a policy research program at UNC Chapel Hill to carry out its provisions.
The bill also requires agencies like the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services to link up with the federal Centers for Disease Control and the UNC system to set health goals for GenX and similar chemicals. It also requires that the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality coordinate with peer agencies in neighboring states, West Virginia and Georgia about contaminants in surface and ground water.