AN ACT to appropriate funds for a pilot to test a remedial strategy to address contamination at the texfi site in fayetteville.

Whereas, the Texfi Industries plant operated in Fayetteville until it was closed in 1999; and

Whereas, the Texfi site is polluted with very high concentrations of known carcinogens; and

Whereas, those carcinogens include tetrachloroethene and its degradation by‑products trichloroethene; 1,2‑dichloroethene, and vinyl chloride; and

Whereas, the defunct Texfi plant is located in close proximity to Fayetteville Public Works Commission's (PWC) Hoffer Water Treatment Plant and the Cape Fear River; and

Whereas, the chemical plume is spreading laterally and vertically in the groundwater towards PWC's Hoffer Water Treatment Plant and the Cape Fear River; and

Whereas, PWC serves over 225,000 residents of the City of Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, and surrounding communities; and

Whereas, citizens downstream of Fayetteville in Bladen, Columbus, Pender, Brunswick, and New Hanover Counties, including the City of Wilmington, also get their drinking water from the Cape Fear River; and

Whereas, residents of the Cape Fear River Basin are already suffering from the effects of per‑ and poly‑fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), including GenX Compounds; and

Whereas, the Texfi site is a real threat to the drinking water of the residents of the Cape Fear River Basin; Now, therefore,

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1.(a)  There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Waste Management, the sum of four hundred forty thousand dollars ($440,000) for the 2021‑2022 fiscal year, which shall be used to provide a grant‑in‑aid to the Fayetteville Public Works Commission (Commission) to engage a consultant selected by the Commission to perform pilot testing of In Situ Enhanced Reductive Dechlorination using Zero‑Valent Iron and Carbon Substrate as a remedial strategy to address contamination at the Texfi site in Cumberland County on the parcel known as 601 Hoffer Drive in Fayetteville in the area of the site showing trichloroethene, tetrachloroethene, and chlorotoluene. The funds appropriated herein are not subject to a match and shall not revert.

SECTION 1.(b)  The Commission shall submit an interim report on activities conducted pursuant to this section to the Environmental Review Commission, the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources, and the Fiscal Research Division no later than December 31, 2022, and a final report with the pilot's results no later than December 31, 2023.

SECTION 2.  This act is effective when it becomes law.