S99 - Appropriations Act of 2018. (SL 2018-5)

Sec. 13.1 of S.L. 2018-5, as amended by Sec. 4.4 of S.L. 2018-97, provides for the following measures:

• Authorizes the Governor to require a facility to cease all operations and activities that result in the production of a pollutant, under certain circumstances.
• Requires the Secretary of Environmental Quality (Secretary), upon direction of the Governor, to order any person who the Secretary finds responsible for the discharge or release of industrial waste that includes per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances ("PFAS"), including the chemical known as "GenX" (chemical abstracts service (CAS) registry number 62037-80-3 or 13252-13-6), into the air, groundwater, surface water, or onto the land that results in contamination of a private drinking water well, to establish permanent replacement water supplies for each household with such a well.
• Establishes within the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) the PFAS Recovery Fund, and appropriate moneys to the Fund to provide funding to local governments for necessary expenditures that local governments may incur as a result of activities to connect households with drinking water wells contaminated with PFAS to public water supplies.
• Makes various appropriations to fund water quality sampling, remediation activities, and research, to address the presence of PFAS, including GenX, in drinking water resources in the State, including funds to:
• The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (Authority) for water quality sampling, and testing of treatment techniques, to address PFAS, including GenX.
• The North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Collaboratory) for distribution to institutions of higher education in the State to perform targeted and non-targeted analysis for PFAS, including GenX, at all public water supply surface water intakes and one public water supply well selected by each municipal water system that operates groundwater wells for public drinking water supplies as identified by DEQ, and to perform research to address such contaminants.
• DEQ for:
• Positions and operations support of water quality sampling and targeted analysis of samples related to PFAS, including GenX.
• Addressing permitting backlogs.
• Sampling and analysis of atmospheric deposition of PFAS, including GenX.
• Sampling and analysis of PFAS, including GenX, in groundwater wells, soil, and sediment.
• Acquisition of a mass spectrometer to perform targeted analysis of water samples related to discharges of PFAS, including GenX.
• Requires every applicant for a new permit, or permit renewal, of an individual National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to submit documentation to DEQ in an electronic format to facilitate immediate public disclosure of the pollutants by certified test method included in the person's discharge.