Inside Climate News reporter Lisa Sorg discusses PFAS litigation and other top environmental stories

One of the most worrisome challenges to human health to emerge in recent decades has been the growing environmental omnipresence of a class of chemicals known as PFAS. Often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down naturally and can remain in soil and water indefinitely, PFAS are used in countless consumer products.

One of the best known is a chemical known as GenX. It gained widespread notoriety a few years back when it came to light that a factory run by the chemical company Chemours had been spewing large quantities of GenX into air and water from its factory in southeastern North Carolina. One of the journalists who’s been on the GenX beat from the beginning is Inside Climate News reporter Lisa Sorg and recently NC Newsline caught up with Lisa for an extended chat in which examined two recent and important legal and regulatory developments on the subject of GenX and PFAS and why both have left a lot of people frustrated and dissatisfied.

In Part One of our extended conversation, we discussed the environmental problems posed by so-called forever chemicals or PFAS. We also discussed a pair important new developments in the legal and regulatory spheres on the subject – the settlement of a large lawsuit brought by more than 2,500 property owners impacted by PFAS pollution in southeastern North Carolina and a move by the Trump administration to settle a regulatory proceeding targeting the source of that pollution – a company called Chemours.

In Part Two of our chat, we dug deeper into these subjects and why both settlements have left a lot of people very dissatisfied. And we also learned a little about another important subject Sorg is covering – the bankruptcy filing of a Durham-based company that purported to be helping to clean up the environment but has been accused of perpetrating a ripoff of utility ratepayers.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Inside Climate News reporter Lisa Sorg.