UPDATE JULY 20 2025: The 20-month-old Freedom of Information Act request to the NC DEQ is still unanswered – this is the request for details about a wastewater spill into Bull Run by polyurethane and acrylics manufacturer Alberdingk Boley on Nov 8, 2023 near the Fox Hollow/Adams Farm community.

Several air emission complaints have been filed by local residents. The most recent was submitted to the US Environmental Protection Agency on May 13, 2025, forwarded to the NCDEQ Air Quality division on May 13, 2025, then forwarded to the Winston Salem Regional Air Quality office on May 14, 2025.

The complaint sat in the Winston Salem Air Quality office for NINE DAYS before it was “assigned” to a Winston Salem inspector on May 22, 2025. That air quality inspector visited Alberdingk Boley the next day, on May 23, 2025.

In the final report, the inspector says an Alberdingk manager told him that “full maintenance of two carbon absorbers was completed on May 29, 2025.” So, between the date of the NCDEQ inspection (May 23, 2025), and the NCDEQ’s final report (June 4, 2025), Alberdingk Boley got an opportunity to fix the problem. No violation for Alberdingk Boley.

On September 11, 2023, a complaint was made to the NC Emergency Management System that was investigated by the NCDEQ the next day, on September 12, 2023.

The NCDEQ was “… forwarded an anonymous citizen complaint via the NC Emergency Management System stating that smoke emanating from [Alberdingk Boley] blankets the surrounding area and causes people to feel ill from the fumes. The complaint also stated that people are experiencing eye and respiratory distress from these fumes, and that a “green and yellow” chemical was spilled on the ground near the dumpster. During the course of the inspection, Mr. Gray also conducted a complaint investigation. During the entire facility walk through, no evidence of any chemical spills were noted by this inspector. Both dumpster areas were observed, and no evidence of any cleanup or residues was observed. It should be noted that only one dumpster area is visible from a public access point (facility parking lot), and this dumpster is used primarily for the disposal of diatomaceous earth associated with the WWTP. This dumpster was covered. Additionally, with the exception of the natural gas fired boilers (only a steam plume), this facility does not operate any sources that would generate “smoke” when operating all required controls (i.e.- integral condensers and carbon adsorbers). The facility does have a 10,000 gallon capacity raw material storage tank (IT-4) containing styrene. During the course of the walk through, especially near the area of the finished products building and raw material storage tanks, Mr. Gray did note the odor of what he believed to be styrene. There was also a very strong odor within the finished products storage tank building due to active tank cleaning. No visible emissions were noted from any sources at the facility, and Mr. Jacobs confirmed that the facility had no recent process upsets or equipment malfunctions that may have contributed to excess emissions and/or the odors. He also confirmed that there was no spills during any recent truck to tank offloading. Due to the low odor threshold (for human nose) of styrene around ~0.1 PPM, it is possible that typical process odors can be detected even at lower thresholds. Following the inspection, Mr. Gray did detect what he believed to be process generated odors at the Sheetz Gas Station approximately 25 miles S/SW of the facility. However, at that time, winds were blowing approximately 5-10 mph from the W, and it was difficult to ascertain whether they were generated from the facility. The odors were noticeable, but not deemed objectionable by the inspector. No further investigation was warranted.“

Alberdingk “self-reports” its toxic and hazardous air emission amounts, but the August 2024 report listed three pollutants that require a permit – Ethylenediamine, Styrene and Xylene:

“Condition A.10- This condition contains the requirements for 2Q.0711, “Emission Rates Requiring a Permit.” This regulation requires the facility to limit the emissions of toxic air pollutants (TAPs) in accordance with the applicable Toxic Permit Emission Rates (TPERs). The following table taken from a prior permit review (R06) shows the TAPs the facility emits as well as the associated TPER. The facility-wide actual emissions listed in the table were reported in the CY2023 annual report/EI:“

More details on Alberdingk Boley’s air emissions contaminants are HERE. The full text of the May 2025 and September 2023 complaints are in the slideshow below:

---

UPDATE MAY 13 2025: The City of High Point has legal authority over Alberdingk Boley’s wastewater discharge violations according to this page from the 2015 Pretreatment Report:

UPDATE APRIL 29, 2024: In addition to spilling 16,000 gallons of raw industrial wastewater into BULL RUN STREAM over FIVE days in October 2022, and another 6,000 gallons in November, 2023, Alberdingk Boley spilled untreated wastewater into Bull Run Stream on at least three other occasions in 2010, 2013 and 2014.

Residents in the Adams Farm community behind the facility have made formal complaints about the chemical manufacturer’s air emissions.

Here are the NCDEQ records of those spills, complaints (and “exceedances”), plus related notes/emails:

---

ORIGINAL POST Jan. 8, 2024: The City of High Point excluded “Compliance & Enforcement Activity” information about Alberdingk Boley’s October 2022 16,000-gallon spill into Bull Run from its 2022 Eastside Wastewater Pretreatment Report.

Civil Penalties were assessed against Alberdingk Boley by the NC DEQ long before Eastside/High Point’s Pretreatment Program Annual Report was compiled, and the Alberdingk spill was as significant, if not more so, than the compliance activity the City of High Point chose to INCLUDE in the report.

The annual Pretreatment report is an overview of the discharges from High Point, Greensboro and Jamestown industrial facilities and landfills (companies) – those that have permits to discharge wastewater to High Point’s Eastside and Westside wastewater/sewer plants. Once “treated,” the water outfalls to Deep River/Randleman Lake where it is again treated before it gets piped back to us as drinking water. PFAS and 1,4 Dioxane cannot be “treated” out of the water with the technology that is currently in place at the Eastside and PTRWA water treatment plants.

The Eastside plant is located on Riverdale Drive in Jamestown 27282.

Each year, the City of High Point must submit a pretreatment report that lists some of the contaminants, metals and chemicals found in samples of wastewater from the industrial dischargers and landfills BEFORE the wastewater is “treated” at Eastside.

Alberdingk Boley’s contaminants list is on page 27 and 28 of the 2022 report.

he 2022 City of High Point Pretreatment document is linked below, and a screenshot of the Alberdingk Boley contaminants list follows after:

Here’s the Alberdingk Boley 2022 contaminants list. In a single test sample for 1,4-Dioxane the detected amount was 60.3 ppb – well above the state and federal limit of 0.35 ppb for water supply surface water:

A list of compliance and enforcement activity for the Eastside dischargers begins on page 20 of the City of High Point’s report and looks like this (below). The enforcement case (DV-2023-0005) and assessment of civil penalties ($5,556.57) against Alberdingk Boley for the October 2022 16,000-gallon spill into Bull Run wasn’t included:

High Point’s 2022 Annual Pretreatment Report is dated February 15, 2023. The formal Notice of Violation was received by Alberdingk Boley three months prior – on November 9, 2022. Civil penalties were assessed on Feb. 6, 2023:

In the General Permit section of High Point’s 2022 pretreatment report, mention is made of Alberdingk’s spill into “the storm system and creek,” and says the “sanitary sewer blockage” that caused the spill was repaired and the spill remediated.

When NCDEQ inspector Daniel Girdner visited Alberdingk Boley on November 29, 2022, a month after the spill, he wrote that the problem had not been fixed and that he “… observed pumping all process wastewater into tankers to be transported off-site by truck to commercial wastewater treatment facilities … due to a recent breakdown of the wastewater treatment system’s connection to the sewer. The wastewater system failure was the cause of a discharge to the unnamed tributary to Bull Run Creek reported to DEQ on October 27, 2022. The facility was cited for the release by the NC Division of Water Resources (DWR) Notice of Violation/Notice of Intent to Enforce on November 9, 2022, NOV# NOV-2022-DV-0323. Mr. Jacobs stated the [Alberdingk Boley] facility is working to complete repairs.”

Public Information requests to the NC DEQ for more details about this spill and a second spill that occurred on November 8, 2023, the day after Election Day, remain unfulfilled.

We don’t know if the wastewater system repairs were completed at Alberdingk Boley. Nor do we know the details about the timing of the November 2023 spill, what was found in the raw wastewater that spilled into Bull Run stream, how much spilled, and what actions are being taken to monitor Alberdingk Boley’s compliance, operations, discharge pollutants, and permit.

The request for information submitted to the North Carolina DEQ on November 15, 2023, below, remains unanswered: