[Read this one slowly. If you get lost, refer to our homemade MAP – it needs to be updated, but may help. New groundwater and surface water reports for UNIVAR and Seaboard Chemical/High Point Landfill have been added to the Dropbox folders – UNIVAR’s folder is HERE, and Seaboard’s folder is HERE. Remember, you do not have to purchase a Dropbox subscription in oder to read the files.]

UPDATE JULY 30 2025 – PFAS groundwater concentrations in a Jamestown neighborhood rose an average of 24% over results from tests conducted there one year ago. Increased concentrations were detected for TEN (10) PFAS compounds. Read about it HERE.

At a March 12, 2025 meeting of the NC Environmental Management Commission Water Quality Committee, the chief of the NPDES permitting section gave a briefing on North Carolina’s 1,4 Dioxane problem.

For the past several years, this annual presentation has focused on the City of Greensboro’s compliance with the terms of a Consent Order, the result of a lawsuit by the Haw River Assembly and City of Fayetteville related to the 2019 discharge of elevated levels of 1,4 DIOXANE from Greensboro’s TZ Osborne WWTP to Buffalo Creek/Haw River.

Last year, we discussed the 2024 report (linked below), highlighting the underreporting of the state of contamination in the upper Deep River basin:

https://thejamestowner9.com/water-quality-jamestown-nc/14-dioxane-levels-increase-jamestown-nc-water

This year’s 1,4-Dioxane presentation was more general, kicking off with data from the 2015 EPA UCMR3 rule that required public water systems nationwide be tested for 1,4 Dioxane. The DWR staffer noted that North Carolina had one of the top four highest concentrations of 1,4-Dioxane in surface waters in the entire country.

The presenter listed six 1,4-DIOXANE sources of concern: High Point Eastside Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), Asheboro WWTP, Burlington-South, Greensboro TZ Osborne, Reidsville, and Alpek Polyester.

TODAY we learned about another spike of 1,4 Dioxane at the Eastside WWTP – a concentration of 1,070 ppb on July 26, 2024.

Up until this year’s report, the annual 1,4 Dioxane presentation has included graphs of test results at the “hot spot” facilities. The graphs were missing from the minutes, but they are on the NCDEQ website (where we found out about the 1,070 ppb spike).

Take a look – the 1,4-Dioxane levels are trending down at Greensboro, Reidsville and South Burlington’s WWTPs (the Haw River/EAST side of Guilford County) while increasing at High Point Eastside WWTP and Asheboro WWTP, both of which are on the Deep River/WEST side of Guilford County:

The Randleman Water Supply Watershed Rules restrict the addition of landfills in a critical water supply watershed (which is ALL of Jamestown and the Randleman watershed), yet two of the four landfills that High Point operates and oversees in Jamestown are expanding operations with massive increases (doubling) of their capacity – and ALL FOUR landfills are leaching 1,4 DIOXANE and other contaminants to Deep River and Randleman Reservoir, drinking water supply for hundreds of thousands of customers in Guilford and Randolph counties.

In reporting about recent spikes at the Asheboro WWTP, the Southern Environmental Law Center said it had confirmed that Asheboro, Greensboro, and Reidsville’s 1,4-DIOXANE pollution comes from industrial customers (companies) that pay the cities for the right to send their industrial wastewater to the cities’ wastewater (sewer) plants. The 1,4-DIOXANE ends up in the water supply because Asheboro, Greensboro and Reidsville’s wastewater plants do not have filtering technology capable of removing the chemical.

Another 1,4 Dioxane spike was measured at the Asheboro Wastewater Treatment Plant three weeks ago, according to the North Carolina Dept. of Environmental Quality. This spike, which occurred April 25th, was recorded at a concentration of 826 ppb (the state and federal limit for this forever chemical is 0.35 ppb/parts per billion).

The Asheboro WWTP’s effluent outfalls to a tributary to Deep River. Deep River merges with the Haw River at Moncure, NC to form the Cape Fear River. According to the NCDEQ press release, downstream utilities were notified, including the City of Sanford, Fayetteville Public Works Commission, Brunswick County and the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority in Wilmington.

The City of High Point’s annual 2024 Pretreatment Report showed 1,4-Dioxane levels of 546,000 PPB for CINTAS Corp., and 1,370 PPB for INNOSPEC Chemicals were found in the two companies’ wastewater effluent to Eastside WWTP (the samples were drawn some time during the second half of 2024). CINTAS is located in Greensboro, and INNOSPEC is located in High Point.

We’ve been researching, writing, speaking about, and sharing our data on Deep River’s 1,4 Dioxane contamination for over three years:

The Upper Deep River (between Asheboro and Kernersville) does not receive the monitoring, reporting, public information/education and public alerts that the communities along the HAW RIVER and CAPE FEAR RIVER receive.

Upper Deep River was completely left out of the NCDEQ’s “1,4 Dioxane Study” in the Cape Fear River Basin. On the image below, the 1,4-Dioxane monitoring stations are designated by dark blue droplets. Note the absence of monitoring station droplets on Deep River above Asheboro:

The Upper Deep River is home to a 30-year old 1,4-Dioxane Phytoremediation tree forest, dozens of landfills, and hundreds of industrial facilities.

North Carolina is the third WORST state in the nation for 1,4 Dioxane and PFAS contamination. Guilford County is the  worst county in North Carolina for 1,4 Dioxane.