June 17, 2025

Potential Impacts of the Newly Proposed EPA PFAS Rule to Affected Communities with Emily Donovan

Emily Donovan of Clean Cape Fear returns to the Environmental Transformation Podcast to discuss the EPA’s rollback of PFAS drinking water rules and how it’s impacting contaminated communities like hers in North Carolina. Host Sean Grady explores the legal, regulatory, and public health stakes behind the EPA’s May 14 announcement, with Donovan providing on-the-ground insight into the movement to hold polluters accountable, protect public drinking water, and stop PFAS exposure.

📍 Chapters:
0:00 - Intro and Emily Donovan returns
2:05 - Clean Cape Fear’s 8-year mission
6:40 - PFAS origins and EPA rule rollback
10:10 - Anti-backslide concerns and regulatory uncertainty
17:15 - Public health risks of short-chain PFAS
22:00 - Who pays for clean water? Utilities, polluters, or the public
27:50 - Legal action and transparency challenges
32:10 - National awareness and the role of media
38:45 - Partnerships with advocates like Mark Ruffalo and Keen
43:10 - Final thoughts: Doing what’s right for communities

🎧 Listen, learn, and join the “little army of goodness” working to end PFAS contamination.

Emily Donovan Profile Photo

Emily Donovan

Co-Founder of Clean Cape Fear

Emily is co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, a grassroots community group which formed in 2017 after learning DuPont/Chemours spent nearly 40 years releasing large quantities of PFAS into the drinking water supply used by over 300,000 NC residents and contaminated over 4,500 private wells near their Fayetteville manufacturing facility. Her work has helped elevate NC's PFAS contamination crisis to the national stage. She has testified before Congress twice regarding PFAS contamination. She created a lobby day effort in Washington, DC for local community members and participated in a Washington Post Live panel discussion with actor Mark Ruffalo and lawyer Rob Bilott. She helped organize and co-host two screenings of the movie, Dark Waters, in Wilmington and Raleigh featuring special guest, Mark Ruffalo--both events resulted in NC's Attorney General suing DuPont/Chemours for natural resource damages and NC's General Assembly filing a historic amount of PFAS bills during the 2021-2022 legislative session. Recently, she helped secure reverse osmosis filling stations for 49 public schools impacted by PFAS contamination in Brunswick and New Hanover counties. She is a member of the leadership team for the National PFAS Contamination Coalition and sits on various community advisory boards and coalitions working to address PFAS contamination. She frequents Washington, DC and Raleigh, NC pressuring lawmakers and regulators for quicker responses to our growing PFAS public health crisis.

Emily is also the Communications Coordinator at St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyter… Read More