PFAS testing – Community-led testing in Sampson County finds PFAS in private wells and pushes state mitigation, filters, and ongoing research.
A fight over “forever chemicals” is moving from concern to evidence in rural North Carolina, where residents have been asking whether PFAS from a massive landfill is reaching their private wells.
In Sampson County. the landfill has expanded over decades and now receives waste from across the state. raising fears that contaminants could seep into groundwater.. For longtime residents who rely on well water for drinking, bathing, and household use, the stakes are personal.. This is where Misryoum reports that Sherri White-Williamson. a community advocate. helped turn that worry into a coordinated effort to test local water and build a case for action.
As a co-founder of the Environmental Justice Community Action Network (EJCAN). White-Williamson emphasized that environmental advocacy was often missing in her own community.. Starting in 2020. EJCAN began working with Snow Hill. a historically Black rural community near the landfill. to focus on private well safety and public health questions that residents said were already being felt.
What makes the approach stand out is how it blends organizing with science. When communities can see their own measurements and results, it becomes easier to press for mitigation and long-term monitoring instead of relying on rumor.
Over several years. EJCAN partnered with universities to offer free well testing. addressing a key barrier: private laboratory testing can be expensive.. Sampling rounds eventually identified PFAS and other contaminants in a subset of wells, highlighting that the issue was not abstract.. Misryoum notes that PFAS includes both older. widely used chemicals and newer replacements. and researchers are increasingly scrutinizing whether these “next-generation” variants are meaningfully safer.
Meanwhile, early environmental research in the area found a pattern that looked different depending on where samples were taken.. In work that examined upstream and downstream conditions relative to the landfill. investigators reported higher levels of legacy and novel PFAS nearer the landfill.. For residents. that geographic alignment helped transform concerns into a more testable story—one that could be checked. updated. and acted on.
This matters because PFAS contamination is difficult to see and slow to resolve. The quicker a community can generate credible data, the faster it can move from uncertainty to practical protection.
The community’s findings helped catalyze state involvement.. After further well-water results raised PFAS exceedances against drinking water standards. the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s waste management division began offering private-well sampling for people living closest to the landfill and supported mitigation.. The effort included point-of-use filtration measures and bottled water support for households with problematic results.
EJCAN is also working to keep the scientific effort going. warning that hundreds of samples are not enough to fully map the problem.. Misryoum reports that the group sought a larger federal grant to expand testing and provide follow-up help for affected homes. but shifting federal priorities introduced uncertainty.. Even so. the organization says it is still pursuing opportunities to scale up monitoring so that residents are not left with unanswered questions about exposure over time.
At the end of the day. the goal is straightforward: protect people who have limited options when pollution reaches the water they rely on.. Misryoum’s reporting underscores that community-led measurement is increasingly becoming the first step toward environmental accountability—especially in places too often overlooked.