"Once the chemical is in the river, it is extremely difficult to remove, even with the advanced water treatment processes that are used at the Sweeney water treatment plant. Also, once the chemical is in the river, it affects the drinking water of any community that is located downstream and relies on the river as its source of drinking water (in the case of GenX, areas of Wilmington as well as areas in Brunswick Country and Pender County). That means that all of these communities would have to install treatment processes that are very costly to pull GenX out of the water. The cost of the construction and operation of these processes would translate into substantially higher water bills for everyone. In short, the focus should be on the controlling the source of the pollution by eliminating GenX and similar compounds from the industrial wastewater causing this pollution."