State officials have ordered Chemours to provide bottled water to 30 more well owners near the company’s Fayetteville Works facility after unacceptable levels of the chemical GenX showed up in tests, the state Department of Environmental Quality said Wednesday.

The testing results will be discussed at a community forum Thursday in the Gray's Creek High School auditorium.

“Private well sampling will continue until we find where the contamination ends,” Michael Scott, director of the department's Division of Waste Management, said in a news release. “We will ensure that Chemours is providing bottled water to those homeowners with elevated concentrations of GenX, and work with Bladen and Cumberland counties to develop long-terms solutions for clean water.”

At the department's direction, Chemours has expanded its sampling to 450 parcels one mile from the facility’s property boundary. The plant is located off N.C. 87, near the Cumberland County line.

In the latest set of results for samples collected Oct. 12 through Nov. 15, 101 wells were tested. Thirty showed detections of GenX above the state’s health goal, 41 showed detections below the health goal and 30 wells showed no detection.

The state is still receiving and checking data from the expanded sampling.

In all, there are 115 private well owners living near Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility who are receiving bottled water because of GenX detections above the provisional state health goal of 140 parts per trillion, the department said.

So far, samples from 349 wells have been collected and verified from both the initial sampling by DEQ and Chemours, and the recent expanded sampling. Of those, 144 had detections of GenX below the provisional health goal while 90 showed no detections of GenX.

In November, the department cited Chemours with violating the conditions of its wastewater discharge permit because of the company’s failure to report an Oct. 6 spill. The spill came to light one month after it occurred when department officials questioned Chemours about state water quality results indicating elevated concentrations of GenX at Chemours’ primary wastewater discharge outfall.

After uncovering the spill, the department started the process to revoke Chemours' wastewater permit. In conjunction with moving to revoke Chemours' wastewater permit, DEQ officials also notified Chemours the state would suspend its permit to discharge process wastewater from its manufacturing area including the areas where GenX and other fluorinated compounds are produced effective Nov. 30.

On Thursday, state environmental and health officials will be on hand at an information session to answer questions about the private well results and plans for continued sampling. The information session will be held at Gray’s Creek High School auditorium, 5301 Celebration Drive, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Animal studies have linked GenX with several forms of cancer, but it’s not known whether the compound has the same effect on humans.

Representatives will be at the forum to answer questions about water well sampling conducted near the Chemours plant. They also will discuss results from the initial and expanded rounds of sampling, plans to continue testing of drinking water wells, and the status of alternative water solutions.

News reports in June revealed that researchers had found GenX last year in the Cape Fear River downstream of the Chemours' Fayetteville Works site. The compound was later found in private wells, lakes and a creek near the facility.

Staff writer Michael Futch contributed to this report.

Staff writer Rodger Mullen can be reached at rmullen@fayobserver.com or 486-3561.