Nearby downtown Wilmington on Market Street, a Port City Java cafe with a drive-thru shares a parking lot with a church. Inside, espresso machines whir loudly as baristas take drink orders from new and regular customers.
These customers likely aren't thinking about how the water used to make their coffee had to be filtered to remove toxic chemicals known as PFAS. But CEO Steve Schnitzler thinks about it a lot.
"I don't understand, to be honest, why this is even considered a political issue. It's water," Schnitzler said.
Port City Java is a regional coffee chain with over a dozen locations throughout southeastern North Carolina. Schnitzler estimates just one cafe uses up to several hundred gallons of water a day.
"All of our cafes are on the public water system, wherever they’re located," Schnitzler said.
Using public water was never a problem, until 2017 when PFAS was discovered in the Cape Fear River, the primary drinking water source for Wilmington.
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