Tag: C-8

Capito Urges EPA Administrator to Make C-8 Report Public

Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito pressed the head of the Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday over recently released emails that show White House and EPA officials attempted to delay a new federal standard for C-8 and other similar toxic water-polluting chemicals, which have for decades been detected in several water systems in the Ohio Valley.

At a Senate budget hearing, Capito asked EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to clarify why some agency officials expressed concern over more stringent standard for exposure levels of C-8. The changes have been proposed by researchers at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ASTDR), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services. They came to light recently when a series of emails were made public.

The emails, which were obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, show ASTDR intends to release a report stating toxic prefluorinated chemicals, sometimes called PFOA or C-8, are not safe at levels lower than currently adopted by EPA.

EPA currently has a health advisory in place for PFOA and PFOS which recommends against drinking water with more than 70 parts per trillion, or ppt, of the chemicals.

According to the emails, ATSDR is considering standards ranging from 12 ppt to 516 ppt for a variety of fluorinated chemicals. When the proposal was flagged, EPA, White House and Department of Defense officials scrambled to block the release of ATSDR’s toxicology report. One official called the report a “public relations nightmare.“

The new standards would not be legally binding, but used as a screening tool at hazardous waste sites.

Pruitt denied having knowledge that EPA officials had concerns and said the agency will hold a summit on C-8 next week.

“I was not aware that there had been some holding back of the report,” Pruitt testified. “I think it’s important to have all information in the marketplace to evaluate this.”

Capito encouraged Pruitt to allow the report to be made public.

“Well I think you’re in a position to really, with your strong statement here today, to encourage this information to come forward to see, and then to look at it in the larger context of your meeting for next week,” she said.

Communities across the Ohio Valley have for decades dealt with C-8 contamination. The chemicals are used to make non-stick pans and are found in firefighting foam. Kidney and testicular cancer, pregnancy-induced hypertension and thyroid disease are some of the health impacts linked to exposure of PFOA.

Pruitt said the agency intends to “take more concrete action” on C-8. That may include classifying the chemicals as hazardous under the 1980 law that established the Superfund program, which would allow EPA to require responsible parties to pay for clean-up.

The agency is also weighing creating a legal drinking water threshold for PFOA and PFOS, he said.

C-8 Contamination Spreads Around the U.S.

For decades, communities in the Ohio Valley have grappled with water contaminated with toxic fluorinated chemicals, sometimes called PFOA or C-8 that are often used to make non-stick pans and other items, but this type of contamination isn’t limited to the region.

A newly-updated map shows the number of contaminated sites that are known to exist around the country has nearly doubled in the past year.

The non-profit Environmental Working Group and a team of environmental health researchers at Northeastern University in Boston developed the map, which tracks publicly-known contaminated sites reported from both EPA testing and state and local agencies.

The number of sites has exploded in the 10 months since the map was first published. Last February, researchers knew of 52 sites in 19 states. Today, they know of 94 sites in 22 states that report the presence of these chemicals, which are linked to cancer, thyroid disease and other health problems.

Much of the newly noted activity came from Michigan. Communities there are dealing with contamination from 3M’s Scotchgard fabric protector used by shoemaker Wolverine World Wide.

Martinsburg, in the Eastern Panhandle, was the only site in West Virginia researchers added during this update.

The map includes data from EPA’s testing of public water drinking systems between 2013 and 2016 and reported contamination from factories, landfills and airports gathered from state and local agencies and press coverage. It maps both C-8 and PFAS pollution. PFAS are replacements for C-8 chemicals companies no longer make and include GenX.

Bill Walker, an investigative editor with the Environmental Working Group, said the list is by no means exhaustive and many more communities are likely affected.

“Every place that has gone looking for it systematically, with any reason at all to suspect they might have contamination, has found it,” he said. “So, that’s why we’re confident in saying that we’re nowhere near the end of knowing the true scope of this problem.”

Walker says EPA could do more. The agency does not track contaminated sites. It has issued both short and long-term advisories on suggested exposure levels, but has not set a national legal limit for C-8 in drinking water.

EPA will host a national leadership summit on PFAS contamination next month in Washington, D.C.

Punitive Damages Possible in Suit Against Dupont

A federal judge has rejected a motion arguing that evidence doesn’t support punitive damages for an Ohio woman who says she got cancer after drinking water contaminated by a chemical discharged from a DuPont plant.

The case might help settle thousands of similar lawsuits about the chemical giant’s dumping of C8 into local drinking water.

Plaintiff Clara Bartlett alleges Delaware-based DuPont didn’t inform the public but knew potential risks posed by C8 that was deposited into the Ohio River by a plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia.

DuPont’s chief scientist has testified he didn’t know until 2012 that C8 could cause several diseases.

The Columbus Dispatch reports the judge said a “reasonable jury” could have enough evidence to favor punitive damages in the case. He previously refused to dismiss it.

'Keep Your Promises, Dupont' Issues Open Letter Requesting Oversight of Health Monitoring Program

  The community-based organization Keep Your Promises Dupont released an open letter the C-8 Medical Panel asking for oversight in the court-mandated C-8 Medical Monitoring Program.

The monitoring program was established after a toxic chemical known as C-8, in community water supplies near the DuPont Washington Works plant just south of Parkersburg. A member of the group’s advisory committee, retired physician Dr. Paul Brooks, authored the letter.

“Our concern is that the medical panel, they should be made aware that individuals that were exposed are not getting what they were supposed to get. We’re pleading with them to step in a resolve the reasons for the low participation.” Brooks said.

The letter cites issues with the monitoring program’s administration such as inadequate publicity, high fees paid to administrators, and low payout to community members.

$235 million is set aside to assist community members with health monitoring. Ten years after Dupont agreed in a settlement to compensate exposed community members and provide means for continuous health monitoring, less than one present of that fund has been used within the community. 

Open Letter: 

Drs. Dean Baker, Melissa McDiarmid, and Harold Sox: It has come to our attention that the C-8 Medical Monitoring Program has failed time and again to effectively deliver medical monitoring to the population the program was created to help: class members in the Mid-Ohio Valley who have been exposed to the harmful chemical C-8. The failure of this program to deliver the crucial and deserved service of medical monitoring for diseases linked to C-8 exposure, including kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol (hypercholesterolemia), and pregnancy-induced high blood pressure (including preeclampsia) is a tragedy and a travesty for the affected population. Without an effectively administered medical monitoring program, many of the aforementioned diseases will be discovered too late for individuals to recover. This is not what class members agreed to in the 2005 class action settlement with DuPont. After you were selected to develop and oversee the C-8 Medical Monitoring Program, you were endorsed for your expertise in medical monitoring and announced by class counsel to the Mid-Ohio Valley. Your qualifications are not in question, which is why I am appealing to you today to exercise the appropriate oversight. First, there was the issue of insufficient publicity for the program. The handful of town hall meetings held at inconvenient times for working people were poorly attended. The notice packets mailed to class members about the program were dense, full of legal jargon, and not easily understood by anyone who is not a trained attorney. Next, Keep Your Promises revealed the conflict-of-interest between DuPont and the administrator of the program, Michael Rozen, who has earned nearly $10 million while paying out less than one percent of the $235 million fund. This conflict-of-interest demonstrates the need for external oversight of this program. Now, Keep Your Promises has received reports that medical monitoring participants who followed all the required, convoluted steps of the process have not had their costs covered by the program. Participants have received bills for medical monitoring procedures that were to have been paid under the program yet have been left for the participants to pay. I am appealing to you today to commence oversight of this program to ensure that members of our community get the medical monitoring program that was promised to them. Our community members will continue to suffer without your oversight. Sincerely, Dr. Paul Brooks Keep Your Promises DuPont Advisory Committee

'Keep Your Promises, Dupont' Campaign Kicks Off

Mid-Ohio Valley residents launched a campaign this week in an effort to pressure DuPont, a chemical company, into complying with a 2005 settlement agreement and to educate community members on how they can monitor their health.

http://youtu.be/E-id9scDjD4

For decades, DuPont used a chemical called C-8 in its Washington Works plant near Parkersburg in the manufacturing of Teflon. C-8 is used in hundreds of products from non-stick pots and pans to Goretex boots and cosmetics.

A lawsuit was filed when C-8 was found in community water supplies. An independent panel of epidemiologists appointed to study the chemical and its effects on human health determined that it has a ‘probable link’ to several diseases, including kidney and testicular cancer and thyroid disease and several others.  

The new community-based organization is named Keep Your Promises Dupont. Its launch comes 10 years after Dupont agreed in a settlement to compensate exposed community members and provide means for continuous health monitoring, among other concessions. The organization’s website offers community members a place to share stories and find resources.

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