As part of its ongoing lawsuit against Union Carbide, the Courtland Company asked U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. to collect soil samples at UCC’s Filmont Landfill in South Charleston.
A federal judge has denied a company’s request to inspect and test property owned by Union Carbide.
As part of its ongoing lawsuit against Union Carbide, the Courtland Company asked U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. to collect soil samples at UCC’s Filmont Landfill in South Charleston.
This week, Copenhaver denied the request, siding with UCC. UCC had argued that Courtland would have access to the data it has collected as part of its voluntary remediation of the site, under the supervision of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
The trial is now in its penalty phase. In September, Copenhaver ruled that UCC violated the federal Clean Water Act by not having permits for stormwater discharge and that the landfill was an illegal open dump. UCC could face fines of $64,618 per day per violation.
The parties participated in an 18-day bench trial last year in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, where Copenhaver is a senior judge.
Union Carbide, now part of Dow chemical, operated the Filmont landfill from the 1950s to the 1980s. The property borders Davis Creek, a tributary of the Kanawha River, and Courtland’s property in South Charleston.
Both companies may have to pay remediation costs, but only UCC faces potential civil penalties.
The case has been active since 2018. The general public had no knowledge of the Filmont Landfill until Copenhaver unsealed documents the following year that revealed its existence.
According to testimony in the trial, a handful of local officials and the state DEP were previously aware the landfill existed and was possibly contaminating soil and water in the area.
The next phase of the trial could take place early next year.
The maximum penalty Union Carbide would pay for violating the Clean Water Act at a landfill it owns in South Charleston: $64,618 per violation per day.
A five year federal court case involving Union Carbide is moving into the next phase, and the company could have to pay pay a steep civil penalty.
The maximum penalty Union Carbide would pay for violating the Clean Water Act at a landfill it owns in South Charleston: $64,618 per violation per day.
In late September, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia ruled that the company has been in violation of the federal law since 2015. A landfill that discharges stormwater into navigable U.S. waterways must seek a permit under the Clean Water Act.
Union Carbide sought no such permit for the Filmont Landfill. The site is adjacent to Davis Creek, a tributary of the Kanawha River.
Union Carbide operated the landfill for about 30 years, but its existence wasn’t widely known until a 2018 lawsuit in federal court in Charleston.
The court also determined the Filmont Landfill was an illegal open dump under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Union Carbide and Courtland Co., the plaintiff in the case, may both have to pay costs related to the cleanup of the site. Courtland’s South Charleston property is adjacent to Union Carbide’s.
The court will ultimately determine what penalty Union Carbide will pay, but added together, one violation over eight years could cost more than $188 million.
Union Carbide and Courtland will bring in expert witnesses to determine how many of those days Union Carbide was in violation.
Courtland has requested that the penalty phase of the trial take place in April 2024. The trial will determine other costs, including legal fees.
An attorney for the Courtland Company has filed a new complaint in U.S. district court in Charleston over water pollution from an industrial landfill that Union Carbide owns.
In his fourth lawsuit since 2018, Charleston attorney Michael Callaghan alleges that Union Carbide operated the landfill from the 1950s to the 1980s and that it was not designed to contain toxic materials.
The site is adjacent to a property Courtland owns, and the lawsuits have alleged contamination of its property from the Union Carbide landfill.
Expert testing of Davis Creek, which runs along both properties, has revealed high levels of arsenic, chromium, cadmium, lead, selenium, mercury and other toxic substances.
According to the complaint, the site was used to dispose of coal ash and the byproducts of chemical manufacturing and wastewater treatment. It was never designed to keep the substances from leaking into nearby groundwater and streams, the complaint says.
The lawsuit seeks to force Union Carbide to clean up the site and pay civil penalties under provisions of the federal Clean Water Act.
No enforcement action has yet been taken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
In the previous lawsuit, Courtland sought a temporary restraining order to force Union Carbide to immediately take steps to clean up the site.
Union Carbide argued that the state agency should oversee the case, not federal regulators.
State officials last October issued a violation against Union Carbide under the West Virginia Water Pollution Control Act based on evidence that the landfill was polluting the streams.
On a recent sticky July afternoon, Diana Green stands on the muddy bank of lower Davis Creek in South Charleston, West Virginia.
As a child, she enjoyed wading in the nearly 10-mile-long stream in search of crayfish and salamanders. As an adult, Green set down roots there, purchasing a farm that backs up to the creek. Seeing the waterway choked with trash and pollution, Green helped form a small community-based watershed group in the 1990s. The Davis Creek Watershed Association has been dedicated to improving the environmental quality of the watershed, and 25 years later, she says they have largely succeeded. Several different fish species, from skipjack to bass live in the stream.
But these waters have also been shaped by the Kanawha Valley’s deep connection to the nearby chemical industry.
The creek backs up against land owned by Union Carbide Corp., a corporate monolith that has for decades provided a solid living for thousands of area residents, investing in the region and its workers.
Now, the company’s goodwill is being challenged by new information unearthed in a series of lawsuits by a corporate landowner. A lawsuit filed by the Courtland Co., a private, West Virginia-based landholding firm that owns property near Davis Creek, alleges Union Carbide has for decades knowingly leaked potentially toxic pollutants into the waters of Davis Creek.
Credit Brittany Patterson / WVPB
/
WVPB
The back channel of Davis Creek.
Union Carbide, purchased by Dow Chemical Co. in 2001, insists in court filings that there is “no evidence to support that UCC is currently endangering the public and adversely impacting public resources.”
The company declined to answer a list of detailed questions. In an emailed statement it said: “Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) is aware of the complaints by Courtland Company. UCC denies all claims asserted against it by Courtland and will continue to vigorously defend itself. As this is ongoing litigation, UCC will not comment further at this time.”
Michael Callaghan, the attorney representing Courtland, vehemently disagrees with the company’s assessment. Callaghan is a former assistant U.S. attorney and secretary of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
“I’ve been doing environmental law in some form or fashion for 30 years, and I have never seen anything like this,” he said. “To walk away from a liability and just leave it on the ground is outrageous.”
I've been doing environmental law in some form or fashion for 30 years, and I have never seen anything like this – Michael Callaghan, attorney
Landfill Revealed
In August 2018, Courtland filed its first lawsuit against Union Carbide. A year earlier, the company conducted some environmental sampling on its property and found elevated levels of pollutants such as arsenic, barium, cadmium, lead and selenium. In the lawsuit, the company asserts the contamination came from the nearby Tech Center, which was Carbide’s research and development hub for decades.
In the suit, Courtland asked Union Carbide and Dow to investigate and clean up the contamination.
“I would call that a garden variety environment case. Just a straightforward case of your neighbor pollutes on you and we need to solve that problem,” Callaghan said. “Well, the case took quite a strange twist.”
Near the end of an October 2019 deposition, Jerome Cibrik, remediation leader at Union Carbide, revealed that “another UCC facility” in “this general area north of the tracks” was causing contamination in some monitoring wells. The tracks are part of a rail yard, sometimes called the Massey rail yard or coal yard, also owned by Union Carbide.
A screenshot of part of Jerome Cibrik’s deposition.
When asked what was disposed of in the site Cirbik said, “We don’t have good records of what was in there.” He then identified DYNEL, a polyester fiber material, as a substance that was specifically disposed of at the Filmont site.
“We had found some limited files that deal with this facility and they mentioned disposal, mainly nonhazardous materials and DYNEL,” he said. “That’s about all we know for sure what went there from the South Charleston facility.”
DYNEL is a textile fiber with a fur-like texture and appearance that was developed in the late 1940s. It’s made from vinyl chloride and acrylonitrile. It was produced at the South Charleston plant until 1975.
Cibrik noted the landfill operated at least during the 1970s and 1980s. Other documentation shows it likely began operating in the 1950s. When asked if the site was built in compliance with federal environmental law, specifically the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA, he said no.
The complicated law, passed by Congress in 1976, created a framework for the proper management of hazardous and non-hazardous waste.
A screenshot of part of Jerome Cibrik’s deposition.
“I do not believe so and it is not subject to those regulations,” he said. “There is also evidence hazardous waste went into it.”
Cibrik called the area the “Filmont Landfill.”
Documentation Search
In December 2019, Courtland filed a second lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, this time focused on the Filmont Landfill. The complaint alleges hazardous, toxic chemicals from both the rail yard and landfill are leaching into the soil, groundwater and surface water and contaminating both their property and running into Davis Creek.
That includes arsenic, 1,4- dioxane, multiple types of ethers, benzene, chloroform and vinyl chloride, which have been measured in groundwater on the site in excess of federally established screening levels, and in some cases dozens of times above federal drinking water limits set by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Sampling done in 2011 by Union Carbide in wells installed across Davis Creek from the Filmont site showed levels of 1,4-dioxane — a synthetic industrial chemical and likely human carcinogen according to EPA — at levels 177 times above the screening level.
Credit Brittany Patterson / WVPB
/
WVPB
The Courtland property.
Courtland has largely used the land to store vehicles and other materials, and argues it’s impossible it created the contamination. In court documents, the company asserts the underground channels through which groundwater from the Filmont site and rail yard flow are connected to Davis Creek. Lawyers for the company argue if pollution from the landfill has migrated onto Courtland’s property, then it could easily be migrating into other places, such as a nearby residential neighborhood.
But the full extent of what could be going on remains hidden. The bulk of the monitoring data and information about this landfill remains under a protective order asked for by Union Carbide. West Virginia Public Broadcasting has joined Green and some members of the Davis Creek Watershed Association in asking the judge to make the records public, given the possible public health and safety ramifications of the dumping. The judge is currently considering unsealing about two dozen documents.
A Mystery Landfill
The Filmont Landfill is located adjacent to the West Virginia Regional Technology Park, formerly owned by Union Carbide. Constructed in 1949, the sprawling campus was often referred to as the Tech Center. Scientists there were responsible for some of the most innovative breakthroughs in chemical technology in modern history.
Credit “Union Carbide South Charleston Technical Center 1949-1999”
/
“The Tech Center was a world-class place with world-class scientists,” said Gary Brown, a retired Tech Center employee who worked there from 1969 until 2001 when Dow Chemical bought Union Carbide.
The Tech Center, like Carbide’s other two facilities in the Valley — the South Charleston and Institute plants — were constructed largely before the passage of most modern environmental laws.
When Brown first arrived in the Valley in the late 1960s, he recalled, he couldn’t hang his clothes outside to dry without them being covered with soot. The passage of the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Toxic Substances Control Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act fundamentally changed the way companies could dispose of waste.
“The world changed for sure,” he said. “At one time I think people and companies looked at a river and they said ‘well, that’s a good way we can dump our waste in the river and it’ll disappear.”
Beginning in 1999, Union Carbide began working with the EPA to clean up hazardous waste within the 574-acre Tech Center, due to legal obligations under RCRA.
The company identified 70 different areas that contained waste, including three inactive landfills that until 1973 accepted coal ash slurry from the power plant at the Tech Center, municipal sludge from the South Charleston wastewater treatment plant, and some waste from Carbide’s South Charleston facility.
A 2005 investigation at the Tech Center found the landfills were contaminating groundwater with levels of arsenic and barium that, if consumed, could harm human health. Under the “corrective action,” which was finalized in 2010, Carbide was required to monitor groundwater across the Tech Center property.
The West Virginia Regional Technology Park located in South Charleston, West Virginia.
The Filmont Landfill, the dump site Courtland claims in the lawsuit is contaminated with multiple toxic pollutants, does not appear in any of the Tech Center documentation. But four EPA documents from the late 1970s and early 1980s describe some of what was dumped on the site.
According to a report filed in March 1979 by EPA’s National Enforcement Investigations Center, Union Carbide employees reported solid waste from the company’s South Charleston facility, including “lumber, paper, scrap polymer, etc” were disposed of in the Filmont Landfill.
An EPA document from 1984 states the Filmont Landfill received industrial grit processed by the South Charleston Sewage Treatment Company, a subsidiary of Union Carbide, which operated the wastewater plant owned by the City of South Charleston. The plant treated both municipal and industrial waste, including from Carbide’s South Charleston plant.
Another document notes drums were both dumped and buried on the site, which is listed as 20 acres in size.
A search of EPA’s RCRA database shows no record that the Filmont landfill was granted a permit. A spokesperson for the agency said in an email, “To the best of our knowledge there is/was no RCRA (hazardous waste) regulated landfill named Filmont in South Charleston, WV.”
West Virginia Public Broadcasting has filed a Freedom of Information Act Request with the WVDEP and is awaiting a response. Record requests filed by Courtland’s lawyers to both EPA and WVDEP have not returned any information.
South Charleston Wells
While much of the information and data about the Filmont Landfill remains sealed, public records obtained from the City of South Charleston offer a window into the scope of the contamination.
In late 2009, emails show Union Carbide and a consulting firm that handles the bulk of environmental monitoring and compliance at the Tech Center site reached out to the City of South Charleston asking for an agreement to access city property to install two monitoring wells on the other side of Davis Creek from the Filmont Landfill.
In a Nov. 18, 2009 email, Paul Weber, with CH2M Hill Environmental Services, a contractor for Union Carbide, wrote to Steve DeBarr, general manager of the City of South Charleston Sanitary Board, proposing the company install temporary wells on city property.
“UCC has investigated the groundwater contamination at the Filmont Landfill up to their property boundary, which is adjacent to Davis Creek,” Weber said. “The downgradient extent of contamination has not been defined by these previous investigations. Although UCC does not expect the contamination to extend beyond Davis Creek, UCC would like to install these two temporary monitoring wells on the other side of Davis Creek to confirm this expectation.”
In July 2010, as the city was mulling over Carbide’s request, Cibrik, the head of remediation for Carbide, sent Michael Moore, attorney for the City of South Charleston, a list of figures that show “what constituents were found in groundwater at our Filmont site.”
He notes metals, semi-volatile organic compounds and volatile organic compounds were all identified within the 10 monitoring wells, adding “metals often exceed regulatory levels at natural background concentrations.”
It would take until the summer of 2011 before Union Carbide and the city would finalize an agreement for the company to drill the two wells west of Davis Creek, one on city property.
The wells were drilled on Sept. 6, 2011. In October, Cibrik asked for a meeting with DeBarr and Moore to discuss the results of sampling conducted at the wells. The wells were sampled twice, once in September and again in October. Results showed levels of arsenic, dioxane and lead at levels above EPA standards. Arsenic is a known carcinogen. Dioxane is an ether and likely carcinogenic, according to the EPA. The data also showed 1,4-dioxane appeared to have migrated past the creek.
Following that meeting, Carbide asked the City of South Charleston for a second agreement to install a third well. On May 4, 2012, Cibrik emailed DeBarr and Moore noting the new well had been sampled twice and showed no concerning results. Cibrik characterized the bulk of the data as “good news,” noting that the groundwater flow did not appear to be going toward the nearby residential neighborhood.
When reached by phone recently, DeBarr said it was his understanding at the time, based on data provided and interpreted by Union Carbide, that the Filmont site did not pose a problem or threat to property or residents in South Charleston.
“I don’t have the expertise to say anything contrary to what they told me,” he said.
DeBarr said after 2012 the City of South Charleston did not receive any further data from the monitoring wells.
‘Significant Contamination’
Marc Glass, a principal researcher in charge of evaluation and remediation of environmental contamination in soil and water for the Morgantown-based environmental consulting firm Downstream Strategies, said the limited data available in the case does seem to indicate pollution from the Filmont Landfill appears to have left the site, especially dioxane and some chlorinated solvents.
“There’s really significant contamination there of some nasty things right at the property boundary, and it’s on the other side of Davis Creek,” he said.
Even if nearby residents aren’t using the groundwater, Glass said given the levels of contamination observed in these wells it’s possible the pollutants could rise up through the surface in vapor from and collect inside buildings.
There's really significant contamination there of some nasty things right at the property boundary, and it's on the other side of Davis Creek – Marc Glass, Downstream Strategies
Bill Muno is the former head of the Superfund program for EPA’s Region 5 and at one time oversaw the region’s RCRA program. After RCRA’s passage, Muno said anyone who generated, transported or disposed of hazardous waste was required to register with EPA.
“If the landfill was operated after November of 1980, and Union Carbide wanted to continue to operate it, it would have had to file a [RCRA] Part A permit application,” he said.
Muno said if the landfill wasn’t in use when RCRA went into effect, and it poses a threat to the health and safety of the public or environment, Union Carbide would be still responsible for taking care of the problem either on its own or through the Superfund program.
Glass agrees.
“If you dispose of hazardous waste or place hazardous waste or even store hazardous waste for a period of time — over 90 days under the law — then you have obligations under RCRA because you’re responsible for that waste material,” he said.
He said more investigation by the company as well as state and federal regulators is warranted.
“We already have enough information, even in 2012, to say we should expect there to be contamination distributed either more deeply or more widely,” Glass said.
Credit Brittany Patterson / WVPB
/
WVPB
A road sign at the WV Regional Tech Park.
Callaghan, the attorney representing Courtland, has asked the judge overseeing the case to take immediate action to address the Filmont site.
“Part of what the lawsuit is looking to do is to protect, first of all the interests of my client, but secondly, the public [and] the public space exposed to these chemicals,” he said. “The public needs to know the nature and extent of this exposure so we can determine what kind of human health risk exists.”
As the cases move forward in court and more specifics come to light, Diana Green with the Davis Creek Watershed Association, hopes the Filmont site can be cleaned up.
Standing on the bank of the creek, surrounded by lush foliage, she lets out a heavy sigh.
“I think we’re all concerned about having all the truth of every situation that involves our watershed,” Green says. “You look all around and it’s beautiful, green and you can’t picture what’s going on below the surface.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated when Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide. It was 2001 not 2011.
A West Virginia House committee on Tuesday, Feb. 19, voted down an amendment that would have restored the state’s water quality standards to the version originally proposed by state environmental regulators last summer.
The House Energy Committee rejected an amendment by Del. Evan Hansen, a Democrat representing Monongalia County, that would have re-inserted 60 proposed human health water quality standard updates into the state rules that govern pollution discharge into the state’s streams and rivers.
The Water Quality Standards rule within SB 163, formerly SB 167, has been embroiled in controversy since lawmakers first considered it in the Senate Rulemaking Review Committee in late November.
At the behest of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, the committee agreed to remove 60 updates to human health standards that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) had proposed.
Since then, the 60 updates were added back in by the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee and then removed again by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The full Senate passed a committee substitute created by the Judiciary Committee on a 20-12 vote earlier this month. Under the committee substitute, the updates were removed and a two-year timeline was established in which DEP must propose updates to the rule’s human health criteria.
The bill states DEP must propose updates to the human health criteria in the rule before April 1, 2020 and put them out for public comment. The agency will submit the proposed updates for consideration by the 2021 legislative session.
The House Energy Committee Tuesday afternoon took up the committee substitute after two brief recesses to get the correct bill language in front of the lawmakers.
Failed Amendment
The committee heard testimony from DEP, West Virginia University Public Health Professor Michael McCawley and industry representatives.
In his line of questioning with DEP Deputy Cabinet Secretary Scott Mandirola, Hansen, a recently-elected delegate from Morgantown and environmental scientist, highlighted the years-long process the agency underwent before proposing its original draft rule in July.
Under the federal Clean Water Act, each state must write its own water quality standards rules, but receives guidance and final approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In 2015, the EPA released 94 updated human health criteria.
After review, the DEP proposed adopting 60. Two-thirds of the updates made it so less of certain chemicals could be discharged into rivers and streams and one-third loosened pollution levels.
State environmental regulators began contemplating EPA’s updates in late 2015. The process included multiple public comment opportunities.
“Since 2015, we had, our water quality standards program has looked at those to try to figure out [sic] what variables changed in each of the compounds to determine the changes that were made,” Mandirola said.
Hansen also asked Mandirola about how the agency deals with regulating some pollutants set at levels within the water quality standards that make them hard to detect during testing.
Manufacturers have expressed concern they may not be able to comply with DEP’s proposed updates to human health criteria because some may set pollutant levels so low they cannot be detected through testing.
Mandirola noted that under the current water quality standards, some pollutant levels are set to levels that cannot be detected by a lab and the agency has a protocol in place to deal with them. He said, under the proposed updates, some pollutant levels would also be hard to detect.
“If you’re asking are some of the criteria currently below the limit of detection, and are some of the updates will they also still be below detection, yes,” Mandirola said.
The Dow Factor
Hansen also asked Mandirola about a spreadsheet DEP put together analyzing some of Dow Chemical’s permits issued under the current water quality standards rule. The company, which operates at three facilities in South Charleston, had previously expressed concern about the updates when the rule was being debated in the Senate.
Mandirola said the agency reviewed “a couple of permits” issued to Dow to see the impacts of the proposed changes. He said with the exception of a few phthalates, which were broken out from one category into five separate chemicals in the new proposed updates, it appears Dow’s current permits would sufficiently allow the company to comply with the proposed changes to the rule.
“We identified a few other compounds that could potentially be issues, but the majority of the 60 compounds we didn’t see a glaring issue with,” Mandirola said.
A lawyer speaking on behalf of Dow Chemical told the committee the company was unable to send a representative to testify and she could not answer questions, but would take written questions to the company and provide answers at another date.
Hansen’s amendment drew fierce opposition from some in the committee.
House Energy Committee Vice-Chairman Del. John Kelly, a Republican from Wood County, said adding the 60 proposed updates back into the rule was not necessary because most states across the country haven’t adopted EPA’s 2015 updates.
He listed a series of trade associations and companies that he said opposed the rule, including the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, West Virginia Coal Association, West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, Chemours, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Mountain State Carbon and Westlake Chemical.
“This amendment is a job killer,” said Del. Eric Porterfield, a Republican from Mercer County.
In his closing remarks before the committee voted on his amendment, Hansen expressed frustration that the company that was previously vocally opposed to the updated water quality standards wasn’t present to take questions before the House Energy Committee.
He noted adopting the updated human health criteria, as DEP has recommended, is keeping with the most up-to-date science.
“Some of these rumors that are floating around that this is going to kill jobs or rumors that these are going to cause certain facilities to move out of the valley we have nothing on the record — It’s just rumors right now,” Hansen said. “And it’s unfortunate because we had an opportunity to get something on the record today, but I was told I couldn’t ask those questions. I have to submit them in writing, and we need to get the answers after we vote. And I don’t think that’s right.”
SB 163 now heads to the House Judiciary Committee before being considered by the entire body.
Dow Chemical and DuPont announced plans to merge late last year in a deal worth about $130 billion dollars. Both companies have long histories in West Virginia, where they’ve been top employers in the so-called “chemical valley.” They used to compete, but now they are allies in what some West Virginians say feels like the continued death of the Industrial Age in the region.
The merger means 10 percent job cuts across DuPont, but a fear of more job losses is only one concern for West Virginians. Some people are also concerned the company won’t clean up a chemical mess it made over the last half-century.
End of an Era
“DuPont has been around for 225 years, everyone thinks it will always be the same. And it’s not,” said chemist Jerry Moraczewski, a DuPont retiree.
Moraczewski worked for DuPont for more than 30 years. He said he was forced to retire in 2009. Still, he defends DuPont saying cutbacks are what companies like DuPont have to do to survive.
Moraczewski now lives in Pennsylvania, but he maintains contact with former colleagues in West Virginia. He says many of those friends are worried about what comes next.
The company’s presence in West Virginia has been shrinking in the last couple of decades. Today, the state estimates it’s the 40th-largest private employer in the West Virginia. But back in the day, it was in the top five, providing well-paid jobs that didn’t require advanced degrees.
Living in the Shadow
Credit Glynis Board / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Larry and Susan Dale stand in front of the greenhouse they built atop a cistern that collects rain water. The DuPont landfill begins on the ridge directly behind them. They say they live in the shadow of DuPont, and if the shadow had a shape, it would be a question mark.
“There was a time when you didn’t talk about DuPont. Largest employer in Wood County,” said Larry Dale, a school bus driver and retired preacher in Washington, West Virginia.
Even today it’s tough to find someone in the area willing to talk openly about DuPont. The Dales agreed to talk partially because they don’t have any direct connections to the company, unless you consider their property line.
“If you look out the north side of the house, you can see the rim of the [DuPont] dump. I’m gonna call it a dump. They would prefer that I didn’t. But that’s what it is. It is a dump.”
A decade ago it came to light that DuPont contaminated municipal water sources in this region with a chemical that’s used to coat non-stick cookware. It voluntarily phased out manufacturing and use of the chemical in 2013. Last year a former DuPont employee who developed cancer won a $1.6 million judgment against the company. DuPont plans to appeal, and has argued that the company “acted reasonably and responsibly.” 3,500 similar lawsuits are pending.
“Everybody has kind of considered the DuPont to Dow acquisitions to be a way of either escaping corporate responsibility, or reinforcing themselves for the liabilities that are out there,” Larry Dale said after pausing to share a knowing glance with his wife.
Susan Dale said they live in the shadow of this chemical giant. “And if the shadow had a shape,” she added, “it would be a question mark.”
Credit Glynis Board / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“I feel sad for the [Washington Works] plant because it was the epicenter for Parkersburg [West Virginia], for income, for community life, for identity. The identity of Parkersburg was tied to DuPont,” said DuPont retiree Jerry Moraczewski. He remembers when baseball fields like this one were filled with neighborhood families 20 years ago. Today it’s abandoned.
Hope for a Plastic/Chemical Future
In an email, a DuPont representative said DuPont remains committed to fulfilling all legal and environmental obligations.
Despite environmental concerns, many people here would welcome DuPont back. Amid all the uncertainty, there’s still hope DowDuPont could expand business. Associate professor at West Virginia University’s College of Business and Finance, Ashok Abbott, points to shale gas in the region as an alluring business incentive.
“We should be looking at the next generations of their plants, not the existing ones,” Abbott said.
Many business leaders in West Virginia and the surrounding region are working hard to find ways to compete with Gulf States for future chemical and plastic industries.
