DuPont Washington Works Story Archives - Page 2 of 3 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

4th Suit Linking DuPont C8 Dumping to Illness Goes to Trial

Another of the 3,500 lawsuits alleging links between people’s illnesses and DuPont discharging C8 into drinking water and the Ohio River is heading to trial in federal court in central Ohio this week.

The Columbus Dispatch reports the case against the Delaware-based chemical company alleges a Washington County man got testicular cancer because of C8, a chemical used to make Teflon.

It was dumped from a DuPont plant in West Virginia. DuPont says it didn’t consciously disregard risks to nearby residents.

This is among the first few cases to be heard.

In one now under appeal, jurors awarded $1.6 million to a woman who got cancer. A second test case was dismissed after a doctor changed a plaintiff’s diagnosis. A third case was settled, and details weren’t disclosed.

Ohio Jury to Decide Suit Over Chemical DuPont Put in Water

Jurors are deliberating in the federal case of an Ohio woman who says she got cancer after drinking water contaminated by a chemical from a DuPont plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia.

It’s one of two test cases that could influence thousands of similar lawsuits about the chemical giant’s discharging of C8 into the Ohio River and drinking water.

The Columbus Dispatch reports jurors heard closing arguments Tuesday.

Attorneys for Guysville resident Carla Bartlett argue Delaware-based DuPont long knew about C8 risks but downplayed or hid that from the public. They say DuPont tested the blood of employees who worked with C8.

DuPont attorney Damon Mace told jurors that workers drank the same water as residents. He says: “Just because C8 is capable of causing cancer doesn’t mean it did.”

Investigative Report Released Ahead of C-8 Injury Trials

“The Teflon Toxin” is the title of a series of three investigative reports that surfaced this month. The series examines the 70-year history of DuPont and the no-stick chemical called C8 used to coat Teflon pans and other products.

A decade ago it came to light that DuPont contaminated water sources in West Virginia and Ohio with the chemical, and soon after that the chemical is toxic. The use of the C8 was phased out of production this year at DuPont’s Washington Works plant just outside Parkersburg. But this September, the first of about 3,500 personal injury claims is coming to trial.

That’s one reason the investigative series was just published.

The 60-year C8 Chemical Leak

While studying C8 contamination problems in New Jersey Lerner discovered the extensive history in West Virginia and Ohio. Her story grew from one to three reports:

DuPont and the Chemistry of Deception

The Case Against DuPont

How DuPont Slipped Past the EPA

DuPont is one of eight companies responsible for C8 contamination throughout the United States. Lerner goes into great detail about how DuPont’s own scientists first discovered health threats posed by C8 in the 50s and 60s.

Her report includes links and excerpts from internal company memos. Company communications are becoming public as court documents are filed in the lead-up to the personal injury trials that begin this September in Columbus, Ohio.

This is video footage taken by Wilber Tennant in the late ’90s. It’s included in the series of articles published by an online investigative publication called The Intercept. Journalist Sharon Lerner remembers going through the four hours of footage while she researched the history of C8 contamination by DuPont in West Virginia and Ohio.

“Tennant went around his property and documented the effect of this chemical on his cows but also on wildlife,” Lerner said. “You can see over time the way his water changes and thickens, and the way his animals get sicker and sicker and then all die.”

Lerner reports that there are still no specific federal C8 regulations. This despite the fact that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented that 99.7 percent of Americans have the chemical in their bloodstream.

“Indeed, there is voluminous, and repetitive, correspondence about C8 between the agency and the lawyer. In 2010, the agency responded to his urging to set a national drinking water level with a promise that it would do so by the end of that year. Then, in 2011, the agency promised to set the level by the end of that year. And, again, in a February 2012 letter, the EPA claimed it would take action in the “next few months” or by “early 2013.” A February 23, 2015 letter from Susan Hedman, a regional administrator of the EPA, has a similar ring, saying that a lifetime health advisory may be developed “later this year,” at which point the agency might just possibly reevaluate its 2009 consent order with DuPont.”

“There are more than 6 million people in the US who now have c8 in their drinking water above .02 parts per billions which is probably enough to cause significant health effects,” Lerner said.

The European Union banned C8 and this year proposed a global ban, Lerner reports, but it’s still being produced today in India, Russia, and China. She says in the U.S., C8 in cookware, clothing, and food wrappers is now being replaced by other chemicals. Public knowledge about these new chemicals is limited.

“The way we regulate chemicals, or I should say the way we don’t regulate chemicals in really the central problem here.”

Heroes

Lerner says one big personal discovery she’s come away with is the realization that a string of community heroes, as she calls them, are responsible for DuPont and other companies being forced to address the problem of C8.

“It’s like a bucket brigade,” she said “one brave moment to another. It was one person after another bringing it forward.”

Cleanup

Lerner reports DuPont saw $95 million in profits every day last year, but still the company has taken steps to protect against potential cleanup fallout by spinning off its chemical division into a separate company called Chemours.

“DuPont has promised to cover whatever settlements result from the crop of personal injury claims,” Lerner reports, “but, if they’re ever levied, clean-up costs for the C8 DuPont leaked into the larger environment, which could add up to many billions of dollars, could fall to Chemours, a much smaller company.”

Messages from DuPont

Lerner’s article did include some responses from DuPont. She included segments of court statements where the company denies all wrongdoing, saying injuries were acts of God and that the company “neither knew, nor should have known, that any of the substances … were hazardous.” DuPont also issued a statement just prior to the article being published that defends its relationship with the Environmental Protection Agency — a relationship that Lerner’s report casts some doubt on.

Group Calls for Closer Scrutiny of DuPont’s Plan to Spin Off Performance Chemicals Unit

An advocacy group has called for closer federal scrutiny of DuPont Chemicals’ plan to spin off its performance chemicals unit.

The action group Keep Your Promises said DuPont’s split into two companies could have a negative impact on the medical monitoring of people in the Mid-Ohio Valley who may have been exposed to the chemical C-8.

In 2013, DuPont decided to spin off its performance chemicals unit into a company called Chemours. The spilt is scheduled for completion in the next few months. Chemours will take on the liability associated with DuPont’s chemical production sites, including its Washington Works plant near Parkersburg.

That plant was the subject of a 2005 settlement that set up a $235 million-medical monitoring program to educate and treat the 100,000 people in the Mid-Ohio Valley who may have been exposed to the chemical C-8. An independent panel of scientists found that C-8 is linked to several serious medical conditions such as kidney and testicular cancer, and thyroid disease. C-8 is used to make Teflon and Gore-Tex.

During a Tuesday, June 9, press conference, Keep Your Promises said Chemours will start with millions of dollars in liability from potential lawsuits and chemical site clean-up from DuPont’s manufacturing processes.

The group said that in filing for the spin-off, DuPont vastly underestimated the potential liability that Chemour will have to take on. Keep Your Promises said that could put the medical monitoring program in jeopardy and urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to take a closer look at DuPont’s spin-off plan.

DuPont said the spin-off would help the companies better compete in the global market and ensure profitability.

'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.