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Dow-DuPont Merger Spells Uncertainty for Communities in West Virginia

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 40^th-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

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.”

“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.

Southeast Ohio Water District Settles DuPont Lawsuit Over C8

A southeast Ohio water district has settled its federal lawsuit against DuPont over allegations that the company contaminated the district’s well fields with the chemical used to produce Teflon.

The Dispatch reports that the Little Hocking Water Association signed a settlement agreement with DuPont earlier this week. Settlement terms weren’t disclosed. Attorneys for both sides declined to comment about monetary damages.

Little Hocking supplies water to schools, businesses and 12,000 people in Hocking and Athens counties. It has wells across the Ohio River from a DuPont plant in West Virginia where the company used C8 to make Teflon. The district sued DuPont in 2009 alleging that C8 released into the Ohio River had infiltrated its wells.

A 2012 study found probable links between C8 and some types of cancer.

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.

Judge Refuses to Dismiss 1st Test Case Against DuPont

A federal judge has refused to dismiss one of two test cases that could potentially help settle thousands of similar lawsuits against chemical giant…

A federal judge has refused to dismiss one of two test cases that could potentially help settle thousands of similar lawsuits against chemical giant DuPont.

The complaint by an Ohio woman alleges the Delaware-based company knew the potentially dangerous risks posed by a chemical its plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia, had been depositing into the Ohio River, but declined to inform the public.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that DuPont unsuccessfully asked judge Edmund Sargus on Thursday to dismiss the case.

Sargus agreed to read motions filed by DuPont that argue the evidence doesn’t support the awarding of punitive damages.

More than 3,500 lawsuits allege DuPont’s dumping of a chemical known as C8 into local drinking water caused diseases including cancer.

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.

'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