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EPA, DuPont Finalize Settlement in C8 Suit

Posted on: Tuesday, 29 November 2005, 12:00 CST

By Ken Ward Jr., The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

Nov. 29--Federal regulators have reached agreement with DuPont Co. to settle a lawsuit that alleged the company hid from the public and regulators important information about the dangers of the toxic chemical C8.

Last week, DuPont and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told a judge that they had "finished negotiations of an appropriate settlement" in the case.

Officials from both the EPA and DuPont refused to release the terms of the deal, and said those details may not be made public until mid-January.

In the case, the EPA alleged that DuPont for 20 years covered up important information about C8's health effects and about the pollution of water supplies near the company's Washington Works plant south of Parkersburg.

Under federal law, DuPont could face civil fines of more than $300 million for not reporting information that showed C8 posed "substantial risk of injury to health or the environment."

The company, though, has set aside just $15 million to cover the costs of the lawsuit, according to corporate disclosures filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

DuPont also faces a federal criminal investigation of its actions concerning C8 pollution, the company has told shareholders.

Since May, DuPont and the EPA have repeatedly said they were close to a settlement in the civil case, but had one item left to resolve. They would not identify that item.

On Nov. 23, the day of a scheduled hearing before Administrative Law Judge Barbara A. Gunning, lawyers for DuPont and the EPA told the judge they had reached a final agreement, but needed more time to put together the proper paperwork.

Gunning approved the joint request to give the parties until Jan. 13 to file their formal agreement.

C8 is another name for perfluorooctanoate, and is also known as perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. The chemical is used to make Teflon, and is used or created in the production of other, similar nonstick and stain-resistant materials.

For years, C8 was basically unregulated. Fueled in large part by internal DuPont documents uncovered by lawyers for Wood County residents, the EPA has begun a detailed review of the chemical.

In February, a Wood County judge approved a $107.6 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by those residents, who alleged that DuPont poisoned their water with C8.

Based largely on documents from the residents' lawyers, the EPA in July 2004 filed a complaint that alleged DuPont had caused "widespread contamination" of drinking water supplies near its Parkersburg plant.

DuPont, the EPA alleged, never told the government the company had water tests that showed C8 in residential supplies in concentrations greater than the company's own, internal limit.

Also, the EPA alleged DuPont withheld the results of a test showing that at least one pregnant worker from the Parkersburg plant had transferred the chemical from her body to her fetus.

That information, the EPA said, supported animal tests showing that C8 "moves across the placental barrier." The EPA said that agency efforts to understand C8's health effects "might have been more expeditious" if DuPont had submitted the human test results in 1981.

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To see more of The Charleston Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.wvgazette.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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DD,

Source: The Charleston Gazette

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