Water Safety Near DuPont Discussed / State Tries to Ease Fear About Chemical Found in Chesterfield Area
By JOHN REID BLACKWELL
A state official tried to ease local residents’ concerns about a controversial chemical found in water around DuPont’s Spruance plant in Chesterfield County.
The man-made chemical, known as PFOA, also was detected in blood samples from some employees at the manufacturing plant.
Officials consider the PFOA detected around the plant as low- risk because the amounts were small, and studies have established no human health effects from the substance, said Gerard Seeley Jr., director of the state Department of Environmental Quality’s Richmond- area office.
Seeley spoke at a meeting Tuesday organized by the United Steelworkers union and the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club. About 35 DuPont employees and nearby residents attended.
Seeley said that officials are not dismissing the concerns but weighing the risks. The state and the Environmental Protection Agency plan to test more water samples, including drinking water, he said.
“Every one of us is exposed to hundreds of chemicals every day,” he said. “The question we have to answer is: What level is acceptable?”
That wasn’t persuasive to some at the meeting, who said any PFOA in water near the plant is a danger sign.
“You are being too lenient,” said Ruben Sajnin, a DuPont employee who lives near the plant. “We don’t want to find out later that you were wrong.”
Water samples taken by DuPont and the EPA last year found PFOA levels at less than 1 part per billion in the James River and at 7.5 parts per billion or less in some groundwater-monitoring wells on plant property.
The union and the Sierra Club last year said they found trace amounts of PFOA in tap water from a handful of residences and businesses near the plant and in Hopewell.
Seeley said the highest level of PFOA the groups found was far lower than the acceptable amounts of known dangerous substances such as arsenic and cyanide.
The EPA is still studying PFOA and has not established regulatory guidelines, but the agency is encouraging manufacturers to eliminate it.
DuPont says very small amounts of PFOA were present in the Teflon fibers unit that oper- ated at the plant from 1953 to 2004.
Spruance Plant Manager John Strait declined to speak at the meeting, citing the involvement of the Steelworkers union. DuPont says the union, which represents about 1,800 DuPont employees but none at Spruance, is using the PFOA issue to pressure the company.
“It is public knowledge that the USW is actively communicating with our employees about affiliating with them,” Strait wrote in a letter to the plant’s community advisory board.
Jay Palmore, president of the Ampthill Rayon Workers Inc., which represents about 1,200 local DuPont workers, said the USW has held meetings with the local union to discuss affiliation, but he said that has nothing to do with the PFOA concerns.
“We want the community protected as well as the workers,” Palmore said.
Contact staff writer John Reid Blackwell at jblackwell@timesdispatch.com or (804) 775-8123.
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