Fayetteville Observer, Michael Wagner
Published August 2, 2005
RALEIGH - Environmental activists on Tuesday asked state officials to aggressively monitor groundwater beneath the Fayetteville DuPont plant.
A toxic chemical used in the production of Teflon is made there.
The chemical, ammonium perfluorooctanoate, or APFO, was detected in trace amounts in groundwater near the Fayetteville facility in 2003 and 2004.
But DuPont officials have said it came from a leaking cistern beneath another building and not from the APFO facility.
On Tuesday, a coalition of environmental groups said the state needs to set up a routine monitoring program at sites near where the APFO, also known as C8, is produced.
"We're calling for a full and immediate investigation, rigorous monitoring and the involvement of the EPA," said Hope Taylor-Guevara, executive director of Clean Water for North Carolina and a former chemistry professor at Duke University.
She spoke at a press conference outside the state Legislative Building on Tuesday.
Cathy Akroyd is a spokeswoman for the Division of Waste Management at the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources. She said her agency is looking into the situation.
"As new information continues to come in, we're evaluating it and considering the appropriate response," she said in a prepared statement.
Officials at the company's Fayetteville Works plant discredited the news conference Tuesday as part of an attempt by the United Steelworkers of America to gain leverage before upcoming labor negotiations.
"They have waged this corporate campaign on many fronts in pursuit of bargaining at the corporate level, rather than locally at the sites," plant manager Barry Hudson said in a statement.
The union represents about 1,800 workers at five DuPont sites, Hudson said. The Fayetteville facility is not one of them. Hudson said the company has been conducting a voluntary APFO blood-monitoring program for its employees since 2002. He said the results of those tests are confidential.
But according to Amy Kauffman, executive director of the state's Occupational Safety and Health Project, concentrations of the chemical are increasing.
A DuPont report on APFO levels in employees' blood shows an increase between 2002 and 2003.
In 2002, when 17 people were tested, the report showed an average of .011 parts per million. In 2003, when 44 people were tested, the company found an average of .217 ppm.
The maximum level in 2002 was .02 ppm; in 2003 it was 2.28 ppm.
Kauffman called the results alarming; Hudson said the health effects of APFO have not yet been determined.
"Based on scientific data, DuPont believes that (APFO) exposure does not pose any health risk to the general public," he said. "To date, no human health effects are known to be caused by (APFO), even in workers who have significantly higher exposure levels than the general population."
In May, Hudson said that based on where the APFO has been found, "We have the utmost confidence that that didn't come from our APFO facility."
It's unclear why the chemical appeared, but state environmental officials said it might have been a breakdown chemical left after other chemicals biodegraded. The tank from which it was leaking has been taken out of service.
There is one groundwater monitoring pipe near the APFO facility, and it is unclear whether it has ever been tested.
Hudson said the $23 million APFO facility has more than $7 million in equipment designed to control APFO emissions, and he is confident it is not the source of any APFO contamination.
Lone APFO site
The Fayetteville plant, which started producing the chemical in 2002, is the only site in the country where APFO is made. Other domestic manufacturers have closed their plants after the chemical was found in high concentrations in local drinking water supplies and in workers' blood.
Environmentalists are worried about the potential effects on the drinking water down river from the Fayetteville DuPont plant, which is on the edge of the Cape Fear River south of Fayetteville.
The chemical is designed to be slippery and is difficult to stop once it leaks into groundwater.
It is also one of the least biodegradable compounds, Taylor-Guevara said. She said the danger of the chemical, called a "likely human carcinogen" by the Environmental Protection Agency in a 2005 report, warrants state oversight.
She and other members of the newly formed C8 Working Group delivered a letter to the state Department of Natural Resources asking for a monitoring program at the plant. They also plan to ask for a meeting with Leah Devlin, the state health director.
"The state needs to do some serious investigations," said Rick Dove, a regional representative for the national Waterkeeper Alliance. "It's not too late to fix the whole situation down there. But we shouldn't leave it up to DuPont."
Until now, he said, the only information about APFO contamination has come from DuPont.
"The state has very limited information on what's being discharged from their plant," Dove said. "They want to test annually. It should be tested weekly."
Taylor-Guevara said the state has no laws that would require DuPont to report its APFO findings. She said the state is not holding the company accountable.
Larry Stanley, a hydrogeologist for the Division of Waste Management, has been monitoring the situation in Fayetteville.
In May, Stanley said the agency is allowing DuPont to oversee its own testing. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
While there is no official federal or state threshold for the amount of APFO allowed in the groundwater, Stanley said the state would not be concerned until it reaches 150 parts per billion.
The highest amount found at the Fayetteville facility so far has been 1.5 ppb.
Dove said it's impossible to know what concentrations exist below the Fayetteville facility because there is no information on whether the ground around the APFO site has been tested.
"We want DuPont to step aside and let the state in to do something about that," Dove said. "We want them to do something good for the river to make up for what's already been done."
