Wilmington News Journal, Jeff Montgomery
Published February 4, 2006
For years, a small factory released unknown amounts of Teflon-related chemicals into the air -- chemicals larger companies are under pressure to eliminate worldwide.
The little-noticed record highlights what some groups call loopholes in federal pollution reduction efforts. Environmental Protection Agency officials were recently concerned enough to propose mandatory reporting of C8 and associated emissions nationwide, although adoption could be years away.
State Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control officials said they quietly targeted the Delaware emissions in 2003 when they required additional pollution control steps for a Teflon baking operation at PTFE Compounds Inc. near Hares Corner.
But regulators said they can only estimate how much of the C8-type chemicals -- tentatively dubbed a likely carcinogen -- reached the environment around Airport Industrial Park during the past decade. Information on worker exposures, closely followed at larger C8-handling plants, was unavailable.
PTFE bakes Teflon at hundreds of degrees, often in combination with other materials, to make custom materials used by other industries. State officials never have requested direct sampling of emissions for C8 pollutants.
Hundreds of other plants around the nation and world handle similar materials, industry and federal officials say. Their emissions only surfaced as a concern in recent years.
"I've seen a lot of different things on the news about that and I am concerned," said Yvonne L. Gallagher, whose Washington Park neighborhood home stands east of the Airport Industrial Park. "From what I've heard, they're probably not doing enough about it."
Concerns raised
The DuPont Co., which supplies some of the materials processed by PTFE, gave DNREC suggestions for curbing the emissions before the smaller company restarted one of its operations after a temporary shutdown in 2002.
A company spokeswoman said DuPont supplies many companies similar to the operation near Hares Corner.
"If you have these sort of unregulated exposures for years and now you have what seems to be a semi-regulated exposure, that's obviously a cause for concern," said Tim Kropp, senior scientist for Environmental Working Group, based in Washington, D.C.
"I think there are a lot of questions about what's being done to the workers and what's been done to the community," Kropp said.
Officials from PTFE Compounds Inc. did not return phone calls Thursday or Friday.
DuPont spokeswoman Catherine L. Andriadis confirmed that PTFE was a DuPont customer and an industrial supplier of Teflon-containing materials used with other products. But she said DuPont has drastically reduced C8 concentrations in the materials it gives to other factories.
"Any very low trace or very low levels that would exist in any product they receive would be virtually eliminated by the time it leaves their doors," Andriadis said.
Kropp said more information would be available on possible releases if the EPA acts quickly on a proposal for mandatory nationwide reporting of C8 emissions even at relatively low levels.
Level of regulation disputed
EPA officials included the reporting plan in a call for voluntary, worldwide elimination of C8-type chemicals, also called PFOA, from emissions and products within 10 years. The agency cited warnings that the C8 is "persistent in the environment, that it has been detected in human blood, and that animal studies indicate effects of concern."
DuPont was among the companies that the EPA "invited" to participate, and immediately agreed. The company paid $16.5 million to the agency last year for reporting violations involving C8, and faces hundreds of millions in costs to settle a C8 class action pollution settlement.
Delaware's permits for PTFE Compounds Inc., however, never directly mention C8, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) or related chemicals.
DNREC environmental engineer Paul Foster said DuPont representatives zeroed in on C8 when suggesting a pollution control strategy in 2003. Processing later resumed at reduced daily rates, with a requirement for heat-treating exhaust gases but without a requirement for periodic exhaust testing. Officials said the changes were based on DNREC's tightest air pollution limits.
"We did our job pretty well," Foster said. "We had a lot of good science and good engineering."
Alan Muller, who directs the environmental group Green Delaware, saw things differently.
"Plainly, this is the kind of a process that on its face has a huge potential for dangerous emissions and isn't being monitored," Muller said."You have a site that's been emitting C8 for many years, it's very important to take a look, and I'm afraid that's exactly what the regulatory process avoids doing."
DNREC's Foster estimated a daily air pollution rate -- before the changes -- that would have yielded less than 75 pounds of air pollution per year. Actual results, however, are not subject to periodic, government supervised tests of exhaust vents or surrounding soil and water.
By comparison, DuPont's Chambers Works in Deepwater, N.J., at the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, released 24,900 pounds of C8 in 1999 but was expected to drop to 1,000 pounds this year.
Exceeding pollution limits
Much of PTFE's business involves custom production of Teflon blended with other materials for use by customers as coatings, moldings and other products.
The company also receives from DuPont big batches of a slurry-like material called "wet micropowder" containing a Teflon product and liquid containing C8.
Workers at the plant use two ovens to bake and dry the material, which Foster said is then sent out as Zonyl micropowder.
Company officials did not return phone calls about the process.
PTFE ran afoul of state regulators in 1997 when officials discovered that the plant exceeded state pollution limits every year from 1993 to 1997. The agency ordered the company to pay a $38,000 fine but waived $19,000 of the penalty after PTFE paid $9,500 and spent $19,000 on a pollution control device.
Months after the penalty order, PTFE was rocked by an explosion that blew a 10-foot hole in a thick block wall at the plant, triggering an evacuation order and toxic pollution scare.
Company operations at Chambers Works now are more heavily focused on fluorotelomers, compounds that the EPA suspects may break down into C8 in the environment.
Researchers believe that C8 has contaminated the bloodstreams of humans and animals around the world, with higher levels found in people near factories or served by contaminated water containing the chemical.
Scientists suspect the compound may be linked to a variety of cancers, immune system disorders and developmental problems in animals, although consequences for humans remains under intense debate.
