Company to pay $16.5 million
Charleston Gazette, Ken Ward Jr.
Published December 15, 2005
Federal regulators revealed Wednesday that DuPont Co. withheld the results of studies that found three chemicals related to the controversial Teflon ingredient C8 to be "extremely toxic."
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials made the disclosure as they announced a $16.5 million settlement with DuPont over allegations that the company covered up health risk associated with C8.
EPA officials called the settlement - which includes $10.25 million in fines and $6.25 million in environmental projects - "unprecedented."
"This settlement sends a strong message that companies are responsible for promptly informing EPA about risk information associated with their chemicals," said Granta Nakayama, EPA's assistant administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
But EPA officials said little about the three newly disclosed studies on other, C8-like chemicals.
The agency refused to name the substances, saying that DuPont claimed the chemical identities were "confidential business information."
"The rats in the study died," Nakayama told reporters when asked to describe the findings of one of the DuPont reports.
EPA tucked the resolution of allegations about the three studies into a larger settlement with DuPont of an EPA complaint that the company hid from the public and regulators important information about the dangers of C8.
C8 is another name for ammonium perfluorooctanoate, or PFOA. DuPont has used it since the 1950s at its Washington Works plant south of Parkersburg to make Teflon and other similar nonstick and stain-resistant products that are widely used.
DuPont had planned to fight the EPA allegations, and on Wednesday continued to say its interpretation of legal reporting requirements "differed" from that of EPA.
DuPont says that "no human health effects are known to be caused" by C8, but adds that the company is dramatically reducing its emissions of the chemical.
In a prepared statement, DuPont vice president and general counsel Stacey J. Mobley said, "The settlement allows us to put this matter behind us and move forward."
But, DuPont still faces an ongoing criminal investigation of its actions regarding C8.
Last month, DuPont told stockholders that, "The collection, review and production of documents" in response to a federal grand jury subpoena "will continue past Dec. 31, 2005."
EPA officials said that the $10.25 million DuPont fine is a record for a civil penalty obtained by the agency without going to federal court.
The $6.25 million in "supplemental environmental projects" includes $5 million for a study of whether various DuPont products break down to form C8 during consumer use.
DuPont has done some such studies, and more were ready to be performed under separate agreements with an EPA branch investigating C8's toxicity.
The other $1.25 million will fund a program to reduce risks posed by chemicals used in Wood County schools science classes, EPA said.
The total to be paid by DuPont, $16.5 million, amounts to 0.22 percent of the Wilmington, Del.-based chemical giant's 2004 profits of $7.6 billion. Under the law, DuPont could have faced more than $300 million in civil penalties.
"What's the appropriate fine for a $25 billion company that for decades hid vital health information about a toxic chemical that now contaminates every man, woman and child in the United States?" said Ken Cook, president of the Washington-based Environmental Working Group. "We're pretty sure it's not $16 million, even if that is a record amount under a federal law that everyone acknowledges is extremely weak."
In the case, filed in July 2004, the EPA alleged that DuPont for 20 years covered up key data about C8's health effects and about the pollution of water supplies near the Washington Works plant.
Specifically, EPA alleged that DuPont never told the government that it had water tests that showed C8 in residential supplies in concentrations greater than the company's internal limit.
Also, EPA alleged that DuPont withheld for more than 20 years the results of a test that showed that at least one pregnant worker from the Parkersburg plant had transferred the chemical from her body to her fetus.
In settling four counts of its original and an amended complaint against DuPont, EPA also resolved four other counts that had never before been made public by the agency.
The first concerned DuPont's failure to immediately report results of a study that found troublesome levels of C8 in the blood of non-plant workers who live near the Washington Works facility.
Each of the other three concerned DuPont's alleged failure to report studies concerning other, C8-like substances.
Those studies were completed in 1997, but not reported to EPA until December 2004, according to the settlement document.
In each case, DuPont found that the chemical caused "significant lethality" in rats at an aerosol dose of 0.5 milligrams per liter, the settlement document said.
In the case of one chemical, DuPont reported the results of a Jan. 17, 2002, study to EPA five days later.
However, the company did not report the results of a July 1997 study of the same chemical at a different concentration until December 2004.
In each case, DuPont submitted the 1997 studies to EPA as part of 41 boxes of chemical data turned over to the agency after EPA filed its C8 complaint.
EPA agreed to allow DuPont to resolve allegations about the four new counts with $250,000 in fines.
