Feds seek DuPont records

Wilmington News Journal, Jeff Montgomery
Published May 19, 2005

The U.S. Justice Department has issued a grand jury subpoena to the DuPont Co. for records related to chemicals used to make Teflon, the nonstick ingredient in thousands of consumer, manufacturing and industry goods. Company spokesman R. Clifton Webb described the request by the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., as "fairly broad." He said in most instances they were documents DuPont already provided to the Environmental Protection Agency. Webb and Justice Department spokesman Ben Porritt said the subpoena and grand jury proceedings are not related to a recent, tentative EPA settlement involving charges that DuPont failed to report health and pollution risks from the same chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), also called C-8. "These are independent of one another," Porritt said. "It's not unusual for cases to be looked at both civilly and criminally." Neither the government nor the company had additional details on the grand jury probe's scope or deadlines. DuPont has reported setting aside $15 million to cover costs for the EPA settlement, with final negotiations of the civil matter expected to continue into the summer. In the new case, the subpoena was served by the environmental crimes section of the Justice Department. The EPA released a preliminary risk assessment for C-8 in 2003, prompted by concerns that the compound lingers in the environment and in the human body. Researchers reported finding the chemical in human blood at low levels across the country and around the world. Some reports describe possible links to developmental disorders, cancer or other toxic effects. Ken Cook of the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit, environmental research organization, said the action "gives some hope that DuPont will be held accountable for its contamination of virtually every American's bloodstream with this toxic Teflon chemical." "A federal criminal probe should not be required to find out what a company knew and when it knew it regarding a product's contamination of people and the environment," Cook said. "It's a dramatic example of why we need a complete overhaul of the regulatory system for this industry." DuPont last month briefed the EPA on efforts to reduce emissions of the same class of chemicals at the company's Chambers Works in Deepwater, N.J. Similar documents filed with the EPA last year indicated DuPont has drastically reduced emissions of the chemicals from its New Jersey and West Virginia operations. Progress also was reported in efforts to curb releases of compounds used at Chambers Works that can break down into C-8. Overall air and water emissions have dropped by 85 percent in New Jersey and 96 percent in West Virginia, according to the company. DuPont officials briefed workers at Chambers Works on the developments Thursday, according to Jim Rowe, president of PACE/USW Local 943. "They were answering questions and talking about some different ways that they're going to go about changing the product" to eliminate the pollution problem, Rowe said. "I'm all for that, if they have something else that can do the same job and we don't lose jobs. The thing is, they had problems with disclosure, and we all know that DuPont's had that same problem before." Stacey Mobley, senior vice president, chief administrative officer and general counsel for the company, said in a prepared statement, "We will be fully responsive to the [Department of Justice] in this matter." The EPA in July accused DuPont of failing on several occasions to report information about substantial risk to human health or the environment from June 1981 through March 2001. All of the complaints involved delays or omissions in disclosures about PFOA and indications of the compound's potential toxicity. Earlier this year, DuPont agreed to pay $107.6 million to settle claims in West Virginia that the company contaminated water supplies around DuPont's Washington Works, W.Va., plant. Last month, DuPont released a company-sponsored study that found little consumer exposure to C-8 from the use of Teflon-coated cookware or other nonstick products. Levels detected were thousands of times safer than what is typically considered acceptable by regulatory agencies, said Dr. Robert W. Rickard, DuPont chief toxicologist.