2005: Newspaper articles and reports

Papers sealed in 3M lawsuit. But judge widens chemical inquiry.

The 500,000-plus documents that 3M Co. soon will hand over in response to a lawsuit alleging groundwater contamination in Washington County will be sealed, a judge ruled Monday... Hannon's order lays out a time line for the case, including a hearing on class-action status in November 2006. Attorneys say a trial usually doesn't launch until months after such a hearing... The attorneys representing residents of Cottage Grove and nearby areas in the 3M case will be able to ask the court to unseal documents that they think don't include trade secrets.

DuPont, EPA Settle. Company to pay $16.5 million to settle PFOA allegations.

...Granta Y. Nakayama, EPA assistant administrator for enforcement, says the most serious allegation involved failure to report for more than 20 years that PFOA was found in the umbilical cord blood of a baby of a woman working at DuPont's plant outside of Parkersburg, W.Va. That facility uses PFOA to manufacture DuPont's Teflon brand of polytetrafluoroethylene... The company will pay a $10.25 million fine and spend $6.25 million for two additional projects. One is $5 million in research evaluating the potential for nine DuPont fluorotelomers to break down into PFOA. The remaining $1.25 million will fund microscale chemistry and green chemistry programs in schools near the West Virginia plant.

DuPont won't say how C-8 is formed. Residents fear contamination.

... government and company officials are refusing all requests for names of the chemicals and products targeted in a $5 million study included in a record-breaking $16.5 million settlement announced by the EPA last week.

DuPont fined $16.5 million by the EPA. Settlement in W.Va. Teflon plant case is noncourt record for agency.

DuPont fined $16.5 million by the EPA. EPA Settles PFOA Case Against DuPont for Largest Environmental Administrative Penalty in Agency History.

The settlement package requires DuPont to pay $10.25 million in civil penalties and perform Supplemental Environmental Projects worth $6.25 million.
DuPont PFOA Settlement Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs)
Fluorotelomer-based Product Biodegradation Testing SEP
The Biodegradation SEP will investigate the biodegradation potential of certain chemicals to breakdown to form PFOA. The SEP, valued at $5 million and to be completed in 3 years, will evaluate nine of DuPont’s commercial fluorotelomer-based products in commerce prior to the settlement. Using two types of biodegradation studies, the SEP will help the public to better understand the inherent degradation potential of fluorotelomer-based products to form PFOA and the behavior of such products when released to the environment. DuPont will use independent laboratories to perform all work associated with the Biodegradation SEP and will hire an independent third party to serve as a Panel Administrator for a Peer Consultation Panel. The Peer Consultation Panel will address specific charges related to the biodegradation studies. The public will have the opportunity to nominate Peer Consultation Panel members. DuPont has agreed to require the laboratories it contracts with to follow the Agency’s Good Laboratory Practices regulations as well as prepare and follow a Quality Assurance Project Plan.
Microscale Chemistry and Green Chemistry SEP
DuPont will spend $1.25 million to implement over an expected 3 year period the Microscale and Green Chemistry SEP, a SEP that will foster curriculum change in 7 schools in Wood County to reduce risk posed by chemicals using microscale chemistry, which reduces exposure to chemicals, and green chemistry, an approach that uses safer chemicals. The goals of this SEP include reducing the adverse impact to public health by minimizing the potential exposure to chemicals in schools, avoiding subsequent disposal issues for these materials, and enhancing science safety in all of the schools involved in the SEP. This SEP will involve close coordination with teachers and administrators in the participating schools.

• See
The Consent Agreement
EAB Transmittal Memo for DuPont PFOA Settlement

Food Wrapping Under Scrutiny.

... The problem, Evers says, is the chemical coating called Zonyl seeps off into the food and into your body — turning into a possible cancer-causing substance called PFOA... Evers says back in 1987, DuPont scientists discovered Zonyl seeped off the paper at triple the rate advised by FDA, but that was kept a company secret he says...

Top engineer: DuPont hid dangers for years of chemical within teflon, paper products.

... At a Washington press conference in mid-November by the Environmental Working Group, Glenn Evers, a 22-year DuPont veteran and former chair of its technical committee, described DuPont efforts to keep using the chemical mixture, ammonium perfluorooctanic acid, also known as PFOA or C8...

Legislative hearing raises questions about MPCA, 3M relationship.

New discovery of C8 contradicts DuPont claims, say citizen groups; state assumes authority over DuPont investigation.

Newly discovered contamination of groundwater by a controversial toxic chemical manufactured only at DuPont's Fayetteville, North Carolina, facility contradicts the company's previous claims about the source of the contamination and the dangers posed to people and the environment... A total of 24 out of the 28 groundwater and surface water locations sampled in Sept/October 2005 revealed C8 contamination...

DuPont seeking cause of seepage.

... A chemical that has contaminated drinking water near a DuPont plant in West Virginia has seeped into groundwater beneath the Fayetteville plant where it is made. The chemical, ammonium perfluorooctanoate, or APFO, is commonly called C8. It is used by DuPont and other companies to make products including fast-food wrappers, Teflon pans and coatings for wires and semiconductors... The most contaminated water was taken from a new monitoring well near the APFO facility. That sample found a concentration of 147 parts APFO per billion parts water. That is about 100 times more than the amount discovered beneath the other building in 2003... Hudson said the facility releases about 200 pounds of APFO into the air each year around the plant... DuPont opened the $23 million APFO facility in 2002 to produce the chemical after the 3M company stopped making it. The Fayetteville site is the only place in the U.S. where the chemical is made.

EPA, DuPont finalize settlement in C8 lawsuit.

... Lawyers for DuPont and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told an administration law judge on Nov. 23 that they had reached a final agreement, but needed more time to put together the paperwork. Judge Barbara Gunning then gave the parties until Jan. 13 to file the formal agreement. Officials from both the EPA and DuPont refused to release terms of the deal ...

Nonstick Taints: Fluorochemicals are in us all.

... Nonstick cookware has been investigated as another likely candidate, but in recent tests, the Food and Drug Administration found fry pans to be a negligible source. However, those tests showed that during microwaving, the grease-resistant paper used in popcorn bags releases traces of PFOA to the oil that coats the kernels.
Indeed, microwave popcorn is an extreme case. Paper temperatures that can exceed 200 deg. C "significantly increase the potential for [PFOA] migration," say the FDA's Timothy H. Begley and his coworkers in College Park, Md. In the October Food Additives and Contaminants, they conclude that in their study of food-contact materials, treated paper is the greatest potential source of fluorochemicals...

C8 and the Ohio EPA.

... Nicole and her family drank the Little Hocking Water Association's contaminated water until recently when DuPont agreed to supply water that was C8 free. Even so, tests under the DuPont class action settlement found high levels of C8 in Nicole and her family's blood. "My little girl was 500 and mine was 700," said Taggert referring to how many parts per billion of C8 were found in their blood. The average American, by contrast, has 5 parts per billion of C8 in their blood. The tests on Nicole, her family and thousands of other southeast Ohioans found some of the highest C8 levels on earth...

By Roger McCoy.

WBNS-10TV (Ohio).

Former DuPont Top Expert: Company Knew, Covered Up Pollution of Americans' Blood for 18 Years.

1973. Ninety-day feeding study in rats and dogs with Zonyl® RP. Report No. 68-73. Medical Research Project No. 1491. Dupont Haskell Laboratory for Toxicology and Industrial Medicine.

1966. DuPont Internal Memo discussing FDA rejection of Zonyl paper use petition.

1987. DuPont Internal memo showing Zonyl over 3 times the FDA limit.

1984. DuPont Internal memo including petition to FDA showing approved limits.

Nov 15, 2005. Letter to US FDA from the Environmental Working Group.

Papers: DuPont hid chemical risk studies.

DuPont Co. hid studies showing the risks of a Teflon-related chemical used to line candy wrappers, pizza boxes, microwave popcorn bags and hundreds of other food containers, according to internal company documents and a former employee. The chemical Zonyl can rub off the liner and get into food. Once in a person's body, it can break down into perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts, known as PFOA, a related chemical used in the making of Teflon-coated cookware... The DuPont documents were made public Wednesday by the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization... The environmental group on Wednesday gave the FDA and the EPA copies of DuPont-sponsored internal studies indicating higher dangers from Zonyl than the government knew, including its ability to migrate into the food. One of the documents, a 1987 memo, cites laboratory tests showing the chemical came off paper coating and leached into foods at levels three times higher than the FDA limit set in 1967. Another document, a 1973 Dupont study in which rats and dogs were fed Zonyl for 90 days, said both types of animals had anemia and damage to their kidneys and livers; the dogs had higher cholesterol levels.

By John Heilprin.
(Associated Press)
The Washington Post

Letter to US FDA from the Environmental Working Group.

... The documents we are submitting (Exhibit A) show that as of 1987, DuPont'" knowingly produced Zonyl, a paper coating chemical allowed for food contact use, in a manner where the amount of Zonyl that migrated into foods (0.62 ppm) was over three times the FDA-agreed upon limits (Exhibit B). Zonyl was, and presumably still is, used as a grease and water barrier for paper food containers for hundreds of popular food items from French fry and pizza boxes to cookie and doughnut packages, candy wrappers, and microwave popcorn bags. The allowable level (a.k.a. extraction limit) of Zonyl in food is 0.2 ppm, and this amount was the basis for the regulation set by FDA in 1967 that governs the amount of Zonyl that may be applied to papers useld as food packaging and hot food containers: 0.17 lb/1000 sq ft. This is still the legal level today [21 CFR 176.1701. The enclosed document shows that DuPont knew that applying Zonyl to paper at this rate resulted in Zonyl in food at three times the level that FDA found safe in 1967 (0.62 found in 1987 vs. 0.2 established as the limit in 1967). We have very strong reasons to believe that DuPont never informed the FDA of this important finding even though it is clear that it could have had a major impact on the public health, and could have triggered a reevaluation of the safety of the Zonyl as a paper coating that leached into foods...

• Exhibit A
• Exhibit B

Letter to
Robert E. Brackett, Ph.D. Director, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, US. Food and Drug Administration

From
Richard Wiles
Senior Vice President
The Environmental Working Group

Food wrappers have excess C8, engineer says.

French-fry boxes, microwave popcorn bags and pet food containers could contain unsafe amounts of the toxic chemical C8, a longtime DuPont Co. chemical engineer testified last year in a lawsuit against the company. Glenn R. Evers, who left DuPont in 2002, said the company discovered the problem but did nothing about it... During the months before the [class action] settlement, residents’ lawyers obtained sworn statements from a variety of current and former DuPont employees. In April 2004, Evers answered questions under oath from the residents’ lawyers for nearly eight hours. During this interview, called a deposition, Evers said DuPont learned from a 1966 study that chemicals like C8 can be transferred to food if they are used as package coatings. DuPont also knew from a study that dogs that had been fed fluoro-chemicals like C8 developed enlarged livers... DuPont convinced the FDA that its product ZONYL RP would extract to a range of 0.1 to 0.25 parts per million, Evers said. “FDA said, ‘Fine. You are certified,’” Evers said. Later, DuPont discovered that ZONYL RP was leaching more than 0.5 parts per million of C8 into food packaging, Evers said. “What it meant was that we were out of compliance for that particular product,” Evers said. “We shouldn’t be selling it to the paper industry. More of the fluorochemicals product was extracting from the paper into water than what FDA allowed.”

Thousands sign up for C8 health screening.

Teflon value touted to SEC. DuPont says billions staked to use of C-8.

About $1 billion in DuPont Co. sales could be affected if the federal government were to ban or restrict a chemical the company uses to make Teflon, DuPont said Thursday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Customers get water delivered in bottles.

... Under the program, registered households are eligible to receive up to three gallons of drinking and cooking water per resident... DuPont has agreed to finance the bottled water program until the carbon filtration system is operational and effective as agreed to by both DuPont and the Little Hocking Water system.

Steelworkers union says DOE would be courting disaster in allowing DuPont
involvement in operation and clean-up of nuclear weapons plant in South Carolina.

The United Steelworkers (USW) sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Energy,
concerning news that DuPont Company will partner with Fluor Corporation to compete with other companies for contracts worth $7.5 billion in managing and cleaning up the Savannah River nuclear weapons site near Aiken, South Carolina. The letter states:

... Hiring DuPont to manage and clean up the Savannah River Site is tantamount to hiring a wolf to guard a hen house... It is notable that Fluor, DuPont's prospective partner in this endeavor, is the main contractor for DuPont at the company's Fayetteville, North Carolina site where C8 is produced. The C8 plant began operating in late 2002 with DuPont's assurances that C8 would not leak into the air or water. However, three months later C8 was discovered in groundwater and discharges to a nearby river. The USW's own investigation revealed that information about the contamination was not disclosed to state officials for almost six months...

• See: September 2005 United Steelworkers International Union report, Not Walking the Talk: DuPont's Untold Safety Failures, that documents DuPont's poor record of safety performance and environmental compliance. The report also shows how the company covers up this deplorable record through carefully engineered public relations efforts.

Letter from James K. Phillips, Jr., Chair, USW Atomic Workers' Council
to Samuel W. Bodman, Secretary of US Department of Energy.

Lawmakers looking into 3M chemicals, 'outrageous' allegations.

... Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, said he was extremely troubled by additional allegations: that Oliaei has been reprimanded for talking to reporters, that she has had to pay her own expenses and take vacation time to present her findings at scientific conferences, that her immediate supervisor who also wanted to expand the research was replaced suddenly last year, and that her most recent proposal was given to a different scientist and its objectives changed. Marty, committee chairman, said it is "outrageous" that agency managers are overruling some of their experts. It's "mucking around with science and telling scientists not to do their work," he said... Sen. Sharon Marko, DFL-Cottage Grove, and others were displeased that MPCA Commissioner Sheryl Corrigan did not attend the hearing. Corrigan was a manager for Maplewood-based 3M before her appointment as commissioner in late 2002. Applegate said Corrigan has recused herself from all decisions related to 3M...

MPCA scientist tells lawmakers her research on 3M chemicals was blocked.

This report contains links to:
Toxic Traces
Part 1: The science
Part 2: The neighbors
Part 3: The politics
Part 4: The company
Part 5: The future
• The long reach of perfluorinated chemicals
• A timeline of PFCs
• Reporter's notebook
• Resources and links

By Lorna Benson.
Minnesota Public Radio.

Wood residents oppose DuPont permits.

Wood County residents turned out Monday night to object to the latest permits for the landfill where DuPont Co. dumped wastes containing the toxic chemical C8. Under the permits, the state Department of Environmental Protection does not limit the amount of C8 that DuPont can discharge from the landfill into tributaries of the Ohio River... Since the dump opened in 1984, DuPont has disposed of large amounts of C8-contaminated wastes in the facility. Company tests have confirmed that C8 is leaching from the landfill into Dry Run Creek at levels above the company’s internal limits... The landfill permits were last renewed for a five-year term in April 1998 and formally expired April 2003.

By Ken Ward Jr.
The Charleston Gazette (West Virginia).

Public hearing held to discuss industrial waste landfill.

Wood County residents Monday voiced their concerns about an industrial waste landfill owned by DuPont. The Department of Environmental Protection held a 6 p.m. public hearing at the Wood County Courthouse Annex on Market Street. The issue at hand was the renewal of a disposal permit for DuPont's Dry Run landfill. The Dry Run landfill, a 17-acre facility, is located near Lubeck... The permit allows DuPont to discharge C8 from the landfill into nearby creeks. Whyte said C8 is not regulated by state or federal guidelines... Whyte said DuPont plans to close the landfill, and the company must submit a detailed closure plan...

Record levels of toxic PFCs in Minnesota fish. Bioaccumulations in Food Chain Are Building; Fish Advisory May Be Needed.

Alarmingly high levels of a new toxic chemical have been found in Minnesota fish in the Mississippi River near a 3M disposal site, according to new state figures released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The record high levels of the chemical found in the livers of predatory fish will be magnified in the livers of mammals, including humans, who eat those fish. The chemicals are PFCs (perfluorochemical compounds) which bio-accumulate in living tissue and do not break down in the environment. PFCs tend to concentrate in blood and liver tissues of fish and mammals, with those concentrations growing each step up the food chain. The PFCs found in the latest study were manufactured by 3M... Dr. Oliaei found “the highest concentration of [PFCs in] any fish tested to date, and the second highest concentration…for any animal species tested worldwide” in the livers of smallmouth bass caught in the Mississippi near the 3M site...

See also:
• Whistleblower case: Fardin Oliaei v. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
• Lettter from Minnesota State Senator John Marty to Marvin Hora, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).

Before There Was a C-8 Issue…

It was 10 years ago this month that farmer Earl Tennant spoke about contamination of streams near the dry run landfill, a landfill operated by DuPont Washington Works... And Tennant told us the water from those streams was causing a major weight loss in his livestock and a revenue loss for his farm.... Changes involving tougher testing requirements and for DuPont to cap C-8 discharges from the landfill are being proposed by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Agencies widen study of toxins in fish.

C8 testing process vital, but takes time.

DuPont Reports Leaks In Landfill.

...DuPont reported the first of the two leaks in mid-June and the second in July. The leaks appear to have caused the concentration of the chemical C8 in the landfill's water discharge into Dry Run to nearly double, according to company records...

3M wants papers sealed. Suit over Scotchgard chemicals proceeds.

3M Co. is prepared to hand over more than 500,000 pages of documents related to its production of two chemicals but wants the judge handling the Washington County lawsuit to seal the records... 3M is just shifting the burden of determining what is confidential to the residents' legal team, said Mark Englehart, an attorney representing the Washington County residents. The lawsuit, filed almost a year ago, centers on 3M's production of two perfluorochemicals, PFOA and PFOS, and their disposal at nearby dump sites. The chemicals were made at 3M's Chemolite plant in Cottage Grove...

Firm seeks new pollution permit .

AGC Chemicals Americas, Inc., also known as Asahi Glass, on East 22nd Street off Route 440, has petitioned the state for an air pollution control operating permit. It is required to obtain the permit under federal Clear Air Act regulations because it operates a "hazardous waste incinerator."

If the permit is granted, AGC's incinerator would be allowed to discharge into the air up to 1.68 pounds per year of arsenic compound, up to 13,140 pounds per year of chlorine and up to 1,752 pounds per year of hydrogen fluoride, the DEP says.

... One chemical the plant reportedly uses in the manufacturing of a non-stick product, PFOA, has been identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a likely carcinogen, but no federal or state environmental standards have yet been issued governing its discharge from chemical plants...

Ignore rumors; Teflon proven to be safe.

... According to Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, a toxicologist and president of the American Council on Science and Health, "Teflon, probably more than any industrial product, is the poster child of modern technology, one that has made our lives easier and more enjoyable," and it is precisely the product's "stellar success story [that] makes it a very ripe target for those who spew chemical-phobia in their crusade to eliminate the tools modern industrial chemistry has given us -- pesticides, pharmaceuticals, food additives, and more."

Never distracted by the facts, the strategy of many self-styled public health advocacy organizations like the Environmental Working Group, Greenpeace, Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the Union of Concerned Scientists realize that their charges need not be true but merely plausible.

... Distortion and manipulation of science by PR-savvy consumer groups in pursuit of political agendas erodes our society's capacity to innovate and prosper...

By Henry I. Miller.

Chicago Sun-Times.

FAN Notes:
• Henry Miller is on the Board of Directors of the American Council on Science and Health.

• According to Peter Montague: ACSH is "a scheme-tank supported by the chemical industry." (Ref: Rachel's Environment & Health News.
# 656. A Campaign of Reassuring Falsehoods. June 24, 1999.)

DEP has no plans to revisit C8 water limit.

... In May 2002, DEP finalized its 150-part-per-billion C8 limit following a study led by Dee Ann Staats, who was then the agency’s science adviser. Staats’ work on the project was funded by DuPont, and the chemical company had a representative on the study team...

... Emmett, whose research is funded by the federal government, said he was especially concerned about childhood exposure to C8. In his study, Emmett said he found that C8 levels of 150 parts per billion in water would eventually result in blood levels in children of 20,000 to 25,000 parts per billion...

Nonstick Pollution Sticks in People.

... A person's body readily absorbs PFOA but doesn't readily excrete it, says Tim Kropp, a toxicologist with the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group that has been unearthing documents on the health effects and environmental fate of nonstick chemicals. PFOA's half-life in the body is 4.4 years. What that means, Kropp says, is that even if no additional PFOA exposure occurred, the body "would take about 2 decades to get rid of about 99 percent of it."...

In Emmett's study, among people living near the DuPont plant but not working there, young children and older adults tended to have the highest body burdens of the pollutant. For instance, although the median PFOA concentrations was 320 ppb in women and 346 ppb in men, the median among children under 6 was around 500 ppb, and concentrations in some 25 percent of them exceeded 800 ppb. Similarly, the median for people over 60 was 500 ppb but many had blood concentrations "in the thousands," Emmett says. That's bad news, he said at the town hall meeting in Ohio, because these are the most physically vulnerable segments of society.

Another apparent at-risk group: people who eat lots of homegrown produce. Emmett's team found that among Little Hocking water users, those who ate no homegrown fruits and vegetables had median PFOA concentrations of 295 ppb. However, those eating up to 20 servings per week of garden produce had median concentrations of 420 ppb, and the value climbed to 469 ppb for those who ate even more home-grown fruits and veggies. ...

New Discoveries of DuPont C8 Pollution in Fayetteville: Additional Concerns Raised Over Government Inaction and Threat to Drinking Water.

... new evidence that ammonium perfluorooctanoate - or C8 - has further contaminated groundwater wells and a discharge channel leading to the Cape Fear River at the DuPont Co. Fayetteville Works...

North Carolina C8 Working Group
(a coalition of public interest organizations)

Free bottled water available for reimbursement from DuPont.

-- Citizens can be reimbursed for up to three gallons of drinking water per day for each person in the household.
-- all schools are immediately able to buy bottled water
-- Eligibility for non-residential customers such as restaurants will be determined in a case-by-case basis.
-- private well owners, those citizens are eligible if it is determined that the C8 level is 0.05 parts per billion or greater.

Fluoros 2005 Abstractbook (133 pages):
An International Symposium on Fluorinated Alkyl Organics in the Environment
Toronto, Canada

Topics (133 pages):
Environmental Fate and Transport
Analytical Chemistry & Monitoring
Toxicology
Risk Assessment and Regulatory Policy

“SCOTCHGARD” WHISTLEBLOWER FILES FEDERAL FREE SPEECH LAWSUIT — Gag Order Against Speaking with Legislators and at Scientific Conferences on “Emerging Contaminants”

... the chemicals at issue include –
• PFCs, perfluorochemical compounds, which bio-accumulate in living tissue and do not break down. While not yet categorized as a human carcinogen, PFCs have caused birth defects and deaths in animal studies. 3M began to phase out production of the chemicals in 2000, but hundreds of thousands of pounds remain in the environment...

August 17, 2005

(Award presented on July 26, 2005)

West Virginia, Ohio Attorneys Win 2005 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for Settlement Holding DuPont Accountable for C8 Pollution.

Six West Virginia and Ohio lawyers received the 2005 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award from The Trial Lawyers for Public Justice (TLPJ) Foundation on July 26, 2005, for achieving a groundbreaking settlement in Leach v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company, a class action lawsuit in which corporate giant DuPont was sued for damages and medical monitoring stemming from its leaking of perfluorooctanoic acid or “C8” – a chemical used in producing nonstick cookware – into the drinking water of Mid-Ohio Valley residents living near DuPont’s Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

The nation’s single most prestigious honor for trial lawyers, the award is bestowed annually upon the lawyers who made the greatest contribution to the public interest by trying or settling a precedent-setting case. The award was presented at The TLPJ Foundation’s Annual Gala & Awards Dinner at The Carlu in Toronto to Charleston, West Virginia attorneys Harry G. Deitzler, R. Edison Hill, and James C. Peterson of Hill, Peterson, Carper, Bee & Deitzler, PLLC (Hill, Peterson), Larry A. Winter of Winter Johnson & Hill PLLC, and Cincinnati attorneys Robert A. Bilott and Gerald J. Rapien of Taft, Stettinius & Hollister LLP. ...

The Trial Lawyers for Public Justice

The Environmental Working Group

U.S. EPA finds C8 in drinking water near Circleville.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday that DuPont found evidence of ammonium perfluorooctanoate, also known as PFOA and C8, in wells near the plant but did not report the finding because C8 levels fell below a detection level the company set. The wells were used by the Earnhart Hill Regional Water and Sewer District.

"We strongly believe the current approach described by DuPont is not appropriate or acceptable," Cathy Fehrenbacher, a chief with the agency's pollution prevention and toxics office, wrote in an April 28 letter to DuPont.

... The company has agreed to use a lower limit - between 3 and 5 parts per trillion - in samples collected this summer near its Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, W.Va., said David Boothe, planning manager for DuPont Fluoroproducts. The company's current limit is 10 parts per trillion...

...The Ohio EPA on Monday issued a statement saying no C8 had been detected in drinking water near the Circleville plant. The state agency wasn't aware of the letter from federal officials until Tuesday...

North Sea: Oil industry released tons of toxic pollutant.

More than 80 tons of the toxic pollutant known as Perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS) have been flushed directly into the sea by Norwegian oil rigs between 1980 and 2005, according to the first ever estimate of the amount of this toxic pollutant discharged by Norwegian oil rigs.

... “Oil rig operators have discharged fire-fighting foams called "Light Water AFFF" directly into the sea during tests, spills and false alarms,” said today marine biologist Per-Erik Schulze of Friends of the Earth Norway...

Friends of the Earth Norway urges Norwegian authorities to take action
without delay and points out three priorities:
1. Ban all further use of PFOS in the oil industry with immediate effect
2. Safely remove and dispose existing fire-fighting foam containing PFOS
from oil and gas installations
3. Warn the authorities of other countries with offshore activities that
oil installations potentially are a major source of PFOS contamination.

See FOEN estimates online

Avoid C8 water, researcher says.

Ohio Valley residents should avoid drinking water contaminated with DuPont Co.’s toxic chemical C8, the lead researcher in a major government-funded study said Monday night.

Dr. Edward Emmett, a University of Pennsylvania scientist, also said that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s so-called safe limit for C8 in drinking water — 150 parts per billion — needs to be changed...

Residents skeptical of C8 study.

Dr. Edward Emmett of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discusses his group’s findings on a broad study of the chemical known as C8 Monday at Warren High School... The study found that the highest levels of C8 were found in children under the age of 6 and adults over the age of 60.

Little Hocking Water Association customers will receive coupons for free bottled water paid for by DuPont after an announcement Monday that preceded new information regarding the health effects of the chemical C8.

According to officials with the water association, the agreement was reached with DuPont because of concern over recent information showing high levels of the chemical C8 in the blood of its 12,000 customers...

David Altman, a lawyer from Cincinnati representing the water association, said it is still the association’s position that its customers not use any water with C8 in it... The free bottled water will be available until a carbon filtration system is installed and in full operation, Altman said. The process of installing that system is about 50 percent complete and could be done in a few months...

The article above states:

The study found that the highest levels of C8 were found in children under the age of 6 and adults over the age of 60.

The article below states:

Children under 2 years old will not be permitted to have blood drawn, Flensborg said. “We actually advise parents not to have blood drawn on children 6 and under, but we will do one stick,” she said...

People look for answers as C8 blood tests begin.

...Monday was the first day of testing for Belpre and Little Hocking residents and was considered a test run for the health project’s employees. Once the project is fully under way in Belpre, as many as 128 citizens could be tested a day, said Patsy Flensborg, project manager. The goal is to test more than 60,000 people at the four sites over the next year.

Children under 2 years old will not be permitted to have blood drawn, Flensborg said. “We actually advise parents not to have blood drawn on children 6 and under, but we will do one stick,” she said...

Findings by U Penn Researcher on Teflon Chemical.

... the chemical accumulates in children, and builds up in human blood at levels 106 times higher than those in tap water. The study author specifically recommended that parents avoid using the polluted water in infant formula, and called his new findings on children's blood levels "the exact opposite of what we would want to see from a public-health perspective."

Dr. Tim Kropp and Jane Houlihan

Briefing Memorandum
The Environmental Working Group

Providing bottled water a good move by DuPont.

Group to give results of C8 study.

Little Hocking Water Association customers will have an opportunity Monday to find out how the chemical C8 is affecting them, as an independent research group releases the full results of its C8 study...

• A comment period remains open until Aug. 22 for the renewal of DuPont’s permits for its Dry Run landfill in Wood County. DuPont has reported two leaks in the landfill this summer that appear to have increased the discharge of C8.

DuPont C8 Tests OK With EPA. State agency is not concerned that federal EPA suspects company might be withholding data.

... DuPont tests of wastewater taken from a drainage ditch that runs into the Scioto River show C8 at levels between 8.1 parts per billion and 9.8 parts per billion. Those levels are higher than C8 found in three wells the Little Hocking Water Association uses for drinking water in southeastern Ohio... DuPont also estimates that its Circleville plant releases 158 pounds of C8 into the air each year, said Bill Spires, a manager in the Ohio EPA's air division.

C8 found in wastewater, air at DuPont's Circleville plant.

... Tests from one holding pond at the plant that drains into the river showed levels of C8 at 8.1 to 9.8 parts per billion, according to Ohio EPA records obtained by The Columbus Dispatch. Another holding pond that doesn't run into the river had levels of the chemical, also known as ammonium perfluorooctanoate, ranging from 9.4 to 13.2 parts per billion... Rob Banerjee, manager of the Circleville plant, said on Wednesday that the company started collecting wastewater and incinerating it in December to prevent the chemical from getting into the drinking water...

Nonstick cookware risk in question.

... Industry representatives point out that consumer goods produced in processes that use PFOA don't necessarily still contain the chemical. But scientists have found that nonstick coatings can chemically break down when heated, creating and releasing PFOA into food and the environment...

Any risks, though, may extend well beyond nonstick pots and pans. The Food and Drug Administration has begun a preliminary investigation into the migration of PFOA into food heated in coated paper packaging, such as that used for microwave popcorn, pizza boxes and french fry containers. A spokesman for the FDA told The New York Times last month, however, that it's too early to declare coated food packaging a safety risk...

Union raps DuPont on C-8 disclosure. Steelworkers urge health warnings on products.

... Union officials said companies have “a legal duty to warn” customers about cance

r risks and other health concerns posed by perfluorooctanoic acid, also called PFOA or C-8. The chemical is under investigation and has been tentatively labeled as a likely carcinogen by a federal science panel. “What we are trying to do is simply allow these companies to warn their customers and consumers that there’s maybe a problem,” said Joseph Drexler, a spokesman for the labor group. “So we’ve done an extensive mailing to carpet cleaning companies, major retail clothing companies and fast food chains.” ...

Agency rebuffs information request in "Scotchguard" whistleblower case. Issues raised by Minnesota scientist are at core of Senator's Letter.

Lettter from Minnesota State Senator John Marty to Marvin Hora, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).

The letter itemizes specific infomation on perfluorinated chemicals previously requested but not received, for example:

Because of the delay in receiving the information from Dr. Oliaei, we also requested information on any barriers that might have prevented her from sharing this information with legislators. This information is even more pertinent now, because the response we received from our letter to her came from you, not her. In addition, we saw media reports of a whistleblower lawsuit shortly after that, in which she alleged that she was being harassed by the MPCA because of her research and communications on these issues.

The North Carolina C8 Working Group Calls for investigation of water contamination at DuPont Fayetteville Works; "Likely Human Carcinogen" found in groundwater and discharges to the Cape Fear River.

... several of North Carolina’s leading public interest organizations — including Clean Water for North Carolina, the Waterkeeper Alliance, the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Project, and Cape Fear River Watch Inc. — formed “The North Carolina C8 Working Group” to ask state Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR) officials to act quickly to address public health and safety concerns...

New study finds levels of chemical up in people using water.

Citizens who use water from the Little Hocking Water Association were found to have levels of the chemical C8 in their blood 60 to 80 times greater than what is typically found in the general population.

A study released Wednesday from an independent, government-sponsored research group also determined that water was the major cause of C8 in the blood of area citizens. The study focused on residents in the communities of Belpre, Little Hocking, Cutler and Vincent...

Edward A.