February
16, 2003
The
Columbus Dispatch
(Ohio)
INTERNAL
WARNINGS
Industry memos show DUPONT knew for decades that a chemical used to make
Teflon is polluting workers and neighbors
By Michael Hawthorne
LITTLE HOCKING, Ohio
-- Kenny Taggart always volunteered for blood drives at the DuPont plant
across the Ohio River, where he spent most of his adult life mixing chemicals
used to make Teflon anti-stick coatings.
When Taggart stopped by the plant's medical office in the early 1980s
to offer another pint, the nurse shook her head and turned him away. His
name was on a list of employees whose blood was contaminated with ammonium
perfluorooctanoate, a chemical known within the company as C8.
Taggart didn't know
much about C8, but DuPont did.
Company scientists issued internal warnings about the chemical as early
as 1961, according to DuPont records filed last year with a West Virginia
court. Medical studies conducted during the 1970s and '80s by DuPont and
3M, chief supplier of the chemical, showed that C8 builds up in human
blood, doesn't break down in the environment and might cause serious health
problems, including liver damage, reproductive and developmental defects
and cancer.
DuPont records also show the company has known for at least two decades
that C8 contamination extends beyond workers at its Washington Works plant
west of Parkersburg, W.Va., where the chemical has been used since 1951
to help keep Teflon and related coatings from clumping as they are manufactured.
As the warning signs about C8 mounted at DuPont, few people outside the
company were told, including thousands of people in the surrounding river
valley who drink and breathe the chemical every day, according to internal
documents and interviews with local officials.
Government officials didn't know much, either. Like thousands of other
chemicals used by industry, C8 is not regulated by the federal government.
But that could soon change.
Amid growing concerns about the persistence of C8 in humans and its potential
health effects, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched an investigation
in September to determine a national standard for the chemical. A decision
is expected later this year.
The agency took action after 3M provided research showing that millions
of Americans likely have been exposed to the chemical. The studies detected
low levels of C8 across the nation in human blood and in foods such as
apples, bread, green beans and ground beef.
EPA scientists still are trying to determine how C8 spreads in the environment
and what it can do to humans.
Under pressure from the EPA to contain C8 and a related chemical used
in Scotchgard, 3M announced in May 2000 that it would stop making them.
DuPont now makes C8 at one of its own plants.
''Who knows how much C8 I've still got in my blood,'' said Taggart, 62,
who retired from DuPont nine years ago but still drinks C8-contaminated
water at his home in Little Hocking. ''It can't be good. If it was, the
good Lord would have put it in your body when he made you.''
Company says it's safe
C8 levels found in local drinking water aren't harmful, DuPont says. The
company also says the chemical is used to help process Teflon and is removed
before the coating is applied to cookware, clothing and other products
sold worldwide.
''While C8 is persistent in human blood, there is no evidence of adverse
human-health impact,'' DuPont says on a Web site (www.c8inform.com) it
established last March to give the public information about the chemical.
When asked to comment, DuPont repeatedly referred The Dispatch to the
Web site.
Based on at least a half dozen studies by 3M and DuPont that revealed
C8 accumulates in the blood of workers and can be found outside manufacturing
plants, DuPont established a ''community exposure standard'' in 1991 of
1 part per billion in drinking water.
In May 2002, after much higher levels were found in drinking water on
the Ohio side of the river, the state of West Virginia declared that the
safe level of C8 in water is 150 parts per billion, a dramatic departure
from the standard DuPont continued to cite in internal documents as recently
as November 2001.
DuPont officials say their exposure standard was never intended to be
a ''safe level,'' although a June 1987 memo from the company's safety
office shows that DuPont scientists were instructed to establish an ''acceptable
level for C8 in community drinking water.''
''Our internal levels are typically set so conservatively that we are
positive we can comply with any level that regulators might set,'' said
Dawn Jackson, a DuPont spokeswoman. ''Most importantly, we've been using
C8 for more than 50 years, and we have not identified any health effects
associated with exposure.''
Internal documents show that both 3M and DuPont had concerns about animal
testing that showed possible connections between C8 and health problems.
Those concerns, however, were downplayed over the years.
Federal officials urge further study.
''Toxicological studies in rodents and primates have shown that exposure
to (C8) can result in a variety of effects, including developmental/reproductive
toxicity, liver toxicity and cancer,'' EPA scientists wrote in a Sept.
23 internal memo.
Rats and monkeys are two species that scientists test to determine whether
chemicals are toxic to humans.
In Ohio, C8 has been detected in drinking water
as far away as Pomeroy, 70 miles downriver from the DuPont plant, and
4 miles upriver in Belpre, a discovery that federal and state officials
say indicates the contamination can spread through air as well as water.
The highest levels found so far are in wells of the Little Hocking Water
Association, which are directly across the river from the DuPont plant.
Tests conducted last year by DuPont contractors revealed that every time
the association's 12,000 customers in Washington and Athens counties turn
on a tap, their water contains levels of C8 twice as high as DuPont's
community standard of 1 part per billion.
Local officials shut off one of the association's wells last spring after
tests detected levels of C8 that were nearly eight times higher than DuPont's
community standard. Test borings in the well field found levels in groundwater
that were 78 times higher than the DuPont standard.
DuPont tests Ohio water
Court records show that DuPont has known about the contamination in Little
Hocking since at least 1984, when the company sent an employee across
the river to fill a jug with tap water from Mason's Market, the local
general store.
The tests detected C8 in drinking water on both sides of the river, according
to an Aug. 29, 1984, DuPont memo stamped ''personal and confidential.''
The memo is one of several internal DuPont documents filed with a Wood
County, W.Va., circuit court hearing a class-action lawsuit filed by plant
neighbors.
''The fact that DuPont didn't tell people anything about the C8 says something,''
said Robert Griffin, general manager of the Little Hocking water system.
''Either they didn't know what it does, or they didn't want us to know
what they know.''
Company executives say the tests were part of a ''comprehensive effort
to learn more about C8.''
''DuPont acted with the absolute confidence that the low or non-detectable
levels of C8 found in the Little Hocking water samples during the mid-1980s
posed no risks to the health of Little Hocking residents or our own employees
in the area,'' Richard Angiullo, vice president and general manager of
DuPont's fluroproducts division, said in a written statement.
Sara Mason, who has owned the Little Hocking general store since 1968,
said sales of bottled water have increased since the village was first
informed about the C8 contamination last year.
Reaction from her customers has been mixed, Mason said. Some are reluctant
to question DuPont, a source of well-paying jobs in a corner of Appalachia
faced with chronically high unemployment. Others feel ''violated'' by
the chemical contamination of water they rely upon daily for drinking
and bathing.
''It feels like a burglar has snuck in through my back door,'' Mason said.
''It's there, it's been there for years, and we're stuck with it.''
Under an agreement reached last March with the EPA, DuPont must reduce
air emissions of C8 to half of 1999 levels by the end of this year. The
company also installed equipment to strip the chemical from wastewater
dumped into the Ohio River, but there apparently is no known method to
remove C8 already in the environment.
EPA scientists began their inquiry in the late 1990s after 3M told the
agency that a related chemical, which was used in the company's line of
Scotchgard products, had been found in blood banks from Boston to Los
Angeles. Studies provided by 3M showed the chemicals could pose widespread
risks to human health and the environment, according to the EPA.
Pressed by the EPA to come up with a solution, 3M chose to stop making
all '' perfluorochemicals,'' including C8 and the Scotchgard compound,
which was used to protect carpets, clothing, fabrics and upholstery from
stains and other damage.
The agency was prepared to take steps to order the chemicals off the market
if 3M had not acted, according to a May 16, 2000, memo written by Charles
Auer, director of the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.
Nineteen months later, DuPont announced that it would start making C8
itself at a plant in Fayetteville, N.C. ''It was essential that DuPont
take steps to ensure reliable access to this vital raw material,'' the
company said in a news release announcing the move.
Chemical danger debated
DuPont has studied about 40 alternatives to C8, all of which were abandoned
because they either didn't meet the same performance standards or, like
C8, were found to accumulate in human blood.
Officials at 3M said they have no evidence that C8 and the related chemical
used in Scotchgard (perfluorooctanyl sulfonate, or PFOS) pose a long-term
risk to human health.
''Our decision to phase out production is based on our principles of responsible
environmental management,'' Charles Reich, a 3M executive vice president,
said when the company announced it would stop making the chemicals.
DuPont's Web site says 3M officials told DuPont the phaseout ''was not
based on any health or safety concern.''
EPA and company records, though, suggest the chemicals may be more dangerous
than 3M and DuPont have publicly acknowledged.
In 1978, after 3M told DuPont that C8 had been detected in the blood of
workers at a Minnesota plant that manufactured the chemical, DuPont officials
said that C8 might be causing ''toxic effects'' and started their own
testing program.
After 3M reported in 1981 that C8 caused birth defects in rats, both companies
reassigned women who worked in areas where the chemical was used. They
later allowed the women to return to their regular jobs.
DuPont also advised employees exposed to C8 to not
give blood but later lifted those restrictions.
In 1990, a researcher in Minnesota found that 3M employees with long-term
exposure to C8 had higher rates of death from prostate cancer than employees
who did not work with the chemical. DuPont and 3M discounted the results,
saying the test group was too small.
Both companies stepped up their research in the 1990s. In a 1997 summary
of test results, DuPont said company scientists still didn't understand
how C8 caused cancer in animals ''and therefore relevance to humans cannot
be completely ruled out.''
The American Conference of Government and Industrial Hygienists, a national
group of workplace health experts, considers C8 a ''confirmed animal carcinogen
with unknown relevance to humans.'' The banned pesticides DDT and chlordane
are in the same category.
One of the most recent studies, conducted last year for 3M, suggested
a link between C8 and reproductive and developmental defects in rats.
But the companies say the mechanism that caused tumors in rats might not
be relevant to humans.
''Rats . . . are uniquely sensitive to C8's mechanism of toxicity,'' DuPont
says on its Web site.
In another industry study, C8 was found to kill monkeys and cause damage
to the liver and gastrointestinal tract, ''suggesting a different mode
of action than observed in rats,'' according to a draft EPA hazard assessment
prepared last spring.
The EPA believes all of the test results may be relevant to humans.
''Additional toxicology data submitted to the agency suggest a potential
for reproductive/developmental toxicity, and additional blood sample analysis
data indicate low-level exposures to the general population that are unexplained
at this time,'' the EPA's Auer wrote in a Sept. 27 memo.
Ohio endorses findings
West Virginia officials say they based their ''safe level'' of C8 in drinking
water on the latest available science. The Ohio EPA did not conduct its
own study but endorsed West Virginia's findings.
''If the feds come up with something different, we'll reassess the situation,''
said Jim Leach, an Ohio EPA spokesman.
A panel of scientists that came up with the limit of 150 parts per billion
in drinking water included representatives from DuPont and the federal
government. It acted under West Virginia laws written to protect water
and air from chemical contamination.
''We just couldn't wait for EPA to finish its hazard assessment, which
could take years,'' said Perry McDaniel, an attorney for the West Virginia
Department of Environmental Quality. ''We studied the matter and then
negotiated with DuPont to get some action quicker than that.''
West Virginia's C8 limit has been criticized by plant neighbors who sued
DuPont over the contamination; local water officials in Ohio; and the
Environmental Working Group, a research organization in Washington.
''It's pretty clear they used selective science to mislead the public,''
said Richard Wiles, the environmental group's senior vice president. ''They
appear to have come down on the side of being less protective of public
health and more protective of DuPont.''
The group has reviewed thousands of pages of documents submitted to the
EPA by 3M and DuPont and has posted many of them on its Web site (www.ewg.org).
Based on that review, the group concluded that West Virginia greatly underestimated
the risks posed by C8.
For instance, West Virginia officials told the public they had applied
various EPA-approved safety factors to their calculations but didn't actually
do so, Wiles said. Among other things, the factors would have accounted
for the persistence of C8 in humans and the environment, exposure to the
chemical through air and food and exposure to infants.
If those factors had been applied, Wiles said, the allowable level of
C8 in drinking water would be between 1.5 and 15 parts per billion, much
lower than the 150 parts per billion limit established by the state.
DuPont released a statement praising the West Virginia department for
supporting the company's position ''that the presence of C8 at the low
levels detected to date in drinking water in the Mid-Ohio Valley is not
harmful.''
The company stands by its conclusions.
''The methodology was consistent with the EPA's methodology,'' said Jackson,
the DuPont spokeswoman, who called the Environmental Working Group's criticism
''unfounded.''
After West Virginia established its standard, attorneys for plant neighbors
obtained a court order to prevent the leader of the scientific panel from
destroying documents related to the investigation. One of the documents
proposed a draft ''safe level'' of C8 in water of 1 part per billion,
identical to DuPont's community standard.
Critics also note that Jennifer Seed, a U.S. EPA toxicologist on the West
Virginia panel, abstained from voting on most of the group's findings.
Seed later wrote a memo urging the federal agency to conduct more study
of C8. She did not return telephone calls requesting comment.
Just because the EPA is conducting its own study doesn't mean the agency
has rejected West Virginia's work, McDaniel said. ''What they are doing
and what we did are two totally separate issues and processes,'' he said.
''We relied upon accepted EPA protocols and used the best science available.''
Ohioans who live near the DuPont plant can thank
a West Virginia farmer for setting in motion a series of events that informed
the public about the C8 contamination.
Wilbur Tennant and his wife, Sandra, won a legal
settlement from DuPont two years ago after they accused the company of
sickening their family and killing their cattle by dumping C8 into a landfill
near their farm. When their attorney, Robert Bilott of Cincinnati, asked
the EPA to order DuPont to stop using C8, the company sought a restraining
order to prevent ''intense media coverage'' of the request.
''The general public's fascination with the topic of environmental contamination
and related litigation is evident in the wild success of movies such as
. . . Erin Brockovich,'' DuPont lawyers wrote in a motion arguing that
public disclosure of the C8 contamination would prejudice jurors in the
Tennant case.
A federal judge rejected the request for a restraining order. And after
West Virginia residents near the DuPont plant began to learn their water
was contaminated with C8, Ohio officials started to ask questions about
the chemical.
''When we started out back in the '60s, our biggest worry was the water
was too hard,'' said Lyle Dayhoff, a retired medical technologist who
helped start the Little Hocking Water Association. ''We never had a hint
that we might have a problem with DuPont.''
Don Poole, manager of the Tuppers Plains-Chester Water District in Meigs
County, said the discovery of C8 in local drinking water has prompted
some of his 5,000 customers to resort to dark humor to express their frustration.
Three years ago, the district placed second in a taste test sponsored
by the National Rural Water Association. ''My friends joke that it must
have been the C8,'' Poole said.
''To me, this C8 contamination is a trespass, and they (DuPont) should
be treated as trespassers,'' he said. ''But unless the U.S. EPA steps
in, there is not much we can do about it.''
mhawthorne@dispatch.com
• Environmental
releases
DuPont dumped 55,000 pounds of C8 into the Ohio River during 1999. It
released another 31,250 pounds of C8 into the air during 2000, the latest
year for which figures are available.
• Where it's been detected
Tests show that C8 has contaminated drinking water supplies in West
Virginia and Ohio. C8 from undetermined sources has been detected in
the blood of humans and wildlife across the United States.
• A question of safety
DuPont and West Virginia officials say the C8 levels found in drinking
water aren't harmful. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is conducting
a study that could result in federal regulation of the chemical.
Sources: DuPont, U.S. EPA, West Virginia Department of
Environmental Quality
Excerpt from U.S. EPA MEMO, Sept. 23, 2002
''Toxicological studies in rodents and primates have shown that exposure
to PFOA [C8] can result in a variety of effects, including developmental
/ reproductive toxicity, liver toxicity and cancer.''
Excerpt from U.S. EPA MEMO, Sept. 27, 2002
''. . . additional blood sample analysis data indicate low level exposures
[of C8] to the general population that are unexplained at this time.''
