http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61332-2004Aug12.html
August 13, 2004
Washington Post -
Page A03
DuPont Defends Its
Reporting on Teflon Ingredient
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Chemical giant DuPont
Co. told the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday that it fully complied
with federal reporting rules on health and environmental risks associated
with a key ingredient used in making Teflon.
The company's defense
of its decision not to provide all the data it gathered over 20 years
on perfluorooctanoic acid, a soaplike material used in making stick-resistant
surfaces and materials for products, signals the start of legal wrangling
between the nation's largest chemical maker and the administration. EPA
announced last month that it is seeking millions in fines from DuPont,
contending that the company failed to give the government information
that has raised concerns about the compound, also known as C-8 or PFOA.
"We'll fight EPA on this issue," said Stacey J. Mobley, DuPont's
general counsel. "We have and will continue to manage PFOA safely."
EPA and critics such
as the Environmental Working Group, a private advocacy group, have charged
that DuPont failed to report important findings to the federal government,
including the company's discovery in the 1980s of traces of the chemical
in a pregnant worker's fetus and in municipal water supplies near the
company's Parkersburg, W.Va., plant. Company officials also became concerned
after they received copies of an animal study that linked C-8 to possible
birth defects, though they later discounted the study as inaccurate.
In their response
to EPA's complaint, DuPont said one of the key internal documents in question
-- which noted elevated C-8 levels in the blood of childbearing workers
and in some of their infants' blood -- did not amount to a full toxicology
report.
"We're talking
about one data point on one sheet of paper. It was not toxicological data,"
Mobley said, adding that it did not meet the "substantial risk"
threshold that would have required the company to notify EPA.
Andrea V. Malinowski,
another DuPont lawyer, said chemicals such as C-8 "are expected to
pass through the placenta."
While at least one
DuPont worker had a baby with birth defects similar to the ones identified
in a 1981 animal study by 3M, the company's chief toxicologist, Robert
W. Rickard, said he was sure the chemical "does not cause birth defects."
DuPont officials also
said that while they determined in the 1980s that local water supplies
had C-8 levels that exceeded the company's internal guidelines, it is
unfair of EPA to apply that standard to reporting requirements when a
federal panel determined in 2001 that levels could be 150 times as high
without posing a safety risk.
EPA did not comment
in detail on DuPont's filing, but spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said the
agency will review it and "remains committed to pursuing an appropriate
resolution of DuPont's failures to report information regarding"
the compound.
The company has asked
for a hearing before an administrative law judge, a process it must complete
before deciding whether to appeal to federal court. DuPont officials emphasized
that they were cooperating with EPA on a separate risk assessment of C-8.
Tim Kropp, a senior
scientist with the Environmental Working Group, said DuPont's response
reflects an unwillingness to inform the public about potential health
hazards.
"This is not a company working in good faith to protect human health,"
Kropp said.
