http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=18052
September 13, 2004
The Athens News (Ohio)
DuPont settlement would
pay east-county water customers
By Jonathan Hunt
Athens NEWS Contributor
A tentative settlement
announced Thursday could offer several thousand residents of eastern Athens
County about $1,000 each in direct payments for drinking water tainted by
a chemical DuPont uses to make Teflon.
The agreement in principle
awaits approval by Wood County, W.Va. Circuit Judge George W. Hill, and
affected water customers would have a chance to give feedback on the plan.
If the settlement goes
forward, litigation that began when Mid-Ohio Valley residents sued DuPont
in August 2001 could end with the Delaware-based chemical company's total
expense for those claims being capped at $107.6 million -- but only if a
$5 million health study included in that figure finds no causal relationship
between the chemical and human diseases including birth defects.
A positive link between
diseases and the chemical -- known as C-8, perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA
-- would trigger another payout of up to $235 million by DuPont to fund
medical monitoring of exposed persons. That scenario would mean a potential
cost to DuPont of $342 million plus any liability arising from new or reopened
claims.
A joint press release
by both sides in the lawsuit stipulated the company will "not contest
general causation between PFOA and any such disease in any personal injury
claims that plaintiffs may pursue" if a three-person team of doctors
chosen by the parties discovers a link.
"What's really
important is that every person who is found to have a related disease preserves
their claim," plaintiffs' attorney Harry Deitzler said Friday. "The
statute of limitations for the claims against DuPont is put on hold."
Jury selection for a
civil trial in the class action case had been scheduled for Oct. 12 in Parkersburg.
Court approval of the
new agreement will prevent the current plaintiffs from acquiring medical
monitoring, property damages or any punitive damages via a jury award, the
press release said.
If approved, the $107.6
million will include $10 million to provide new DuPont-developed filtering
systems to remove most PFOA from impacted water systems. Another $20 million
will fund PFOA-related public education projects in the region, and $22.6
million will go toward residents' legal fees.
DuPont Director of Media
Relations Clif Webb said Friday that the filtration technology is already
available.
"We gained a great
deal of experience as far as filtration mediums," Webb said about the
company cutting PFOA emissions at its Washington Works plant near Parkersburg.
The facility, sited on land George Washington once owned, is the largest
DuPont factory in the world and employs about 2,200 people.
Though both sides hailed
the settlement as a fair and scientific way to proceed, residents' health
concerns will likely remain in limbo while the study takes place over a
period of years. A separate health study commissioned
by the National Institutes for Health is under way in Washington County.
DuPont fought Judge
Hill's April 2003 order to provide PFOA blood monitoring before the trial
and won a reversal at the West Virginia Supreme Court last December. It
now might avoid this expensive process entirely if the new health study
absolves the chemical from health effects.
Webb reiterated DuPont's faith that this is a benign substance.
"We certainly are
confident about the safety of PFOA," he said. "The science says
there's no human health effect. We also believe if they make a determination
there is no (disease) association, then this matter would be put to rest."
Webb cited DuPont's
temporary removal of female workers from the Teflon production unit in 1981
as evidence of its emphasis on safety. Two of the workers bore children
with facial birth defects, and PFOA turned up in a healthy baby's umbilical
cord, an internal company document released in the discovery phase of the
lawsuit showed.
There is no proof the
defects were caused by PFOA exposure, however.
The federal EPA levied
fines that could reach hundreds of millions of dollars against DuPont in
July for not alerting the agency to the birth defects or to the company's
knowledge PFOA had seeped into local groundwater by the 1980s.
DuPont is appealing
the fines.
Deitzler and Webb agreed
the selection of the health-study panel will go smoothly.
"We have the right
to veto, and they have the right to veto," said Deitzler. "If
we consider them industry-friendly we're not going to agree to them. If
they consider them lawyers' experts, they're not going to agree to them."
"I think the process
is exactly the right process," Webb said.
Deitzler said Athens
County residents who drank Little Hocking or Tuppers Plains-Chester water
for a year or more probably will be eligible to benefit from the settlement,
and the $50 million in cash payments will be distributed fairly among about
50,000 people in six water districts.
"Everybody will
receive equal treatment at this level, but the prime concern is the interest
of the group as a whole," said Deitzler. "It's absolutely critical
that we have full participation."
Residents seeking more
information on the agreement may contact Wood County Circuit Court at (304)
424-1700.
