EPA_claims_DuPont_withheld_evidence_of_concerns

[Guest guest]

> Subject:

> EPA_claims_DuPont_withheld_evidence_of_concerns

 

 

> Teflon trouble sticking to DuPont

> Chemical used in coating may be making people sick

> Agency claims company withheld evidence of concerns

 

> AMY CORTESE

> NEW YORK TIMES, Aug. 9, 2004

>

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_T\

ype1 & c=Article & cid=1092003010947 & call_pageid=968332188854 & col=968350060724

>

> Teflon has been hugely successful for chemical maker

> DuPont, which over the last half-century has made

> the material almost ubiquitous, putting it not just

> on frying pans but also on carpets, fast-food

> packaging, clothing, eyeglasses and electrical wires

> - even the fabric roofs covering football stadiums.

>

> Now DuPont has to worry that Teflon and the

> materials used to make it have perhaps become a bit

> too ubiquitous. Teflon constituents have found their

> way into rivers, soil, wild animals and humans,

> according to company, government environmental

> officials and others. Evidence suggests that some of

> the materials, known to cause cancer and other

> problems in animals, may be making people sick.

>

> While it remains one of the company's most valuable

> assets, Teflon has also become a potentially huge

> liability for DuPont, the second-biggest U.S.

> chemical maker, which operates in more than 70

> countries and sells products from electronics to

> clothing.

>

> The Environmental Protection Agency filed a

> complaint last month charging the company with

> withholding evidence of its own health and

> environmental concerns about an important chemical

> used to manufacture Teflon. That would be a

> violation of U.S. federal environmental law,

> compounded by the possibility that DuPont covered up

> the evidence for two decades.

>

> DuPont contends it met its legal reporting

> obligations, and said it planned to file a formal

> response this week.

>

> If an EPA administrative judge does not agree, the

> agency could fine the company up to $25,000 (U.S.) a

> day from the time DuPont learned of potential

> problems with the chemical two decades ago until

> Jan. 30, 1997, when the agency's fines were raised,

> and $27,500 a day since then. The total penalty

> could reach $300 million.

>

> The agency is also investigating whether the suspect

> chemical, a detergent-like substance called

> perfluorooctanoic acid, is harmful to human health,

> and how it has become so pervasive in the

> environment.

>

> The chemical - which is more commonly known as PFOA

> or C-8, for the number of carbon atoms in its

> molecular structure - has turned up in the blood of

> more than 90 per cent of Americans, according to

> samples taken from blood banks by the 3M Co.

> beginning in the mid-1990s. Until it got out of the

> business in 2000, 3M was the biggest supplier of

> PFOA. DuPont promptly announced it would begin

> making the substance itself.

>

> The EPA is auditing 3M to determine if there were

> any civil violations of environmental law involving

> its chemically related products, Cynthia Bergman, a

> spokeswoman for the agency, said. The EPA's action

> on July 8 prompted the Chinese government to begin

> its own study on the safety of Teflon, and some

> stores there pulled Teflon-coated pans from their

> shelves, the government-run China Daily newspaper

> reported.

>

> Some people who live in or near Parkersburg in West

> Virginia, where DuPont has manufactured Teflon for

> 50 years, are not waiting for more studies.

> Thousands of them have joined in a class-action suit

> filed in the state's Wood County Circuit Court

> against the chemical maker, which they charge

> knowingly contaminated the air, land and water

> around the plant for decades without informing the

> community. The chemical has been found in the public

> drinking water at levels exceeding a long-time

> internal guideline considered safe by DuPont. The

> trial is scheduled to begin next month.

>

> DuPont is contesting the accusations, and insists

> that neither PFOA nor Teflon poses risks to humans.

> " The evidence from over 50 years of experience and

> extensive scientific studies supports our conclusion

> that PFOA does not harm human health or the

> environment, " said Stacey Mobley, general counsel of

> DuPont, in a statement responding to the EPA ruling.

>

> Critics say they will press their fight against the

> company because PFOA does not break down in the

> environment or in the human body, so the material

> that has been released could pose a health threat

> for many years. " This is an issue that won't go away

> for DuPont, because this chemical will not go away, "

> said Jane Houlihan, vice president for research at

> the Environmental Working Group, an organization in

> Washington that's DuPont's most vocal critic.

>

> For that reason, some critics said they think that

> PFOA, and the family of perfluorochemicals known as

> PFCs to which it belongs, are potentially a bigger

> problem than many chemicals that have been banned.

>

> That could have implications for hundreds of

> companies that use the materials, including the

> makers of popular brands like Gore-Tex, Stainmaster

> and SilverStone. " There's a huge ripple effect

> throughout the industry, " says Rich Purdy, a

> toxicologist who was at 3M until 2000.

>

> For DuPont, the controversy could hamper plans by

> its chairman and chief executive, Charles Holliday

> Jr., to shed the company's slow-growing businesses -

> including the unit that makes nylon and Lycra, both

> of which it invented - and focus instead on

> faster-growing businesses like genetically

> engineered seeds, soy-based products and

> electronics. While the company invests in those

> areas, it is banking on steady profits from products

> like Teflon.

>

> Teflon-related products contribute at least $100

> million in profit annually, according to company

> reports and court documents - almost 10 per cent of

> the company's 2003 total. DuPont has been pushing

> its Teflon-branded materials (known as

> fluoroproducts) for new uses - like a built-in stain

> repellent for fabrics and a spray-on cleaning

> product - and has identified new markets, including

> China, for expansion. DuPont has reported revenue

> increases for both quarters of 2004, and earnings

> increased 57 per cent in the first quarter of 2004.

> Still, in announcing its second-quarter results on

> July 23, DuPont disclosed that it had set aside $45

> million as " a reserve for settlement in connection

> with the PFOA class-action suit. " Gene Pisasale, an

> analyst with Wilmington Trust, a bank that was

> founded in 1903 by T. Coleman du Pont and is now one

> of DuPont's biggest shareholders, said that while

> " it's not a huge charge " — the company spent more

> than $1 billion on litigation over the fungicide

> Benlate — " if this were to be a continuing thing, I

> would have to take a second look. "

>

> At the very least, the Teflon flap could damage

> DuPont's well-polished image. The 200-year-old

> company, based in Wilmington, Del., prides itself on

> its corporate values, and Holliday is a high-profile

> advocate of socially responsible business. " In the

> chemical industry, the critical thing is not only

> investor perception, but consumer trust, " Pisasale

> said. " That can be very hard to build back. "

>

> A study that appeared this month in Environmental

> Science & Technology, published by the American

> Chemical Society, found varying levels of PFCs,

> including PFOA, in the blood of people living on

> four continents. The researchers postulated that

> prolonged use of products containing PFCs - like

> paper products, packaging, carpet treatments and

> stain-resistant textiles and cleaners - could be a

> major source of human exposure.

>

> DuPont dismisses such reports as speculation, and

> says it is working with the EPA to study the sources

> of PFOA in the environment. Because PFCs do not

> occur naturally, the most likely sources are thought

> to be manufacturing releases or breakdown from

> products. The company acknowledges that fumes from

> Teflon pans subjected to high heat can release

> gasses unrelated to PFOA, which can kill pet birds

> and cause a flu-like condition in humans known as

> polymer fume fever. PFOA is known to cause cancer in

> some animals, and has been linked to liver damage in

> animals. Effects on humans have been little studied.

>

> The class-action lawsuit filed in Wood County, home

> of the Washington Works plant where DuPont has made

> Teflon for decades, has turned up a series of

> documents that DuPont had sought to shield as

> proprietary information. The latest came to light in

> May, when the West Virginia Supreme Court voted

> unanimously to unseal several DuPont memorandums

> from 2000 in which John Bowman, a company lawyer,

> warned two of his superiors - Thomas Sager, a

> vice-president and assistant general counsel, and

> Martha Rees, an associate general counsel - that the

> company would " spend millions to defend these

> lawsuits and have the additional threat of punitive

> damages hanging over our head. "

>

> He added that other companies that had polluted

> drinking water supplies near their factories had

> warned him that it was cheaper and easier to replace

> those supplies and settle claims than to try to

> fight them in court. And those companies, he noted,

> had spilled chemicals that did not persist in the

> environment the way that PFOA does.

>

> " Our story is not a good one, " he wrote in one memo.

> " We continue to increase our emissions into the

> river despite internal commitments to reduce or

> eliminate the release of this chemical into the

> community and environment because of our concern

> about the biopersistence of this chemical. "

>

> Local officials said the memorandums - with the

> EPA's action and recent tests that found increasing

> PFOA levels in their water - confirmed their fears.

>

> " We've been exposed since at least 1984, " said

> Robert Griffin, general manager of the Little

> Hocking Water Association, which serves about 4,000

> homes in rural Washington County, Ohio, across the

> Ohio River from DuPont's Washington Works plant.

>

> In June, Griffin included a warning in his annual

> water quality report to customers. It stated, in

> capital letters, that until the issue was resolved,

> " You are drinking this water at your own risk. "