Dupont, Chemours Settle Teflon Chemical Exposure Case for $671 Million
February 13 2017 - 7:36AM
Dow Jones News
By Austen Hufford
DuPont Co. and The Chemours Co. will each pay $335.4 million to
settle thousands of lawsuits over exposure to toxic chemicals from
a West Virginia plant.
About 3,550 lawsuits have been filed in federal and state courts
in Ohio and West Virginia alleging injury from exposure to
perfluorooctanoic acid in drinking water.
Last year, officials in Vermont, New Hampshire and New York
expanded their efforts to find out how much of the chemical ended
up in drinking water. Factories for decades used the chemical,
known as PFOA, as a plastic coating and to make consumer products
such as Teflon nonstick pans, waterproof jackets and pizza
boxes.
DuPont said it stopped making the chemicals at that plant more
than a decade ago. Both companies didn't admit liability or
fault.
Former large manufacturers or users of PFOA, including 3M Co.
and DuPont, agreed in 2006 to phase out PFOA production and use by
December 2015. In 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
imposed the then-largest civil penalty in its history on DuPont,
$16.5 million, as part of a settlement that the company hid
information about the chemical.
The EPA hasn't declared PFOA harmful to humans, but it has
raised concerns about the safety of the chemical in drinking
water.
That Washington Works plant outside Parkersburg, West Virginia,
was previously owned by DuPont and is now owned by Chemours. DuPont
spun off Chemours in 2015.
A multiyear medical study in the 2000s of 70,000 people near the
plant found "some suggestions" of "probable links" between high
exposure to the chemical and some illnesses. The study was funded
by a settlement between DuPont and plaintiffs suing the company
over PFOA exposure, and both the plaintiffs and DuPont had to
approve the study's findings, said David Savitz, a vice president
for research at Brown University, who served on the study
panel.
Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 13, 2017 07:21 ET (12:21 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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