DuPont's Teflon legacy hit by report suppressed for months by Trump administration

A federal report published this week concludes that a chemical once found in DuPont's Teflon and firefighting foam could be hazardous at a fraction of the concentration in drinking water that today triggers a health advisory.

The chemical, called PFOA, has been linked to kidney and testicular cancers, thyroid disease, hypertension and other illnesses.

It is known to have strayed into drinking water near the Dover Air Force Base, the New Castle Air National Guard and the town of Blades — in addition to numerous other aquifers across the country. 

"The more data we accrue, the more knowledge we have, and the more certain we can be," said Jamie C. DeWitt, an immunotoxicologist and a peer reviewer of the 800-page report. 

The report, from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, is called a toxicology profile. It analyzed numerous recent scientific studies about the health effects of PFOA, and its larger family of chemicals, called PFAS. The agency declined to make any of its experts available for an interview.

Its conclusions could have several impacts on Delaware. It could chip away at the finances of Chemours and DuPont, two of the state's biggest companies, by giving ammunition to plaintiffs who are suing those companies over water contamination. 

It also may persuade Delaware regulators to lower their own health advisory targets for PFOA and its broader family of chemicals. Following a meeting with Environmental Protection Agency officials last month, Shawn Garvin, secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said there is no standard health limit across states for PFOA because "nobody’s sure what the right number is." 

Delaware uses the EPA limit of 70 parts per trillion. Concentrations of PFOA have surpassed that threshold in Dover, New Castle and Blades. This week's federal report suggests a safe level of PFOA in drinking water should be closer to 11 parts per trillion.

DNREC has not tested for the substance outside Dover, New Castle and Blades, Garvin said last month, because it doesn't have enough laboratory space.

"Until you expand the infrastructure network that can actually test and analyze these, you don’t want to spend a lot of time getting water samples done on areas where you don’t necessarily believe there’s a chance to find it," Garvin said last month.

Yet, the federal report raises the possibility that previously reported locations across the country may require a costly environmental cleanup effort.

In a response to a request for comment from Garvin about the report, a DNREC spokesman on Friday said the agency is "currently evaluating" it.

While the new federal report was completed early in 2018, its publication was suppressed for months by the Trump administration, according to internal government emails obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists and first reported by Politico. One White House official called the report a "public relations nightmare." 

Following the Politico story, environmentalists and elected officials demanded the administration release the report. Among those was U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Delaware.

A letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt dated May 15 and signed by Carper and 10 other Democratic senators said, "Given the scope of the contamination nationwide and the ongoing exposure of communities across the United States to these chemicals, it is imperative that the public receive an opportunity to review the ... report." 

Also demanding the release was the Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, who earlier this year filed a lawsuit against Chemours and DuPont. It alleged that officials at the Washington Works chemical plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, knew for decades about the cancerous risks of PFOA, even while the substance was being released from the facility into the Ohio River.

"Identifying the level of exposure to PFOA that causes harm to human health is critical to Ohio's efforts to address the issue," DeWine said in a letter, dated June 4, sent to the heads of the U.S Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency.

DuPont spokesman Dan Turner on Thursday said the company cannot talk about the effects of the report on ongoing litigation. Still, he said, it relies "heavily on animal studies and incorporating extremely conservative assumptions and wide margins of safety."

"PFOA is one of the most well-studied chemicals of its type, and yet there still is no scientific or regulatory consensus that low level PFOA exposure causes health effects in humans," Turner said in an email. "While the U.S. EPA continues to study the issue, it still has not concluded that PFOA should be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act."

Chemours spokeswoman Alvenia Scarborough said the company hasn't yet analyzed the report. 

Washington Works plant

DuPont and Chemours last year agreed to settle for $671 million a total of 3,550 lawsuits related to the release of PFOA from its Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. 

At the time, the settlement eased concerns from investors who were worried the cloud of litigation could hang over the companies for years.

DuPont originally owned and operated the plant that produced Teflon, but transferred it to Chemours after the company was spun off as an independent entity in 2015. Teflon, created in 1938, was DuPont's most profitable product for decades. 

DeWine's lawsuit was filed after the settlement in an Ohio state court. The suit claims that PFOA contamination from the plant spread across the Ohio River from Parkersburg and into the Buckeye State. 

DuPont and Chemours filed a motion to dismiss the case. Oral arguments for the motion will occur next month in Ohio state court.

Both companies also face numerous lawsuits in North Carolina over water pollution from a related chemical called GenX. Touted as a safe alternative, GenX replaced PFOA about a decade ago in the production of Teflon's low-friction surfaces. Yet, critics say the chemical also is toxic.

“It seems that every day we learn more about the danger these substances (GenX) pose and the extent of Dupont’s and Chemours’ callous disregard for the lives of thousands of North Carolinians,” attorney Ted Leopold said in a statement in January.

Asked earlier this year if potential liabilities linked with environmental lawsuits could derail what appears to be a promising future, Chemours Chief Executive Officer Mark Vergnano said, "At this point, no. I mean, we're taking all of these all very seriously."

The company has spent nearly $1 million during the past year in federal lobbying. The company had targeted only members of Congress until July, when it began to lobby the EPA directly, according to federal disclosure reports. 

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A Chemours account executive also is the chairman of a Washington, D.C.-based firefighting foam trade group. 

Drinking water around at least 28 U.S. Air Force installations has been contaminated with PFOA or its cousin chemical called PFOS from firefighting foam. Those locations include the Dover Air Force Base and the New Castle Air National Guard. 

Additional bases could be added to the list as new sites are inspected, said Air Force spokesman Mark Kincaid on Thursday. 

The Air Force uses the EPA's health advisory limit of 70 parts per trillion to trigger a cleanup, Kincaid said. The branch will analyze the latest PFOA report and then wait for a mandated public comment period before acting on its conclusions, he said. 

"The EPA has a health advisory," he said, "that is what we continue to work from." 

Contact Karl Baker at kbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6.

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