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CONTACT: Lauren Sucher, Jon Corsiglia, Liz Moore, 202/667-6982
Officials Won't Specify Fine; Might Negotiate to "Resolve" Situation with Corporate Law Breaker
WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced the threat of an unspecified "action" against DuPont for withholding for decades critically important health studies on a toxic ingredient of Teflon, known as C-8 or PFOA.
DuPont's failure to disclose critical data allowed the company to pollute the blood of virtually every American with a Teflon chemical that company documents show the company knew was toxic. EPA said in its complaint that its ongoing actions to assess widespread environmental pollution and human contamination from the chemical "might have been more expeditious had the data ... been submitted by DuPont ... in 1981."
In an awkward conference call with reporters, Agency officials avoided any details of the consequences for DuPont, though they said they would "likely" not seek the maximum possible fine of $300 million.
Agency officials did say that they would consider the option of "negotiating" an unspecified "resolution" with the company, and that the fine could be just a few million dollars. Teflon and related C-8 sales now net DuPont $200 million annual profit.
Environmental Working Group (EWG) unearthed company documents showing DuPont's deliberate withholding of the health and toxicity studies as well as evidence of widespread drinking water contamination. The group filed a petition in April, 2003 that prompted the Agency's and investigation and action.
"This is shaping up as is another in a long series of industry-friendly environmental 'enforcement' actions by the Bush EPA," said EWG President Ken Cook. "This time DuPont was caught in three serious violations of federal pollution laws. In the Bush administration, that automatically triggers the 'three strikes and we'll talk' policy."
"There's no message being sent here except the weakness of the Bush Administration and how it succumbed to DuPont's lobbying. It's pathetic," Cook said.. "Everyone thought DuPont was in hot water with the Bush EPA, but instead it looks like they're sitting in the Jacuzzi."
Internal documents DuPont was forced to disclose in litigation show that the company illegally suppressed evidence of drinking water contamination with a key Teflon chemical from two communities near its Parkersburg, West Virginia Teflon plant. The EWG complaint alleged - and EPA found - that DuPont withheld knowledge of drinking water contamination with the Teflon chemical, C-8, for 17 years, from 1984 through 2001. EWG also charged in the petition that the company failed to tell the EPA of babies born with birth defects to Teflon plant workers in 1981. Under section 8E of the Toxics Substances Control Act, the discovery of significant new environmental contamination or even a single instance of birth defects related to the use of a chemical must be passed to EPA within 15 days.
By law, EPA could have fined DuPont up to $27,500 per day for the entire period of both violations - a fine that could total well over $300 million.
The chemical, known as C8 or PFOA, is used to make Teflon and a host of popular consumer products including cookware, clothing, carpet treatments, food packaging, outdoor gear and more. The Teflon chemical and the family of related and widely used perfluorinated chemicals did not exist seventy years ago, but are in the blood of nearly every American and pollute air, water and wildlife as far away as the North Pole.
EPA officials have spent the past year in meetings with DuPont and other companies trying to find out how this Teflon chemical has polluted the blood of nearly every American. The chemical never breaks down in the environment and causes numerous cancers and other health problems in lab animals.
EWG recently posted e-mails from DuPont attorney Bernard Reilly showing that the company continued through the spring of 2004 to withhold critical drinking water contamination data from the affected communities. In one e-mail Reilly laments the discovery that historic levels of Teflon chemical contamination in tap water "surely are low", and "should be multiplied by a factor of 4 or even 5..." "Not a pretty situation..." according to Reilly, yet DuPont never told water utility officials of the discrepancy.
The internal company documents are posted and available on EWG's website, www.ewg.org.
EWG's research on the family of Teflon chemicals known as perfluorochemicals can be found at http://www.ewg.org/issues/PFCs/index.php.
The transcript of ABC's "20/20" story on Teflon chemicals can be viewed at http://www.ewg.org/issues/PFCs/20031114/release_ABCnews.php.
EWG is a not-for-profit research organization that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment.
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