| In a controversial case regarding DuPont's dumping of the Teflon-based chemical C-8 into a landfill, sometimes exceeding their own limit of 100 parts, state regulators have re-issued permits to DuPont's landfill in Wood County.
The state Department of Environmental Protection just renewed water pollution and waste management permits for DuPont's Dry Run Landfill, after extending the permit numerous times since 1998.
The permit has now been issued for five years.
The 17-acre landfill is four miles from the community of Lubeck, the center of a major controversy over C8 and the reason for a multi-million dollar civil suit settlement with the corporation.
DuPont, who claims no harm has come from dumping C-8, just paid about $108 million following a civil, setting up criteria for millions more if there is actual harm proven to human beings.
Now, the same dumping continues, according to reporter Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette.
Hundreds of residents have protested the renewal.
DEP officials refused to ban C8 discharges saying they could not limit discharges because the state has no water pollution standards for C8.
"There is no water quality criteria or risk assessment," said Cliff Whyte, permit program manager for the DEP Division of Water and Waste Management.
DEP did add language to the final permit that requires DuPont to immediately apply for a permit change if federal or state officials draft a C8 water quality standard or finalize a risk assessment on the chemical.
Under the law, Wood County residents could also petition the board to write a water quality standard for C8. DEP would then be required to limit the company's discharges to ensure the standard was not violated in Dry Run Creek.
Company tests have confirmed that C8 is leaching from the landfill,
concentrations of more than 80 parts per billion, far more than the 1-part-per-billion company limit that DuPont set years ago for drinking water.
Still it is far less than the 150 parts per billion that DEP agreed to as a "screening level" for whether DuPont must replace local water supplies.
DuPont has used C8 at its Washington Works sine 1951.
The civil settlement was based on internal DuPont documents uncovered by lawyers for Wood County residents.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has begun a detailed study of the chemical and sued DuPont for allegedly hiding information about the C8, alleging "widespread contamination" of drinking-water near the Parkersburg plant.
No state or federal agency has taken steps to eliminate this risk.
After a $108 million settlement, DuPont is to install new pollution control equipment to reduce the amount of C8 in local drinking water.
Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group said that EPA's draft study ignored evidence that links C8 to heart attacks, breast cancer, testicular cancer and other ailments. They contend that company documents hid that C-8 caused birth-defects for women working for the company.
By April 1990, DuPont tests confirmed that C8 was leaching from the landfill into Dry Run Creek at concentrations as high as 1.6 parts per million â more than 100 times the company's own limits for C8 in water.
In 2001, the company settled out of court with Wilbur and Sandra Tennant who said that C8 pollution killed their cattle and made their family sick.
"Despite the obvious need to limit the release of C8 into the environment, as now openly acknowledged by state and federal regulators, DuPont has been free to dump as much C8 and related materials into the landfill as it wanted for decades without any restrictions or limits of any kind by WVDEP," wrote Robert A. Bilott, a lawyer for the residents, in a Nov. 11, 2003, letter to DEP.
"Such unrestricted, unlimited disposal has created a serious risk of harm to human health and the environment from continued operation of the landfill," Bilott wrote.
DuPont's attorneys claim no harm has been done and regulators say there is no regulation to challenge the continued discharge.
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