By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. - DuPont Co. will pay more than $1.1 million in fines for repeated water pollution violations at its Washington Works plant south of Parkersburg, under a proposed deal with the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The deal covers more than 700 days of water pollution violations at the plant and two related industrial waste dumps, as well as a variety of spills, failure to use pollution controls, and disposal of waste outside of landfill boundaries.
DEP calculated that the violations deserved fines of more than $1.6 million, but the agency is allowing DuPont to cover one-third of that with a $500,000 "supplemental environmental project."
The six-page consent order does not spell out details of that project, and gives DuPont 30 days from when the settlement is finalized to submit a proposal to agency officials. That means the public won't know what sort of project DuPont plans until after the end of a 30-day public comment period that started last week.
"It says, 'Give us a proposal,' and that's routinely the way we write these in there," Zeto said.
Bill Hopkins, the DuPont Washington Works plant manager, signed the consent order on March 12. DEP issued a public notice about it last week.
Under the deal, DuPont will pay four quarterly installments of about $285,000. The money goes into the DEP's Water Quality Management Fund.
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