West Virginia’s notorious affiliate of the chemical giant PFAS The plant regularly pollutes nearby waters with high levels of toxic “forever chemicals,” A A new lawsuit claims.
It represents the latest salvo in a decades-long battle over pollution from the plant, called the “Washington Acts,” that continues despite public health advocates winning major legal battles.
The new federal complaint alleges that Washington Works was broadcasting levels of… PFAS The waste is much higher than a discharge permit has allowed since 2023, polluting the Ohio River in Parkersburg, a town of about 50,000 people in Appalachia.
The factory was the focal point of a Hollywood movie, Dark water. It depicted the story of how pollution made Parkersburg residents sick on a massive scale, a David versus Goliath Legal saga A group of residents and lawyers took on Chemours, which was then part of DuPont.
An epidemiological study resulting from this case exposed the health risks of PFAS, and ultimately cost DuPont about $700 million.
Although this landmark case continues to reverberate across the regulatory landscape, the lawsuit began nearly 25 years ago, ended in 2016, and Chemours’ pollution continues. Local advocates say the new lawsuit is part of other legal actions related to the facility that fill the gap left by weak regulatory measures. Parkersburg resident Joe Kiger, who was one of the original litigants in 2001, added that the never-ending conflict “wears you out.”
“We’ve put up with this for 24 years, and… [Chemours] “It’s still contaminated, and they’re still putting this stuff in the water,” Keger said.
The new lawsuit, filed by the West Virginia River Coalition, alleges “numerous violations” since the level of PFAS the company is allowed to discharge was reduced by a consent order in early 2023. Among the contaminants is PFOA, a PFAS chemical that is included. There is practically no safe level of exposure in drinking waterAs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found. It also includes the GenX compound, to which the EPA has similarly found that even very low exposure levels can cause health problems.
The EPA ordered Chemours to take corrective action, but the company did nothing in response and the agency took no further action, the lawsuit says. The complaint did not mention drinking water that is largely filtered. But the lawsuit claims that persistent pollution prevents residents from using the river for recreation.
“Concerns are being addressed” through a consent order, Chemours said in a statement. She also noted that she is renewing discharge permits with the state, and working with regulators “to navigate the consent order and permit renewal process.”
“Chemours recognizes the Alliance as a community stakeholder and invites the Alliance to engage directly with the Washington Works team,” a company spokesperson wrote.
EPA and West Virginia The Rivers coalition declined to comment because the lawsuits are ongoing.
Kiger and others who have attacked Chemours and DuPont have attacked the company, accusing it of “greed” and putting profits above the health of residents. Some in Parkersburg refer to the waste as “devil’s urine.”
“They’re doing what they can to make money,” said Harry Ditzler, a West Virginia attorney who helped file the previous lawsuits. “Sometimes, company officials don’t care about what’s right and what’s wrong — they need to make money for shareholders, and lawsuits make everyone play by the same rules.”
However, most residents are unaware of the ongoing pollution, say those who spoke to The Guardian. Chemours is a large employer that still has power locally and spends Hardly on Charitable giving. Keger said many still support the company, regardless of the pollution.
“This is the kind of thing you face,” he added. “People trust them blindly. It could be snowing and Chemours will tell everyone it’s 80 degrees Fahrenheit.” [27C] And sunny, and everyone will have their own suntan lotion.
The story began in the late 1990s when factory pollution was suspected of sickening nearby livestock, and an investigation by lawyers revealed the alarming levels at which PFAS were being discharged into the water and environment.
A class-action lawsuit resulted in $70 million in damages to area residents in 2004, but the lawsuit did not prove that DuPont’s PFAS contamination was behind a rash of cancers, kidney disease, stubbornly high cholesterol, and other widespread health problems. Range in the area.
Rather than dividing the settlement among tens of thousands of residents, which would have saved each of them only several hundred dollars, the funds were directed toward developing an epidemiological study with independent scientists to verify that widespread local health problems were caused by DuPont contamination.
The move was a gamble that eventually paid off, as a study of about 70,000 people by 2012 showed that PFOA Maybe caused Some forms of cancer, thyroid disease, persistent high cholesterol, pregnancy-induced high blood pressure, and autoimmune problems. Subsequent studies showed links between the chemical and a host of other serious health problems — birth defects, neurotoxicity, kidney disease and liver disease — suffered by area residents.
In 2017, DuPont and Chemours settled $671 million in costs for about 3,500 trauma suits, and paid more to install water filtration systems throughout the region. Separately, Chemours in 2023 settled with the state of Ohio for $110 million for pollution largely caused by Washington Works.
The EPA and sometimes state regulatory agencies were It works Former DuPont managers O Industry alliesRob Bilott, the attorney who led the original class action lawsuit, said litigation was the only way to get any meaningful action.
“It’s infuriating,” Bilott said. “It took decades to make DuPont documents and internal data public, spread the story through films, news articles, books and public engagement, and that’s what finally brought us here. This is the impact citizens have been forced to do through decades of litigation.”
The most recent lawsuit is a citizen’s lawsuit under Clean water represents. Such lawsuits give citizens the ability to ask a judge to enforce a federal law when a polluter violates it and regulators fail to act.
The lawsuit asks the judge to order the company to pay $66,000 for every day it violated what was stipulated in the permit. This will total about $50 million, but the main goal is to stop pollution.
The EPA has admitted that Chemours is violating the law, but “has taken no further enforcement action with respect to Chemours’ violations as of the date of this complaint,” the lawsuit says.
