Notorious US chemical plant polluting water with toxic PFAS, lawsuit claims
The chemical giant Chemours's notorious West Virginia PFAS plant is regularly polluting nearby water with high levels of toxic 'forever chemicals', a new lawsuit alleges.
It represents the latest salvo in a decades-old fight over pollution from the plant, called Washington Works, which continues despite public health advocates winning significant legal battles.
The new federal complaint claims Washington Works has been spitting out levels of PFAS waste significantly higher than what a discharge permit has allowed since 2023, which is contaminating 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 Waters. It dramatized the story of how the pollution widely sickened Parkersburg residents, and the David v Goliath legal saga in which a group of residents and attorneys took on Chemours, then part of DuPont.
An epidemiological study stemming from the case blew the lid off of the health risks of PFAS, and ultimately cost DuPont about $700m.
Though the landmark case still reverberates across the regulatory landscape, the suit started almost 25 years ago, concluded in 2016, and Chemours's pollution continues. The new lawsuit is part of other legal actions related to the facility that have filled the gap left by weak regulatory action, local advocates say. The never-ending struggle 'wears you out', added Joe Kiger, a Parkersburg resident who was one of the original litigants in 2001.
'We have put up with this for 24 years, and [Chemours] is still polluting, they're still putting this stuff in the water,' Kiger said.
The new lawsuit, filed by the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, alleges 'numerous violations' since the level of PFAS the company is permitted to discharge per a consent order was lowered in early 2023. Among the contaminants are PFOA, a PFAS chemical to which virtually no level of exposure in drinking water is safe, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found. It also includes GenX, a compound for which the EPA has similarly found very low exposure levels can cause health problems.
The EPA ordered Chemours to take corrective action, but the company has done nothing in response, and the agency has not taken further action, the suit states. The complaint does not mention drinking water, which is largely filtered. But the suit alleges the ongoing pollution prevents residents from using the river for recreation.
In a statement, Chemours said the 'concerns are being addressed' through the consent order. It also noted it was renewing discharge permits with the state, and was working with regulators 'to navigate both the consent order and the permit renewal process'.
'Chemours recognizes the Coalition as a community stakeholder and invites the Coalition to engage directly with the Washington Works team,' a spokesperson wrote.
The EPA and West Virginia Rivers Coalition declined to comment because litigation is ongoing.
Kiger and others who have taken on Chemours and DuPont railed against the company, accusing it of 'greed' and putting profits above residents' health. Some in Parkersburg refer to the waste as the 'Devil's piss'.
'They do what they can to make money,' said Harry Deitzler, a West Virginia attorney who helped lead past lawsuits. 'The officers in the corporation sometimes don't care about what's right and wrong – they need to make money for shareholders and the lawsuits make everyone play by the same rules.'
Still, most residents are not aware of the ongoing pollution, those who spoke with the Guardian say. Chemours is a large employer that still wields power locally, and spends heavily on charitable giving. Many remain supportive of the company, regardless of the pollution, Kiger said.
'That's the kind of stuff you're up against,' he added. 'People put a blind trust in them. It could be snowing out and Chemours would tell everyone it's 80F [27C] and sunny, and everyone will grab their tan lotion.'
The saga began in the late 1990s when the plant's pollution was suspected of sickening nearby livestock, and an investigation by attorneys revealed the alarming levels at which PFAS was being discharged into the water and environment.
A class action lawsuit yielded about $70m in damages for area residents in 2004, but the litigation did not prove DuPont's PFAS pollution was behind a rash of cancer, kidney disease, stubbornly high cholesterol and other widespread health problems in the region.
Instead of dividing the settlement up among tens of thousands of residents, which would have only provided each with several hundred dollars, the money went toward developing an epidemiological study with independent scientists to verify that widespread local health issues were caused by DuPont's pollution.
The move was a gamble that ultimately paid off – the study of about 70,000 people showed by 2012 that PFOA probably caused some forms of cancer, thyroid disease, persistently high cholesterol, pregnancy-induced hypertension and autoimmune problems. Subsequent studies have shown links between the chemical and a host of other serious health problems – birth defects, neurotoxicity, kidney disease and liver disease – that residents in the area suffered.
DuPont and Chemours in 2017 settled for $671m in costs for about 3,500 injury suits, and have paid more to install water-filtration systems throughout the region. Separately, Chemours in 2023 settled with the state of Ohio for $110m for pollution largely from Washington Works.
The EPA and state regulatory agencies have at times been staffed with former DuPont managers or industry allies, and litigation has been the only way to get any meaningful movement, said Rob Bilott, the attorney who led the original class-action suit.
'It's infuriating,' Bilott said. 'It took decades of making DuPont documents and internal data public, and getting the story out through movies, news articles, books and public engagement, and that's what finally pushed the needle here. This is the impact of citizens forcing it through decades of litigation.'
The latest lawsuit is a citizen's suit under the Clean Water Act. Such suits give citizens the power to ask a judge to enforce federal law when a polluter is violating it and regulators fail to act.
The lawsuit asks a judge to order the company to pay $66,000 for each day it has been in violation, which is stipulated in the permit. That would total around $50m, but the main goal is to stop the pollution.
The EPA has acknowledged Chemours is violating the law, but has 'taken no further enforcement action regarding Chemours's violations as of the date of this complaint', the suit reads.
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