Questions about DuPont unsettle town. That's the article The Tennessean published on its front page on Sunday about yet another plant where there are concerns about the enormous amount of dioxin released from a DuPont facility. People in DeLisle, Miss. and Edgemoor, Del. have been fighting DuPont for years over the hazardous waste and secrecy around DuPont's titanium dioxide plants. Now that people around the third titanium dioxide plant in New Johnsonville, Tenn. are learning about what they could be exposed to. After 48 years of production, the state regulatory agency is just now learning that the company creates dioxin as a by product.


DuPont has recently bashed the article and reporter for inacurracies in the article. A Letter to the Editor is signed by the plant manager Kenneth Klein but it is posted by Nate Pepper, who is a public affairs manager for DuPont and has ochestrated media relations for contamination concerns at Delisle as well.

DuPont plant manager’s response to this article is quick to disseminate its own misinformation or half-truths. What is great about this Tennessean article is that it provides many resources so everyone can look up the information themselves. The people in New Johnsonville and all of Tennessee have a lot of questions, they have a right to know and they should get the straight answers. Unfortunately, DuPont is not giving them.

First
If it’s not evident in this article that the town is unsettled, it will become evident. As one of the people who went door-to-door in the community, I can vouch for the “unsettleness” in the community. Unfortunately, many people are afraid to come out against DuPont.

I have heard people wonder about the pollution – such as the clouds of unknown substances that cover the community or the possible leakage of chemicals from the numerous injection wells – but they decide that their concerns will not be addressed by the company or the regulatory agencies because DuPont is too powerful.

People are concerned about the number of cancer victims on their streets, or wonder if pollution in the area could have caused their own illnesses. However, they do not want to be the first one to come out in a news article because they may be ostracized by a community that is so dependent on the company.

Some people just want more information before they point fingers.

There is a lot more to discover. The truth is just now coming out, and as it does, more people will feel more comfortable discussing their concerns or own health problems. When that first sick person comes out, more people will come out.

Second
Everyone can look up the cancer rates in their county by going to the Tennessee Cancer Registry online at: http://www2.state.tn.us/health/TCR/. Humphreys County consistently has a high rate of cancer incidence. It's not always first, but it's always in the top 3.

Third
There is a great need to clarify what dioxin is and the toxicity of dioxin from the DuPont facility.

The term “dioxin” refers to a family of complex but related chlorinated compounds with similar chemical structures and biological activity. It includes all furans and dioxin congeners. Out of the hundreds of congeners, “29 are thought to have significant dioxin-like toxicity. While it is believed that these 29 compounds have a similar mechanism of toxicity not all are equally toxic. The most toxic and best-studied dioxin is 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (herein referred to as only TCDD). The remaining 28 compounds have been assigned toxicity values relative to TCDD.
(Here’s a good source: www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/risk/guidance/dioxinmemo1.html)

TCDD causes cancer in humans, according to the EPA, National Toxicology Program (NTP) and the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC). The EPA has classified the complex mixtures of dioxin to which people are exposed as a "likely human carcinogens." We accumulate dioxin in our body through the food we eat, and our food accumulates it through the food it eats. It also lasts in our bodies for a long time.

DuPont’s New Johnsonville facility is the fourth largest emitter of dioxin and dioxin-like compounds in the country, according to the 2004 EPA Toxic Release Inventory. In 2004 all three of DuPont’s titanium dioxide facilities released 47 percent of all dioxin released by all facilities in the United States. This data is at www.EPA.gov/TRI.

The company is only required to report the presence of 17 types of dioxin compounds total. In 2000, DuPont reported to the federal government emitting the most toxic kind, TCDD.

Even without the TCDD, all the types of dioxin DuPont emits, adds up to the toxicity of TCDD. Each type of dioxin is given a toxic equivalent factor. By adding those up, I found that the dioxin releases in 2004 alone had a TCDD toxic equivalency of 43.809 grams. It’s as if DuPont emitted 43.809 grams of the most toxic dioxin in one year, which is a large amount considering a fraction of a gram can be harmful to human health. DuPont has been in production for almost 50 years.

According to the National Research Council (2006), industrial emissions, as well as the use of certain herbicides, have contributed to contamination of air, soil and water with trace levels of dioxin and DLCs. When it gets into the environment, animals eat it and if we eat animals and eggs we are exposed dioxin.

Fourth
Under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, DuPont is required to report releases of .01 grams of dioxin to the federal government, as well as report amounts of toxic releases. However, it is apparent by the response of Mike Apple of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation that the state did not know about dioxin at the facility. As far as I know the documents DuPont has submitted to TDEC do not include the 150 samples it has taken to test for dioxin. There is no evidence DuPont submitted the results that showed the company found TCDD.

The DuPont Company has a history of not disclosing important documents to regulatory agencies or the public. In 2005, DuPont was fined the largest civil administrative fine in the EPA’s history for withholding evidence about the possible toxicity of its Teflon-chemical, PFOA, for over 20 years.

Fifth
DuPont has applied for a major modification to its landfill. The company wants to put waste from its sludge ponds into its North Hollow Landfill, which has previously held mostly “Iron Rich” waste. (http://www.state.tn.us/environment/swm/ppo/DupontHollow.pdf)
The waste is new to this specific landfill and could have a different chemical characterization. Both wastes should be tested thoroughly to create a true characterization of the waste.

TDEC has shown concern about the mischaracterization of waste. TDEC is not granting the major modification in its current form as it had planned to do before several critics asked for a landfill hearing and raised many good questions and critiques. The landfill is only permitted to receive non-hazardous waste, but there are many reasons to think the waste DuPont disposes of is actually hazardous. For one, the permit does not include any reference to dioxin. Also, similar waste at DuPont’s plant in Delaware has been labeled hazardous by the EPA.

Sixth
Since 1956, DuPont has provided this community good paying jobs. No one can deny the importance of those paychecks. But at what cost to worker and community health?

It’s often high paying jobs that come with the most risk and there are many risks to workers and the surrounding community attributable to the way DuPont makes titanium dioxide in New Johnsonville. Adding to the risk is the way DuPont disposes of the hazardous waste from this process and is not open to regulators, workers or the community about the risk of that waste.

It’s especially difficult to be critical of one’s employer. But it’s an American right to ask questions and get information.

A former DuPont employee from the DeLisle, Mississippi titanium dioxide plant, Myra, thought she was alone when she became sick. Then she organized with her community. Now 2,000 sick people are suing DuPont. Myra said in a film about the DeLisle plant, “Before this, we had no voice. Who were we? These dumb southerners…I’ve learned over the years to speak up. DuPont will know where we stand. DuPont will know we have a voice.”

Since September 11, there have been warnings that chemical plants and storage facilities in the U.S. could be terrorist targets. DuPont has spent $3 billion in improved security since 9/11, spread out among all its facilities in the U.S., according to Art Levine. DuPont has been praised for its use of American Chemistry Council’s security program called Responsible Care, a self-policing program.

Still, Art Levine, contributing editor of Washington Monthly, strolled onto DuPont’s Edgemoor, Del. facility. With eight hazmat railcars ahead of him that could have been filled with “deadly” chlorine, he was not even watched by cameras. According to Levine, if just one railcar was hit, 100,000 people could be killed.

Read Art Levine’s story You Too Can Break Into a Chemical Plant.

Be sure to hear Art Levine go up against the chemical industry's lobbyist, Marty Durbin, on streaming audio of KCRW's To the Point.

There is a long trail of studies, surveys and hidden documents that points to serious toxic effects of the Teflon-chemical on babies.

Johns Hopkins scientists found PFOA and other perfluorinated chemicals in the umbilical cords of 99 percent of 300 babies from the Baltimore area. Another pilot study found that PFOA passes from mother to baby unhindered, meaning it does not decrease in amounts. The latest study has everything but confirmed that this chemical is impacting the most delicate of humans and causing developmental effects. See: New C8 study finds baby developmental problems The Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)

Yet, DuPont already knew 25 years ago that PFOA passes from mother to baby, but didn't bother to tell the public or the EPA. DuPont suspected it could cause birth defects in newborns when its own survey found that two out of seven female workers who worked around PFOA had children with birth defects - an astounding ratio. Twenty years later, DuPont paid the largest civil administrative penalty in EPA's history for not disclosing this and other evidence of PFOA's harmful effects. You have to think DuPont was content with paying that one time fee of $16.5 million when it's making $1 billion every year on PFOA-related products.

The question for consumers and the EPA is: How long does the trail have to be? How long before this product is permanently taken out of our Stainmaster carpets, food packaging and clothing that our children are continuously exposed to?

DuPont was in "serious" violation for over exposing workers to toxic toluene. OSHA inspectors wrote that limits are placed on the amount of toluene workers can be exposed to prevent liver and kidney damage. According to the New Jersey Right-to-Know fact sheet, "Exposure to Toluene can affect the nervous system causing trouble concentrating, headaches, slowed reflexes, loss of appetite and nausea. Higher levels can cause you to feel dizzy, lightheaded, and to pass out. Death may occur."

The acceptable limits on exposure are high as it is. I wonder how often DuPont requires workers to work in conditions with high levels of exposure to toxic chemcials.