In 1951, DuPont began to purchase a chemical substance called perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) for the manufacture of Teflon. DuPont received specific instructions on how to dispose of this chemical—burn it or send it to a chemical waste treatment facility. But in the next few decades, DuPont moved from its plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. The Ohio River discharges hundreds of thousands of pounds of chemicals. DuPont also dumped thousands of tons of PFOS sludge into the pit. The sludge leaked directly into the ground and polluted the drinking water of nearby communities.

As PFOA continues to pollute the environment, DuPont began to study it. As early as the 1960s, DuPont knew that PFOA would cause animal organ damage. In the 1970s, DuPont discovered that workers working in their Washington factory contained high levels of this toxic chemical in their blood. The Washington factory was responsible for them. Landfill for PFOS. They did not tell the workers about this discovery.

In the 1980s, after learning that PFOA can cause birth defects in rats, DuPont confirmed that the chemical is affecting the health of workers. They tested the children of pregnant employees of Teflon and found that 2 out of 7 babies had eye defects. Even so, DuPont did not disclose the information.

By the 1990s, DuPont learned that PFOA can cause cancerous tumors in the testis, pancreas, and liver of laboratory animals. In 1993, they invented a slightly safer alternative to perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, but they decided not to switch to this new compound because they were worried that this compound would not work well and would endanger their profits.

In 2006, after years of legal battles, DuPont reached a $16.5 million settlement agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because DuPont concealed its knowledge of the toxicity of PFOA and the existence of the environment. Although this is a huge civil fine (the highest fine ever awarded by EPA in its history), it is only a drop in the bucket for DuPont, less than 2% of PFOA's profit for the year.
Last fall, the first of the 3535 plaintiffs went to court, claiming that DuPont leaked PFOA into drinking water in Ohio and West Virginia, causing her to develop kidney cancer. DuPont was found to be responsible for Carla Bartlett’s cancer, and Bartlett received $1.6 million in compensation.
"This is not an ordinary case. This is said to be a systematic act. It does not sound like an accident." Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, said of the personal injury lawsuit.
DuPont's lawyer Damond Mace denied that there is a causal relationship between PFOA and cancer, saying that PFOA is harmless to humans and is not subject to the EPA's National Primary Drinking Water Pollutant Management Regulations (National Primary Drinking Water Pollutant List). "There is no law restricting its use," Metz said. Unfortunately, it is not surprising that PFOA is not restricted. These chemical companies have almost no supervision, and toxic chemicals can easily slip out of the regulatory gap. "We have seen that this situation has spread from Washington DC to the whole state, to the United States, and now it has spread to all parts of the world, to the world. We have opened the lid. But it is not just DuPont. Good god. There is now. More than 60,000 unregulated chemicals. We don’t know what we’re talking about,” said Joe Keeger, a resident of Parkersburg, West Virginia, whose drinking water was contaminated with PFOA.

Rob Bilott is a lawyer who exposed DuPont's cover-ups for decades and sought appropriate compensation. He is currently filing a lawsuit against Wolf v. DuPont, which is the second personal injury case that DuPont has encountered. The plaintiff, John Wolf from Parkersburg, West Virginia, argued that PFOA in his drinking water caused him to develop ulcerative colitis, and his trial will begin on March 2.
In 2006, DuPont reached a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on charges of concealing the toxicity and environmental presence of PFOA. The company had to pay millions of dollars but never admitted responsibility. For decades, DuPont has been denying, denying, and denying. They deny the toxicity of PFOA, deny knowledge of the matter, and deny the misconduct in one case after another.

In fact, in July 2015, DuPont created Chemours, which was spun off from DuPont’s Teflon division. Residents in Ohio and West Virginia believe that this is DuPont's attempt to separate from legal disputes related to Teflon. In 2004, DuPont agreed to pay $235 million to monitor the health of residents near Parkersburg, Virginia. Now, because Chemours is in debt and assumes DuPont's PFOA debt, people are worried that DuPont is evading responsibility.
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