‘Shell Game’: How Chemical Companies Avoid Paying for Pollution

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‘Shell Game’: How Chemical Companies Avoid Paying for Pollution

The transactions that created Chemours and reinvented DuPont laid the groundwork for a blame-shifting exercise that has created it difficult for regulators and some others to maintain anybody accountable for many years of contamination in North Carolina and elsewhere.

Point out attorneys standard in Ohio, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York every single sued the providers for owning unveiled harmful chemicals into the air, drinking water and soil and for concocting a spinoff to defend DuPont from accountability. Dutch prosecutors started criminally investigating Chemours for the use of PFOA at a factory in Dordrecht from 2008 to 2012, prior to Chemours was developed.

But in courts, in the media and in community options, DuPont and Chemours have employed the spinoff to distance themselves from the issues.

In a courtroom filing in Ohio, in which the state has sued above pollution from the Washington Operates factory on the West Virginia border, Chemours claimed that the contamination transpired just before “Chemours even came into existence.” In a securities submitting this summer time, Chemours stated that it “does not, and has never, used” PFOA. Nonetheless Chemours proceeds to manufacture other variations of PFAS, such as GenX.

DuPont adopted a similar stance. Mainly because Chemours was impartial and had assumed responsibility for Washington Functions, DuPont claimed it experienced nothing to do with the pollution. In simple fact, DuPont insisted, since it was technically a new firm, it had under no circumstances even produced the toxic substances in dilemma.

In 2019, Chemours, deep in credit card debt, sued DuPont. Chemours contended that the spinoff was conceived to get DuPont off the hook for its a long time of pollution. In accordance to the complaint, DuPont executives decided versus a $60 million challenge that would have stopped Fayetteville Functions from discharging chemical compounds into the Cape Anxiety River. Alternatively, DuPont executives built a $2 million modify, which they deserted soon right before they declared the Chemours spinoff.

The lawsuit requested, “Why bother investing funds to correct the trouble, DuPont evidently reasoned, when it could be conveniently handed on to Chemours?”