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By Sam Shawver, sshawver@mariettatimes.com
There’s more than C8
in the drinking water and bloodstreams of some Little Hocking Water
Association customers, according to a lawsuit the company filed against
DuPont Corp. on Monday.
In addition to C8
(ammonium perfluorooctanoate or PFOA), the suit says testing has
revealed less concentrated amounts of other perfluorinated compounds
(PFCs), including C4 through C11.
The mention of other chemicals
in the water association’s lawsuit was a surprise to at least one
person, a spokesperson with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
On Friday though another Ohio EPA official said the state agency was
aware of these other chemicals, but found very small amounts of the
compounds in tests of the water system in 2002.
“We’ve done
very limited testing and found these other perfluorinated compounds in
the water and in people’s blood,” said D. David Altman, attorney for
the water association.
“So far all the testing DuPont has done is only for C8,” he said. “For some reason DuPont doesn’t test for the other compounds.”
In other C8 related news, officials with the Brookmar/C8 Health Project, that has been testing residents who may have ingested water affected by C8, are expected to announce Tuesday the reopening of the health project questionnaire testing.
Testing
was closed in March after 70,000 people had completed the
questionnaire. But because some of those tested were disqualified,
several openings have become available for qualified individuals to
take part in the project.
More information will be released during a luncheon for the health project volunteers at noon on Tuesday.
The additional chemicals mentioned in the lawsuit are apparently present in C8 shipments that DuPont receives from manufacturers, according to Altman.
The company uses the compound to make Teflon. But an advisory committee to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has called C8 a “likely” carcinogen that could be harmful to humans.
“Historically, C8 has been shipped with a suite of other PFCs,” said Altman. “If at any point in the past they were putting a lot of C8 into the water, that may be a marker for the other compounds.
“Why
do we bring this up?,” he asked. “Because generally speaking, the
longer chained PFCs, C9 and up, are thought to be even more dangerous
than C8. And the scientific consensus is that these longer chains are more difficult to break down than C8.”
But DuPont spokesperson Robin Ollis says C8 must be pure to use during manufacturing.
“What we use in the plant is C8 in the manufacture of fluoro products, and it has to be in a pure form in order for the process to work properly,” she said.
“And we don’t think anyone can definitively say where the other compounds (in the water) come from,” said Ollis.
Ohio
Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman Heidi Griesmer said her
agency knew blood testing was being done to look for compounds in
addition to C8.
“Ohio
EPA is aware that blood sampling showed they looked for other
compounds,” she said. “But as far as we know we have not seen testing
to show the chemicals in drinking water.”
Griesmer noted that in 2002 Ohio EPA had requested that DuPont do a “split test” to determine if three compounds, including C8, were present in the water.
She
said the test for two other perfluorinated compounds, designated as
PFOS and PFHpA, showed no presence of PFOS, and that the presence of
PFHpA was only a small 2 to 5 percent of the presence of C8.
DuPont has agreed to construct a C8
filtration plant for the Little Hocking Water Association, and plans
for the plant have been submitted to the Ohio EPA, although the
association has not yet agreed to those plans.
“We want to test
the water as soon as they build the granulated activated carbon
filtration system to see if it removes all of those other compounds,
too,” said Altman.
The lawsuit will further slow down construction of the filtration facility, which Ollis says should remove C8 as well as any other compounds.
“Data
provided by the Little Hocking Water Association does indicate trace
levels of other compounds at or below background levels,” she said.
“But
the good news is that testing at the water plants already operating in
Pomeroy and Tuppers Plains/Chester is showing that the facilities are
doing what they’re supposed to do,” said Ollis.
“We believe that
a carbon filtration system will be effective in removing all of those
compounds. But getting an agreement in place with Little Hocking is
critical to beginning construction on that plant,” she said.
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