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How Forever Chemicals 'Poisoned the World'
A new book tells the history of how U.S. corporations sold the country on toxic chemicals, while lying about the harm they posed.
Jul 27, 2025
Every child is born pre-polluted—polluted with dangerous, human-made chemicals.
So writes Mariah Blake in the preface to her important book, They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals. The United States is the place where she writes that every child is born pre-polluted, but I think merely because she's writing about the United States, not because it isn't also true of everywhere else on Earth. In fact, Blake quotes Rachel Carson as having written in 1962 that every human everywhere is subjected to dangerous chemicals from the moment of conception.
But U.S. corporations—chiefly Dupont and 3M—are the source of the problem. Well, them and the U.S. government or lack thereof. Forever chemicals, like standing armies, carpet bombings, nuclear weapons, income taxes, and so many of the things we hold dear, come from World War II, upon the end of which, as Blake notes, poison gases became pesticides, explosives became fertilizers, and military plastics became consumer goods. It's just possible that the respectable consumerism kicked off in the 1950s was a lot more reckless and damaging than any 1960s counterculture.
The origins of plastics—and of forever chemicals—goes back to research by DuPont prior to and during WWII. And the government's coverup of the dangers was part of the Manhattan Project—as was the public-relations campaign around the benefits of fluoride. The original sites that proximity to which could put cancer-causing forever chemicals into your body were Manhattan Project sites, and the Atomic Energy Commission covered up the dangers at the time, as did corporate profiteers, which have run denial and misinformation campaigns ever since. Before the first no-stick frying pan landed on the first shelf of the first U.S. store, Dupont was strategizing to minimize its financial risk for the harm and suffering expected to result. The tobacco and fossil fuel liars learned from the plastics liars, but were not as good at it.
I applaud Mariah Blake for telling moving, personal stories, and framing them in the broadest context.
Two big players drove the demand for fluorochemicals in the 1960s and 70s, as the dangers became more widely known, Blake writes. One was the U.S. Navy, which worked with 3M to develop PFOA-containing fire-fighting foam that Blake writes would be deployed at military bases across the country. (More accurate would be across the world.) The other was a former DuPont engineer named Bill Gore who had worked on military uses of Teflon but would go on to create Gore-Tex.
Blake's book does a tremendous job shaped around the familiar outline of interspersing particular personal stories with broader history. Her primary focus is on individuals in Hoosick Falls, New York, who become victims and activists, though stories from Parkersburg, West Virginia (perhaps known from the film Dark Waters) and North Bennington, Vermont, and elsewhere are also included. The corporate poisoners in Hoosick include Honeywell, which some readers will be aware is a major weapons maker. These stories are crushingly tragic with far too much detail to be statistics. But the statistics are also in the book. In 2016, over 5 million people in 19 U.S. states and several U.S. territories were informed their drinking water had unsafe levels of chemicals. I can hardly begin to imagine reading each of their stories, stories of death, suffering, birth defects, mothers giving birth in U.S. hospitals—like mothers near U.S. bases in Iraq—expecting birth defects; stories of choices being made between job security and challenging the poisoning of water by corporations that had known what would happen before they did it and had done it anyway.
Also chronicled here is the history of military and corporate control of environmental regulation, if it even merited that name prior to the sprees of deregulation indulged in since the era of the Teflon President Ronald Reagan (may his nickname evolve to mean deadly poisoner rather than impunity). Blake takes the history back to my neighbor enslaver Thomas Jefferson who gave DuPont government contracts for gunpowder long before Dupont's WWI merchandising of death, or (not mentioned in the book) its funding of fascist groups in the U.S., or its investment in both sides of WWII including GM's production of Nazi trucks and IG Farben's production of poison gas for concentration camps. The "regulation" history includes the Dupont-led establishment of the principle that all new chemicals are safe until proven otherwise. This, Blake notes, is why the vast majority of over 80,000 chemicals circulating in the United States (and presumably indifferent to borders) have never been tested for safety by the U.S. government.
Forever chemicals come from ground water, smokestacks, landfills, wastewater treatment plants, sewage sludge spread on farmland, firefighting foam, poisoned fish eaten by humans, and all variety of consumer goods. The particular ones that are subject to countless lawsuits are being replaced by new ones, less known and possibly more dangerous, but legal by virtue of not having been made illegal. They saturate the world before anyone begins studying them. Congress changed the absurd legal practice of approving all new chemicals in 2016, just in time for Trump 1.0 to illegally change it back.
I applaud Mariah Blake for telling moving, personal stories, and framing them in the broadest context. I quibble with a single sentence in the book, the one claiming that the bombing of Nagasaki "ended the war" which is a falsehood marketed by some of the very same people who told the world forever chemicals were good for us.
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Industry Braces for PFAS Lawsuits That Could 'Dwarf' Those of Asbestos, Tobacco
The warning of litigation to plastics makers comes as EPA is accused of failing to adequately test for "forever chemicals" in pesticides.
May 29, 2024
A newly reported warning to the plastics industry and a complaint filed by an environmental nonprofit this week highlighted how companies and the U.S. government have endangered the public with "forever chemical" contamination.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are commonly called forever chemicals because they remain in the human body and environment for long periods. They have been used in products such as firefighting foam, food packaging, stain-resistant fabrics, and pesticides, and linked to various health problems including cancers and issues with reproduction.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that attorney Brian Gross recently told plastics executives that looming corporate liability litigation related to PFAS—some of which has already begun—could "dwarf anything related to asbestos," and lead to "astronomical" costs.
As the newspaper detailed:
"Do what you can, while you can, before you get sued," Mr. Gross said at the February session, according to a recording of the event made by a participant and examined by The New York Times. "Review any marketing materials or other communications that you've had with your customers, with your suppliers, see whether there's anything in those documents that's problematic to your defense," he said. "Weed out people and find the right witness to represent your company."
A spokesman for Mr. Gross' employer, MG+M The Law Firm, which defends companies in high-stakes litigation, didn't respond to questions about Mr. Gross' remarks and said he was unavailable to discuss them.
While Gross declined to comment, Emily M. Lamond, who focuses on environmental law at the firm Cole Schotz, told the Times that "to say that the floodgates are opening is an understatement."
"Take tobacco, asbestos, MTBE, combine them, and I think we're still going to see more PFAS-related litigation," Lamond said, referring to methyl tert-butyl ether. The newspaper noted that "together, the trio led to claims totaling hundreds of billions of dollars."
Back in 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that DuPont would "pay $10.25 million—the largest civil administrative penalty EPA has ever obtained under any federal environmental statute—to settle violations alleged by EPA" related to PFAS and commit to $6.25 million for supplemental environmental projects.
The EPA has also taken more recent actions under President Joe Biden's "PFAS Strategic Roadmap," including designating perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) as hazardous substances under the Superfund law and setting the country's first-ever drinking water standards for those and other forever chemicals.
The Biden administration's steps, as the Times pointed out, are expected to fuel future litigation. Green groups have called the EPA's recent moves progress but not nearly enough—and as Capital B reported earlier this month, there are concerns that PFAS cleanup could disproportionately burden communities home to the working class and people of color.
On top of calls to go further with regulation and cleanup efforts, the EPA is facing pressure to retract what Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) called "false statements" in a 2023 agency research memo and press release. The group filed a formal complaint with the EPA on Tuesday demanding a correction.
"This memo is some of the worst science I have seen come out of the agency," said PEER science policy director Kyla Bennett, a scientist and former EPA attorney, in a statement. "The fact that EPA claimed it could not find any PFAS in samples deliberately spiked is incredibly troubling."
"Scientists around the world are finding PFAS in pesticides from active and inert ingredients, contamination from fluorinated containers, and unknown sources," she continued. "EPA's claim that it 'did not find any PFAS' in these pesticides is not only untrue but lulls the public into a false sense of security that these products are PFAS-free."
Asked about PEER's submission by journalist Carey Gillam, the agency—which has 90 days to respond—said that "because these issues relate to a pending formal complaint process, EPA has no further information to provide."
Gillam reported that "joining in the allegations is environmental toxicologist Steven Lasee, who authored the 2022 study that the EPA challenged. Lasee is a consultant for state and federal government agencies on PFAS contamination projects and participated as a research fellow for the EPA's Office of Research and Development from February 2021 to February 2023."
As Gillam detailed at New Lede and The Guardian:
Amid the uproar over his paper and the subsequent EPA testing, Lasee sought to reproduce his initial results but was unable to do so. That created enough doubt about his own methodology that he sought to retract his paper.
Now, after seeing the EPA's internal testing data showing the agency did find PFOS and other types of PFAS in pesticides but failed to disclose those results, he has a new level of doubt—over the credibility of the agency.
"When you cherrypick data, you can make it say whatever you want it to say," Lasee said.
PEER's Bennett similarly said that "you don't get to just ignore the stuff that doesn't support your hypothesis. That is not science. That is corruption. I can only think that they were getting pressure from pesticide companies."
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UN Experts Allege Human Rights Violations by PFAS Chemical Giant in North Carolina
In a letter to Chemours, the experts said they were worried about the company's "apparent disregard for the well-being of community members, who have been denied access to clean and safe water for decades."
Nov 28, 2023
United Nations human rights experts have expressed concerns over "alleged human rights violations and abuses" against people living along the lower Cape Fear River in North Carolina due emissions of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from a Fayetteville chemical plant.
Five U.N. experts signed letters to Chemours—the plant's current operator—as well as DuPont, Corteva, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Dutch environmental regulators. The action marks the U.N. Human Rights Council's first investigation into an environmental problem in the U.S., The Guardian reported Tuesday.
"We are especially concerned about DuPont and Chemours' apparent disregard for the well-being of community members, who have been denied access to clean and safe water for decades," the U.N. experts wrote in the letter to Chemours.
"We hope the U.N.'s action will induce shareholders to bring DuPont and Chemours in line with international human rights law."
The Fayetteville Works manufacturing plant has been releasing toxic PFAS into the environment for more than four decades, according to the allegations detailed in the letter. PFAS dumped in the Cape Fear River have made it unsafe to drink for 100 river miles, and pollution from the plant has contaminated air, soil, groundwater, and aquatic life.
PFAS are a class of chemicals used in a variety of products from nonstick, water-repellent, or stain-resistant items to firefighting foam. They have been linked to a number of health issues including cancers and have earned the name "forever chemicals" for their ability to persist in the environment and the human body. One study found PFAS in 97% of local residents who received testing.
The letter also repeated allegations that DuPont, the plant's previous owner, and Chemours, a spinoff company, had not taken responsibility for cleaning up the local environment and compensating community members, and that DuPont had known about the dangers of PFAS for several years, but chose to hide this information from the public.
"We remain preoccupied that these actions infringe on community members' right to life, right to health, right to a healthy, clean, and sustainable environment, and the right to clean water, among others," the U.N. experts wrote.
The letters were sent in response to a request made in April by Berkeley Law's Environmental Law Clinic on behalf of local environmental advocacy group Clean Cape Fear. In the request, the groups said the matter was particularly urgent because Chemours plans to expand its making of PFAS at the plant.
The U.N. experts, or special rapporteurs, reviewed existing legal and scientific documents and media reports, rather than completing their own investigation, NC Newsline reported. They sent the letters in September, but made them public on Thanksgiving, 60 days later, according to Clean Cape Fear. During that time, Chemours, Corteva, and the Dutch regulator responded, but DuPont and the EPA did not.
"We are grateful to see the United Nations take action on behalf of all residents in our region suffering from decades of human rights abuse related to our PFAS contamination crisis," Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan said in a statement. "Clearly, the U.N. recognizes international law is being violated in the United States. We find it profoundly troubling that the United States and DuPont have yet to respond to the U.N.'s allegation letters."
Clean Cape Fear called Chemours' response "classic corporate gaslighting." Chemours claimed to be "a relatively new company," despite being staffed by senior DuPont executives, focused mainly on the PFAS GenX despite the presence of several other pollutants, and focused on the impacts on private well owners, ignoring public utility customers who must pay to filter their own water because of PFAS contamination. However, the letter did acknowledge that Chemours knew about the PFAS pollution before the public learned of it in 2017 and tried to both resolve it internally and prevent the public from finding out.
"If corporate malfeasance had a name in N.C., it would be Chemours," said Rebecca Trammel, leadership team member of Clean Cape Fear and founder of Catalyst Consulting & Speaking. "Impunity is the accomplice of injustice. It is the obligation of governments and regulatory agencies to ensure that innovation, economic gain, and progress are in service of humanity, not at its expense. I extend my deepest thanks to the United Nations for its defense of our right to safe water and life itself."
The letter to the EPA focused in part on its failure to study the health impacts of PFAS exposure on the community, while the letter to the Netherlands focused on imports of GenX from that country to Fayetteville Works.
Clean Cape Fear said it hopes the letters will put pressure on both the private companies and the government regulators to act.
"We hope the U.N.'s action will induce shareholders to bring DuPont and Chemours in line with international human rights law," the group tweeted, noting that both companies are publicly traded.
"We also hope that the risk of being named a violator of international human rights laws will give the U.S. EPA the political courage to do what it must to curb toxic PFAS pollution in North Carolina and nationwide," the group added.
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Chemical Companies Are Spending Millions to Lobby Lawmakers on Toxic Forever Chemicals
Our new research uncovers the potential scale of their efforts—and the cost to the public.
Nov 11, 2023
For decades, chemical companies have pumped out products that are poisoning families nationwide. Now, PFAS “forever chemicals” have infiltrated our homes, water, environment, and bodies.
Long-overdue federal actions to address this crisis have finally been set in motion. But at the same time, companies are pouring millions of dollars into lobbying on PFAS and other issues. Our new research uncovers the potential scale of their efforts—and the cost to the public.
PFAS Have Infiltrated Our Homes and Our Bodies
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are also known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t easily break down in the environment. Chemical companies like Dupont and 3M have manufactured them for decades; today, there are nearly 15,000 different PFAS found in products we use every day.
As a result, they’ve spread throughout our drinking water (including bottled water), our environment, and the blood of 97% of people who live in the United States.
This is a public health crisis. Research has linked PFAS to all sorts of health problems, from reproductive harm to cancers. To add insult to injury, we’re also seeing growing evidence that chemical companies concealed the risks of PFAS and misled the public. And as support grows for regulating these chemicals, companies are throwing money into influencing lawmakers and regulators.
Chemical Companies’ Lobbying Arsenal on PFAS Regulations
To find out the extent of the chemical companies’ campaigns, we dug into quarterly lobbying reports for companies that were or are current major producers of PFAS. We also looked at reports for the American Chemistry Council, the industry’s biggest trade group. We focused on Congress’s 2019-20 and 2021-22 sessions, which saw over 60 and 70 bills introduced with language on PFAS, respectively.
Of those, only four became law, along with four Defense Authorization Acts that included PFAS amendments. None came close to fully addressing PFAS pollution or holding polluters accountable.
So far, the chemical industry has succeeded in turning its profits into political power.
During this time, the lobbying disclosures of eight major PFAS-producing companies mentioning “PFAS” total $55.7 million. The American Chemistry Council also lobbied on PFAS, with reports mentioning PFAS totaling $58.7 million. And companies that use or whose products may contain PFAS (including oil majors like Shell and Exxon and food giant Nestlé) lobbied on PFAS during this time, too.
We also dug into campaign contributions from PFAS backers to members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. This committee reviewed the PFAS Action Act of 2019 and 2021, which included some of the strongest measures to protect us from PFAS. Though it passed the House in both sessions, the bill died in the Senate Committee.
We found that during the same time frame (2019-2022), two-thirds of Committee members received donations from the eight major chemical companies we reviewed. More than half received money from the American Chemistry Council.
Without Accountability, the Public Will Continue Paying for This Public Health Crisis
For decades, chemical companies took advantage of our weak chemical regulations to mislead the public and continue profiting off of PFAS. Now, we have a public health crisis that demands strong regulations.
One of our most powerful clean-up laws in the country is the Superfund program. Under the program, companies using chemicals deemed “hazardous” must monitor and report on them. The program also allows the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to direct a clean-up and get polluters to pay for it.
The EPA has recently proposed to regulate some forms of PFAS under the Superfund program. However, trade groups helmed by the American Chemistry Council have directly opposed Superfund status for PFAS. Polluters know the clean-up costs will be huge.
Communities shouldn’t have to choose between unaffordable water bills and toxic water. Polluters need to pay their fair share to clean up what they contaminated.
Another enormous cost will be cleaning up, monitoring, and protecting families from PFAS specifically in drinking water. In 2023, the EPA proposed nationwide standards that limit some PFAS in drinking water. The agency estimates that complying with these rules would cost water systems up to $1.2 billion over 80 years.
If PFAS polluters dodge accountability, the public will be left with these costs. Water systems forced to pay the entire cost of PFAS monitoring and treatment would likely raise water rates, pulling from families’ pockets. If the community can’t afford the costs, households will be left with toxic water.
This would be unconscionable during a water affordability crisis that hits low-income families hardest. Moreover, low-income communities are more likely to face PFAS pollution problems.
Communities shouldn’t have to choose between unaffordable water bills and toxic water. Polluters need to pay their fair share to clean up what they contaminated.
We Need Strong Policies to Protect Us From PFAS and Polluters
So far, the chemical industry has succeeded in turning its profits into political power. We’ve seen few policies that protect families from more PFAS and hold PFAS polluters accountable. But we can’t allow the industry to get away with this any longer.
That’s why we’re exposing the chemical industry and fighting for the policies that will finally protect us. We’re calling for laws and rules that:
1. Regulate PFAS as a class of chemicals:
So far, attempts to address PFAS have been a morbid game of whack-a-mole. Companies have phased out some PFAS, only to introduce other, slightly different ones. However, research shows that newer PFAS have similar impacts on public health and the environment.
The EPA needs to establish a broad definition of PFAS, and regulations must cover them all together. The agency must also finalize its rules to put two PFAS under the Superfund program and set enforceable limits on PFAS in drinking water. Ultimately, it must ban all non-essential uses of all PFAS.
2. Support public water and sewer systems to test and remove PFAS:
Small municipal water systems have so far borne the brunt of costs for PFAS clean-up, monitoring, and protections. Federal legislation has begun mobilizing funds, but it’s not enough.
That’s why we need the WATER Act. This wide-ranging bill provides needed funds to address PFAS, as well as historic funding for other water infrastructure needs.
3. Don’t let big polluters off the hook:
The chemical industry is trying to narrow the scope of regulations, and various polluters are seeking to dodge responsibility for PFAS clean-up. This would shift the burden to the public, who would pay through their water bills or threats to their health.
Congress and the EPA need to reject efforts to narrow the definition of PFAS or limit the scope of liability for clean-up. Polluters should pay to clean up their toxic PFAS mess.
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Like Tobacco and Big Oil, Secret Docs Show Chemical Companies Knew PFAS Dangers
"These documents reveal clear evidence that the chemical industry knew about the dangers of PFAS and failed to let the public, regulators, and even their own employees know the risks."
Jun 01, 2023
An analysis of previously secret documents published Wednesday sheds new light on how chemical corporations aped Big Tobacco by conspiring to conceal the extreme toxicity of a class of synthetic compounds contaminating the Earth's air, water, soil, plants, and animals—including most of the world's people.
Commonly called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade and accumulate in the human body, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—which include PFOS, PFOA, and GenX—have myriad uses, from nonstick cookware to waterproof clothing to firefighting foam. According to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, PFAS is linked to cancers of the kidneys and testicles, low infant weight, suppressed immune function, and other adverse health effects. It is found in the blood of 99% of Americans and a similar percentage of people around the world.
"The industry used several strategies that have been shown common to tobacco, pharmaceutical, and other industries to influence science and regulation—most notably, suppressing unfavorable research and distorting public discourse."
But that wasn't known until recently. Scientists and public health officials were some of the first to understand the dangers of PFAS, and in recent years, exposés like Stephanie Soechtig and Jeremy Seifer's 2018 documentary feature The Devil We Know and a 2022 episode of HBO's "Last Week Tonight" in which host John Oliver called PFAS "the devil's piss" raised awareness of the "forever chemicals." In 2018, Congress held its first hearing, and around that time it emerged that chemical giants DuPont and 3M understood—and covered up—the dangers of PFAS.
The Devil They Knew: Chemical Documents Analysis of Industry Influence on PFAS Science—a new paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Global Health—enriches understanding of the chemical industry's role in concealing the dangers of PFAS. It includes documents like a 1970 DuPont internal memo stating the PFOA C8—used to make the nonstick surface Teflon—is "highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when injected."
"These documents reveal clear evidence that the chemical industry knew about the dangers of PFAS and failed to let the public, regulators, and even their own employees know the risks," Tracey J. Woodruff—who wrote the paper with Nadia Gaber and Lisa Bero—told Phys.org.
One 1979 DuPont report describes a range of highly toxic effects from testing PFAS on animals, including two beagles who died after being administered a single 450 mg dose of ammonium perfluorooctanoate, and rats that suffered enlarged livers and eye ulcers.
Another document, from 1980, shows DuPont and 3M learned that two out of eight pregnant employees who worked making C8 had babies with birth defects, but then lied the following year in a memo declaring that "we know of no evidence of birth defects" caused by C8.
"Further, the industry used several strategies that have been shown common to tobacco, pharmaceutical, and other industries to influence science and regulation—most notably, suppressing unfavorable research and distorting public discourse," the paper states.
The paper's authors did not find "evidence in this archive of funding favorable research or targeted dissemination of those results."
Among the paper's key findings:
- The chemical industry, using industry documents, delayed disclosing the harms of PFAS, costing billions of dollars in health and environmental damages globally;
- Many countries are pursuing legal and legislative action to curb PFAS production that may be aided by the timeline of evidence presented here;
- The production of chemical toxicity research should be in the best interest of protecting the public's health, including designing the research question, funding studies, and publishing favorable and unfavorable findings;
- Legal settlements against chemical manufacturers should include document disclosure in order to ensure transparency and accountability for industries and their products; and
- Public health and environmental policymakers should move towards precautionary principles of chemical regulation.
"The lack of transparency in industry-driven research on industrial chemicals has significant legal, political, and public health consequences," the paper's authors concluded. "Industry strategies to suppress scientific research findings or early warnings about the hazards of industrial chemicals can be analyzed and exposed, in order to guide prevention."
Recent years have seen an exponential proliferation of PFAS-related litigation, sometimes resulting in verdicts like the $40 million awarded by an Ohio jury to a man who claimed exposure to PFOA in his drinking water gave him testicular cancer twice.
In recent days, states including Arizona, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Washington have sued companies that manufacture PFAS.
"These companies have known for decades that so-called 'forever chemicals' would contaminate water supplies for generations to come but chose to sell their products anyway," said Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat. "The failure by these polluters to inform the state about the risks associated with these chemicals has harmed our environment and the health of Arizonans—and they must be held accountable."
Last week, Common Dreams reported that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, also a Democrat, signed into law the nation's broadest PFAS ban. The legislation gradually phases out most PFAS use until "forever chemicals" will be prohibited in all products not essential for public health by 2032.
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North Carolina Group Asks UN to Probe Chemical Company's PFAS Pollution
Local residents have accused Chemours of violating their human rights by discharging "forever chemicals" into the Cape Fear River watershed.
Apr 28, 2023
A citizen-led organization in North Carolina on Thursday asked the United Nations to investigate several alleged human rights violations related to the release of "forever chemicals" from Fayetteville Works, a manufacturing plant previously owned by DuPont and now owned by a spin-off company called Chemours.
Roughly half a million people live in the Cape Fear River basin between Wilmington and Fayetteville, where the Chemours-owned facility has produced per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) for more than four decades, poisoning the region's air, soil, and water and undermining public health in the process.
In a letter to U.N. Special Rapporteur Marcos Orellana, Clean Cape Fear and the University of California at Berkeley Environmental Law Clinic wrote that due to chronic exposure to "dangerous quantities" of PFAS, area residents are facing an "environmental human rights crisis."
PFAS are a class of hazardous synthetic compounds widely called "forever chemicals" because they persist in humans, animals, and ecosystems for years on end. Scientists have linked long-term human exposure to PFAS—used in dozens of everyday household products, including ostensibly "green" and "nontoxic" children's items, as well as firefighting foam—to numerous adverse health outcomes, including cancer, reproductive and developmental harms, immune system damage, and other negative effects.
"Incredibly—and without meaningfully redressing past and ongoing harm from its toxic air emissions and discharges into the Cape Fear River, and the resulting widespread contamination of local drinking water—facility owner Chemours now proposes to expand its production of PFAS," says the letter. "Pursuant to your mandate under Human Rights Council Resolution 36/6, we seek your urgent intervention to actualize local residents' human rights to safe drinking water, bodily integrity, health, a life with dignity, and an environment free from toxic contamination."
As The Guardian reported Friday, Clean Cape Fear and the Berkeley Environmental Law Clinic are asking Orellana to "pressure regulators to stop the Fayetteville Works expansion, ensure clean water in the region, conduct an epidemiological study, hold Chemours financially responsible for cleanup and ban the entire PFAS for non-essential uses, among other measures."
According to the newspaper:
If the U.N. human rights commission chooses to investigate, a special rapporteur would fact-check the allegations in the communication, then issue "pointed" allegation letters to regulators, Chemours, and other culpable parties detailing problems and posing questions, said Claudia Polsky, director of UC Berkeley Law Clinic.
Businesses and governments would have a chance to respond, and usually do, Polsky said. International law is not legally binding, but the process would "put recipients on the defensive" and provide a platform on which the region's compelling human rights violation narrative is told "to the world at large," Polsky said. That would put tremendous pressure on the government to act, she added.
"It’s not just words in the wind," Polsky said, adding that it can also "provide cover and give backbone to agencies to do things they may want to do, but feel browbeaten by industry."
Researchers first documented pervasive PFAS pollution throughout the area in 2017. Inhabitants of the region are "in disbelief that we are still living with this," said Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan, who resides near Wilmington.
"We're nearly six years into this and my kids still go to a school that has water with high levels of PFAS," she added. "Everyone is aware of the problem... and is outraged, and we're all asking, 'Why is this still going on?'"
According to the group's letter to Orellana, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality "are also, through regulatory timidity and enforcement half-measures, responsible for acquiescing in past and ongoing human rights violations."
"The pervasive toxification of human bodies and the ecosystem of the lower Cape Fear River watershed with PFAS that persist essentially forever lends particular urgency to controlling these toxics at their source," the letter states.
The U.N. human rights commission has yet to probe an environmental crisis in the United States. A 2021 investigation of forever chemical pollution in Veneto, Italy, "inspired" Clean Cape Fear to take the step, Donovan told The Guardian.
"There's a lack of accountability," said Donovan, "so we'll ask anyone who is willing to help, and we thought, 'Maybe that's the kind of leverage that we need.'"
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Biden Admin Sues Petrochemical Giants Over Deadly Chemical Pollution in Cancer Alley
"This will have a tremendous impact on our struggle here," said one local activist. "Over the six years we have been fighting this fight we haven't had anything as great as this to happen in terms of getting concrete action on emissions."
Mar 01, 2023
The Biden administration on Tuesday sued two corporations behind a petrochemical plant in Louisiana, arguing that the facility poses "unacceptably high cancer risks" to the low-income and predominantly Black residents of nearby communities and demanding significant cuts in toxic pollution.
On behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint asserting that carcinogenic chloroprene emissions from Denka Performance Elastomer's neoprene manufacturing activities at the Pontchartrain Works Site in St. John the Baptist Parish "present an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and welfare."
Under Section 303 of the Clean Air Act, the DOJ asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana to compel Denka, a Japanese company that purchased the plant from DuPont Specialty Products in 2015, to "immediately reduce its chloroprene emissions to levels that no longer cause or contribute to unacceptably high cancer risks within the communities surrounding the facility."
The White House's lawsuit stems from an emergency action petition that Earthjustice and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law submitted on behalf of Concerned Citizens of St. John, a local advocacy group.
Earthjustice attorney Deena Tumeh welcomed the Biden administration's intervention as "a long-awaited answer to the community's repeated calls for immediate action."
"EPA is finally treating this health crisis for what it is—an emergency," said Tumeh. "We hope this complaint will lead to a swift and significant reduction in chloroprene emissions."
"We are grateful that the EPA is finally taking the first steps to protect this community. For too long, St. John has been failed by every layer of government and we are now facing a dire health emergency and the highest cancer risk from air pollution in the nation as a result."
Denka makes neoprene, a synthetic rubber used to produce wetsuits, orthopedic braces, automotive belts, and other common goods, at the plant. Chloroprene, a chemical used to produce neoprene, is emitted into the air at the facility in LaPlace and travels to other towns in the parish, including Reserve and Edgard. Pontchartrain Works Site is the only place in the U.S. where the compound is emitted.
Average chloroprene concentrations in the air near the facility are up to 14 times higher than the levels recommended for a 70-year lifetime of exposure to the chemical, according to monitoring data cited in the complaint. More than 15,000 people live within two-and-a-half miles of the plant. Fifth Ward Elementary School is located a half-mile west and East St. John High School is about a mile-and-a-half north.
"In the aggregate, the thousands of people breathing this air are incurring a significantly higher cancer risk than would be typically allowed, and they are being exposed to a much greater cancer risk from Denka's air pollution than the majority of United States residents face," says the complaint. The risk "is especially grave for infants and children under the age of 16."
Noting that the DOJ's "environmental justice efforts require ensuring that every community, no matter its demographics, can breathe clean air and drink clean water," Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said in a statement that "our suit aims to stop Denka's dangerous pollution."
Robert Taylor, director of Concerned Citizens of St. John, said in a statement, "We are grateful that the EPA is finally taking the first steps to protect this community."
"For too long, St. John has been failed by every layer of government and we are now facing a dire health emergency and the highest cancer risk from air pollution in the nation as a result," said Taylor. "EPA must continue to advance environmental justice, as promised."
EPA Administrator Michael Regan reiterated the agency's commitment to doing so, describing Tuesday's move as an escalation in an ongoing fight launched after he spent five days visiting heavily polluted Gulf Coast communities in 2021.
"When I visited Saint John the Baptist Parish during my first Journey to Justice tour, I pledged to the community that EPA would take strong action to protect the health and safety of families from harmful chloroprene pollution from the Denka facility," Regan said in a statement. "This complaint filed against Denka delivers on that promise."
"The company has not moved far enough or fast enough to reduce emissions or ensure the safety of the surrounding community," said Regan. "This action is not the first step we have taken to reduce risks to the people living in St. John the Baptist Parish, and it will not be the last."
As The Associated Press reported: "The complaint is the latest move by the Biden administration that targets pollution in an 85-mile stretch from New Orleans to Baton Rouge officially known as the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor, but more commonly called Cancer Alley. The region contains several hot spots where cancer risks are far above levels deemed acceptable by the EPA. The White House has prioritized environmental enforcement in communities overburdened by long-term pollution."
Last year, EPA concluded that Black residents of St. John the Baptist Parish are disproportionately harmed by toxic air pollution after Concerned Citizens of St. John and the Sierra Club accused the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and the Louisiana Department of Health of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to equally protect people of color. EPA is currently pursuing an agreement with the two state agencies, which have denied the allegations.
"This is a positive move in the right direction... This brings us hope. It's been a long time coming. We need action now for our children and want this to be put in place immediately."
Denka, which has lobbied the federal government for years in a bid to undermine peer-reviewed research revealing the cancer-causing properties of chloroprene, claimed Tuesday in a statement that it "is in compliance with its air permits and applicable law."
"EPA is taking an unprecedented step—deviating from its permitting and rulemaking authorities—to allege an 'emergency' based on outdated and erroneous science the agency released over 12 years ago," the Japanese petrochemical firm said.
Tuesday's lawsuit also names DuPont, which built the Pontchartrain Works Site in the 1960s and produced neoprene there for more than 50 years. The U.S.-based petrochemical giant still owns the land beneath the facility. As Denka's landlord, DuPont may need to provide "permission or cooperation to comply with the court's orders," says the complaint.
As The Guardian reported, "DuPont sold the plant to Denka in 2015 in a secretive deal, which The Guardian later revealed was motivated by concerns from DuPont that it would face heavier regulation after the EPA's decision to classify chloroprene as a likely human carcinogen."
EPA is expected to propose a new rule for chloroprene emissions on March 31, according to Earthjustice, which said the agency has not updated the rule since it determined in 2010 that the compound is a likely carcinogen capable of causing irreversible damage to people's nervous, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and immune systems.
Speaking to The Guardian about Tuesday's lawsuit, Taylor from Concerned Citizens of St. John said: "This will have a tremendous impact on our struggle here. Over the six years we have been fighting this fight we haven't had anything as great as this to happen in terms of getting concrete action on emissions."
"The state government has totally ignored us—marches on the capitol, rallying—they wouldn't even give us an audience," he added. "And for the administration to come in and do this, it just validates our efforts."
The group's president, Mary Hampton, echoed that sentiment.
"This is a positive move in the right direction," Hampton said in a statement. "This brings us hope. It's been a long time coming. We need action now for our children and want this to be put in place immediately."
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Biden EPA Lining Up With Chemical Industry Against Push to Curb Microplastics: Greenpeace
"While you might expect Trump's EPA to align with the oil and chemical industry against protections for the American people from potentially harmful plastic chemicals, the Biden administration must do better."
Jun 28, 2021
A Greenpeace investigation revealed Monday that the Biden administration appears sympathetic to oil and chemical industry giants--not the public, scientists, and public health advocates--regarding a push in Europe to curb the use of microplastics in everyday products.
According to a report by Unearthed Greenpeace UK's investigative journalism unit, a senior policy advisor at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) named Karissa Kovner exchanged emails with the American Chemical Council (ACC) in April 2019 regarding a proposal by the Swiss government to list microplastic UV-328 in the Stockholm Convention, the U.N.'s global treaty on chemicals that don't easily break down in nature.
"As much of the world works to take action to address the impacts of the plastic pollution crisis, the U.S. government should be stepping forward to lead, not echoing the world's worst polluters."
--John Hocevar, Greenpeace USA
UV-328's inclusion in the treaty would lead to a ban on its production and use, which is currently common in plastic products, rubber, paints, coatings, and cosmetics, said Unearthed.
ACC officials forwarded an email to Kovner about the proposal, to which she said, "Wow-- that's quite a precedent. Holy moly."
The ACC then told Kovner the Swiss government's push is the "first concrete proposal" to label UV-328 as a persistent organic pollutant (POP).
"Welcome to our future," Kovner said.
Kovner's comments were made when she was serving under former President Donald Trump, but she appears to still be leading the EPA's work on chemicals under Biden; in late March she represented the EPA as a senior policy advisor for international affairs at the ACC's GlobalChem conference.
"While you might expect Trump's EPA to align with the oil and chemical industry against protections for the American people from potentially harmful plastic chemicals, the Biden administration must do better," said John Hocevar, Greenpeace USA oceans campaign director. "As much of the world works to take action to address the impacts of the plastic pollution crisis, the U.S. government should be stepping forward to lead, not echoing the world's worst polluters."
The microplastic that Kovner, the ACC, and the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) expressed concern about regulating has been classified as a substance of very high concern because it persists in the environment and accumulates in organisms.
v> Microplastics have been detected in oceans; birds' eggs and minks' vital organs in the Arctic, sparking fear among Indigenous communities there that it could affect them as well; raindrops; household items; and human breast milk.
"We are no longer just poisoning the environment with our waste--we are poisoning ourselves. This is more than a solid waste or ocean pollution crisis. It is now an environmental justice, international human rights, climate, and public health issue."
--Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.)
Scientists say more research is needed to determine UV-328's effects on human health, but many have raised concerns about its persistence in the environment.
"The assumption is that if a chemical doesn't degrade, we are altering our environment in a permanent way and we shouldn't be doing that," said Laura Vanenberg, a professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst. "When we start finding chemicals in human breast milk, it is not good. It means it is going into babies during vulnerable developmental periods."
Although the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) concluded in 2014 that UV-328 meets its toxicity criteria and that long-term exposure can have impacts on vital organs including the liver or kidneys, chemical trade groups have argued that pollution linked to the microplastic may have come from other sources and that there has not been "sufficient rate of transfer to remote areas."
Kovner said last year that the EPA and chemical trade groups "felt differently" than many scientists regarding "long-range transport" of UV-328--one of five criteria showing a chemical qualifies as a POP and should be listed in the Stockholm Convention.
The EPA official was echoing a claim made by CEFIC in April 2019, when it argued at length to the ECHA that long-range transport of UV-328 has not been proven and that the microplastic should not be banned without such proof.
"The industry is basically saying that until they have polluted enough--until they have created a big enough problem--we can't do anything about it," said Vandenberg.
Dr. Zhanyun Wang, a senior scientist at ETH Zurich and a member of the Stockholm Convention's scientific committee, said scientists and policymakers must work with the data they have to make regulatory decisions.
"We don't have to stop everything [with regards to regulation] until we have very solid scientific evidence," Wang told Unearthed. "There is concern about the continued releases and accumulation of this chemical in the environment and organisms, which could cause long-term, poorly mitigable, adverse effects on biodiversity, ecosystem services or human health."
Oil and chemical giants including ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Ineos, BP, and Shell are among those represented by the trade groups Kovner appeared to align herself and the EPA with.
Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.), who along with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) reintroduced legislation regarding plastic pollution in March, told Unearthed that the Biden administration "must seek to lead on this issue domestically and internationally to address the issue associated with the production, disposal, and waste of plastics."
"We are no longer just poisoning the environment with our waste--we are poisoning ourselves," said Lowenthal. "This is more than a solid waste or ocean pollution crisis. It is now an environmental justice, international human rights, climate, and public health issue."
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Dear Joe Biden: Are You Kidding Me?
The president-elect has tapped a former DuPont consultant to join his Environmental Protection Agency transition board.
Nov 18, 2020
For years, I've been trying to impart a simple concept that Superman is not coming.
Dare I say, I had hopes that this new administration would usher in the dawning of a new day. As picks for President-elect Joe Biden's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team were announced, I felt concerned and disheartened about a chemical industry insider being on the list. Are you kidding me?
Michael McCabe, a former employee of Biden and a former deputy Environmental Protection Agency administrator, later jumped ship to work as a consultant on communication strategy for DuPont during a time when the chemical company was looking to fight regulations of their star chemical perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) also known as C8. The toxic manmade chemical is used in everything from waterproof clothes, stain-resistant textiles and food packaging to non-stick pans. The compound has been linked to lowered fertility, cancer and liver damage. The Guardian reported this week that Harvard school of public health professor Philippe Grandjean, who studies environmental health, warns that PFAS chemicals, of which PFOA is one, might reduce the efficacy of a Covid-19 vaccine.
This smells of the dawn of the same old. To quote the Who: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
It should go without saying that someone who advised DuPont on how to avoid regulations is not someone we want advising this new administration.
PFOA pollutes the blood of nearly every American and can pass from mother to unborn child in the womb. This toxic product of industry is a stable compound not easily broken down in the environment or in the human body, giving it the nickname "forever chemical". Scientists have found it in living beings across the globe - from animals living in the depths of the sea to birds on remote islands.
The Environmental Protection Agency has set no enforceable national drinking water limits for perfluorinated chemicals, including PFOA. Tens of thousands of community drinking water systems across the country have never even tested for these contaminants.
McCabe started managing DuPont's communications with the EPA about the toxic chemical in 2003, according to an article in the Intercept. This was the time in which DuPont faced a barrage of litigation after the company dumped 7,100 tons of PFOA-filled waste in West Virginia, which made its way into the drinking water of 100,000 people. Countless members of the community faced debilitating illnesses as a result. The legal battle with the company was turned into the film Dark Waters in 2019.
Mind you, DuPont suspected that their product was harmful since the 1960s - experiments they conducted in 1961 showed that PFOS affected the livers of dogs and rabbits. McCabe's work inevitably contributed to staving off costly clean-up and additional regulation headaches for the company.
Are we the people supposed to trust a former DuPont man in a transition team tasked with reviewing the Chemical Safety Board? Is this how the newly elected leadership wants to start what is supposed to be a healing and unifying administration? Are we already falling back on the old and antiquated, hide-and-seek, conceal, dodge and deny leadership or are you going to come out and be the change and the hope needed when it comes to the environment?
I don't see how picking someone from industry is moving us toward that goal.
The science is in. Research has linked exposure to this chemical to the following illnesses: kidney and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, pregnancy-induced hypertension and high cholesterol.
What will it take to get our leadership to work with the people?
This newly elected president says we need to listen to the science. Are you really listening to the science or are you listening to an industry insider, who is controlling the message?
With a lack of federal guidance on these dangerous chemicals, states have been left to create their own rules to enforce guidance and regulations. This chemical, and others like it, have been poisoning us for decades. Now is the time to act.
This is not about being rightwing or leftwing. It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you are on. We cannot keep making picks from this inside, leaving we the people, once again on the outside.
What will it take to get our leadership to work with the people?
Stop working against and separately from your communities. Put your transition team on the ground and make them talk with those affected by these chemicals. Go out and see for yourself, learn and hear from those who you represent about what the heck is happening to them on the ground - those living and breathing in the toxic mess we have created.
It is time to keep your promise and give the people a voice and a seat the table in order to find a meaningful solution for the environment and for the people. Don't close the door on us again.
We are in this mess because we continue to do the same old thing.
Let us not forget where these chemicals came from and who is responsible for putting them in our environment. Let us not bring the fox back into the hen house. DuPont executives should have no place in the Environmental Protection Agency.
I call on Joe Biden to do the right thing.
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Leaving Paris for All The Wrong Reasons
Jun 16, 2017
The announcement by Donald Trump that that United States intends to ignore the non-binding Paris Climate Agreement, with the intention to renegotiate it to foist his America First policy on the rest of the world, should come as no surprise to anyone. What is surprising is who opposed the US withdrawal: Big business - including fossil fuel transnationals Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and BP, industrial agribusiness and agrochemical giants Monsanto, DuPont, and General Mills, and more, as well as the current Secretary of State (and former Exxon exec). If nothing else, this assortment of big-business boosters of the Paris Agreement tells us just how weak the agreement truly is at addressing the root causes of climate change.
Since Kyoto, the US has diluted every global climate proposal to the point of ineffectiveness, including the Copenhagen Accord in 2009 and the Paris Agreement itself. It was the US that insisted on making the deal based on non-binding pledges for voluntary emissions cuts (which collectively would still lead to a global temperature increase between 3-4degC above pre-industrial levels), on preventing the operating text of the agreement from including recognition of human rights and the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and on promoting many false solutions that will end up doing a great deal of harm (including so-called "carbon neutrality," which allows polluters to keep polluting by purchasing offsets).
These realities, combined with Trump's claims that the Paris Agreement would somehow be an unfair burden on the US, are particularly disturbing, embarrassing, and even enraging, given the responsibility that the US has as being the most historically responsible for the causes of climate change, and our continued role as one of the most significant contributors of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
"By abandoning the Paris Agreement, this administration will further perpetuate environmental racism and climate injustice against Indigenous Peoples experiencing the worst effects of climate change across the globe...Backing out of this agreement continues a long history of broken promises and threatens the vital and sacred life cycles of Mother Earth." - Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network
It is clear that major transnational corporations played a large role in influencing the US's role in negotiating the Paris agreement. Indeed, Bloomberg news reports that Exxon and Conoco-Phillips supported the Paris agreement based on the argument that "The U.S. is better off with a seat at the table so it can influence global efforts to curb emissions that are largely produced by the fossil fuels they profit from."
At Grassroots International, we are reflecting on four key lessons and priorities for climate justice work going forward:
- Contrary to Trump's "America First" philosophy, isolating the US from the rest of the world only hurts us more. We are not separate from each other or from the rest of the world - rather our lives and our future are in a precarious balance that is linked to one another. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words are more true today than ever: "In a real sense all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."
- We must continue to push and hold our government accountable for the US' role in causing climate disruption. In a recent Grassroots Global Justice Alliance statement about Trump's withdrawal of the US from the Paris Climate Agreement, Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, shared this perspective: "By abandoning the Paris Agreement, this administration will further perpetuate environmental racism and climate injustice against Indigenous Peoples experiencing the worst effects of climate change across the globe...Backing out of this agreement continues a long history of broken promises and threatens the vital and sacred life cycles of Mother Earth."
- Perhaps more than ever, a translocal strategy is one of our best opportunities to combat climate change. Recently, mayors across the country made a pledge to uphold the Paris agreement at the local level. While this pledge is not enough, it is an important signal to the world that the majority of the country does not agree with Trump's climate denial approach. Furthermore, it is a sign that it is possible to win more government action for climate justice at the local level, with cities, towns, states, and Tribal governments.
- As always, it is clear that what is most needed is leadership and solutions coming from those most impacted by climate disruption, including grassroots communities and social movements of small-scale farmers, Indigenous Peoples, Black and Afro-descendant communities, migrant communities, women, and young people in the US and around the world - particularly in the Global South. These are the communities on the frontlines of climate impacts, and at the forefront of struggle. These are the communities putting their bodies and lives on the line to stop fossil fuel extraction, to regulate refineries and shut down power plants, to stop the corporate takeover of agriculture, land, water, and seeds. These are the communities pushing to address the legacies of environmental injustice. These are the communities standing up against megadams, forest offsets, agro-fuels, and other false solutions to climate change. And these are the communities creating the solutions that we will need for a healthy future, based on the concept of buen vivir - living well, in harmony with one another and with Mother Earth.
In the US, communities organized through the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ), Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and others are taking leadership to articulate Just Transition agendas at the local level, and they are winning! These agendas include pushing for an end to the extractive economy, and transitioning to regenerative, local, living, loving, linked economies. These economies include community land trusts, agroecology, local seed libraries, and other strategies to achieve food sovereignty They include expansion of public transit and community controlled renewable energy, along with protection of rivers and ecosystems.
These are the struggles that have won and will continue to win real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, while building community resilience to the impacts of climate change. In fact, the same day that Trump announced pulling the US from the Paris Agreement, Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) announced an amazing victory in Richmond, California - a historic cap on pollution from oil refineries, which will prevent Bay Area refineries from bringing Tar Sands or other extreme and heavy crudes to be processed.
It is clear that we are in a unique and critical moment in the history of the planet. Through our Climate Justice Initiative and beyond, Grassroots International is committed to continuing to prioritize our work to support and accompany climate justice struggles in the US, with GGJ, CJA, and others, and with our partners leading climate justice movements in the Global South.
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