DuPont Stuck With Big Teflon Fine

Chemical Giant Will Pay $16.5M In Fines And Fund Enviro Projects

(AP)  Four additional counts raised by the agency this year also were resolved, according to DuPont, which did not make any admission of liability.

"To date there is no human health effects that we know about that are caused by PFOA ... We've seen nothing," Mobley said.

Under federal law, DuPont faced a potential fine of more than $300 million for not reporting that the chemical posed a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment.

"Our interpretation of the reporting requirements differed from the agency's. The settlement allows us to put this matter behind us and move forward," said Mobley, who noted that the company has cut PFOA emissions from U.S. plant sites by 98 percent and hopes to reduce emissions even further by 2007.

DuPont, which previously set aside $15 million to cover the costs of the EPA lawsuit, still faces a federal criminal investigation of its actions concerning PFOA.

In February, the company agreed to pay more than $107 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2001 by Ohio and West Virginia residents who claimed that DuPont intentionally withheld and misrepresented information concerning human health threat posed by PFOA.

Among other things, the EPA alleged that DuPont withheld test results indicating that the chemical had been found in at least one pregnant worker from the Washington Works plant and had been passed on to her fetus.

The EPA is continuing its risk assessment process for PFOA.

In a draft report released in June, the majority of members on a scientific advisory board that reviewed the EPA's draft risk assessment concluded that the chemical is "likely" to be carcinogenic to humans.

That finding went beyond the EPA's own determination that there was only "suggestive evidence" from animal studies that perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts are potential human carcinogens.