Chemical giant DuPont has decided to sell a plant in southern Louisiana that is causing a polluting cancer, citing the biggest concerns that government agencies would regulate its emissions to protect the community living nearby. This is evident from internal documents seen by the Guardian.
The documents show that the billion-dollar company was worried in 2011 about the possible cost of compensating for the emission of the “likely human carcinogen”, chloroprene, and therefore sold the plant, the Pontchartrain Works plant.
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The company gave the name “Project Elm” with the code name in an apparent attempt to keep the transaction, which was completed in 2015, secret. It is also alleged that the company withheld details of its own research to reimburse the emissions of the new owners of the plant.
Residents of the City Reserve, where the facility is located, described the revelations as ‘appalling’, saying DuPont had never been informed of any possible exemption regulations.
According to the EPA, several census tracts next to the plant in the majority black community have the greatest risk of cancer due to air pollution throughout the US, more than 50 times the national average, mainly due to chloroprene emissions. The community is the subject of an ongoing reporting project by the Guardian.
‘They [DuPont] we should have told it. They have a good neighborly policy, but they have not tried to change anything. They would go another 50 years if that happened [potential government regulation] did not come to light, ”says Mary Hampton, a resident who lives a few hundred meters from the plant.
“They prioritize profits over people. They come to your neighborhoods and give you as little information as possible, ‘said Lydia Gerard, another resident, who lost her husband to cancer in 2018.’ It shows me that DuPont thought, ‘Let’s see how long we can get away with this in this community before anyone finds out and says something about it. ”
Gerard is a chief prosecutor in a civil lawsuit against DuPont and the current owners of the plant, the Japanese chemical company Denka. The documents obtained by the Guardian in a state court in St. John the Baptist congregation was reviewed, was used as evidence in the case. The plaintiffs accuse both companies of negligence and damage as a result of ongoing and historic air pollution.
A large portion of the case remains under the court seal, but a limited number of exhibits, including an internal DuPont memo, are available for public viewing in a state court in St. Louis. John the Baptist Church.
DuPont argued in court that it could not be held liable as it no longer owned the plant, despite the fact that it opened the plant and polluted the air with chloroprene for almost half a century. In November, Judge Kirk A Vaughn ruled against DuPont. Last week, a state appeals court also ruled against DuPont.
DuPont did not respond to detailed questions from the Guardian, but a spokesman said: “While we do not comment on pending litigation, we will defend our record of safety, health and environmental management intensively.”
A Denka spokesperson also declined to comment on detailed questions with reference to ongoing litigation.
The DuPont Internal Memorandum of June 2011 highlights the company’s motivation to sell the plant. It was finally bought by the Japanese firm in November 2015, without mentioning the potential emissions regulation in public.
The information note was written by Diane Gulyas, then president of polymers, and was sent to the CEO’s office. It contains two “major concerns for the future” as background for the sale of the plant.
The first point mentions the EPA’s 2010 decision to name chloroprene as a probable carcinogen, saying: “Local regulatory agencies may use this new policy change and determine acceptable levels of exposure in the workplace and community.” The memorandum warns that new compliance regulations could be introduced in 2012 or 2013, with the following words: ‘Measures needed to achieve compliance could involve capital expenditure.’
The plant was not actually obliged to regulate the emissions until after the sale to Denka. In 2017, Denka entered into a voluntary agreement with the Department of Environment in Louisiana to reduce emissions from stacks by 85%. The company says it has spent more than $ 35 million on building the plant. Emissions often exceed the 0.2 micrograms of chloroprene per cubic meter recommended, although not required by the EPA, as a safe sustained lifelong limitation.
The Japanese firm said it was unaware of an EPA report on airborne substances highlighting the cancer risk in the Reserve shortly after buying the plant.
The 2011 memo notes that although sales of neoprene, the synthetic rubber invented by DuPont and manufactured using chloroprene, declined internationally, DuPont still maintained its “position as the primary supplier to US markets” and played an “important role” in Europe.
The memorandum cites supply chain issues as another reason for selling. The neoprene unit was valued at $ 190 million at the time, but DuPont estimated that it would have to pay up to $ 30 million to ‘comply with regulatory changes’ and believed that there was an ‘unlikely’ scenario where it could pay even more. The company was willing to lose up to $ 100 million on the valuation it sold.
Attorneys working for residents argued in court that DuPont investigated the $ 50 million exemption bill to reduce emissions by up to 99%. According to the filing allegations, DuPont did not pass on any of the research it conducted on the release of chloroprene to the new owners of the plant.
The allegation is supported by excerpts from an affidavit of a senior DuPont, George Denny Wright. In a brief excerpt, reviewed by the Guardian, Wright said the company wanted to investigate a reduction in emissions, adding later: ‘We knew we had to look at a very difficult number to hit, and therefore we had looked at every possibility and every option. ”
‘It was a money decision to continue to pollute a community, while the technology was actually to implement the service measures to run the facility safely. And they [DuPont] chose not to do so because of the price, ”said Hugh Lambert, a lawyer working for the plaintiffs in the case.
Advocates argued in the argument that DuPont maintained close ties with the new contractors of the plant after the sale and leased certain services to Denka as it continued to manufacture neoprene, including water systems, compressed air and nitrogen.
Excerpts from the lease were also quoted directly, alleging that DuPont required Denka to operate the plant in the same way as he had previously done and required ‘prior written permission from DuPont’ to change certain manufacturing processes.
DuPont also still owns the land on which the plant was built and operates a Kevlar production line on the same site.