When you drive along the Ohio River close to Parkersburg, West Virginia, you’ll see barges slowly passing a large industrial complex that the majority of the locals still refer to as Washington Works. It was constructed by DuPont many years ago. No matter how many settlements are signed, Chemours inherited it along with a reputation issue that has persisted.
The most recent one, which was revealed in late June, is being referred to as historic. Chemours will pay a total of $450 million, which includes a $22.5 million civil penalty and over $337 million in necessary cleanup work, including about $280 million to provide communities close to its plants in West Virginia and New Jersey with alternative drinking water. On top of that is a $90 million, 15-year mitigation program. On paper, it seems like accountability is finally coming.
However, the mood is much less triumphant when you speak with those who have spent years suing this company. It was a step forward, according to Jennie Smith of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition. According to reports, the attorney general of North Carolina went so far as to call the agreement an insult. Something can be inferred from that reaction gap. Both that this is progress and that it’s far from sufficient could be true at the same time.
This is the section that is often overlooked in favor of the large sums of money: Chemours is still permitted to produce PFAS. Production is not halted by the settlement. All that is needed is 99% capture efficiency for GenX at each facility, cleaner discharge, and improved pollution controls. Critics at organizations like NRDC have bluntly stated that a $22.5 million fine for a company reporting $1.5 billion in quarterly net sales is arguably more of a rounding error than a punishment.
The future discharge permit for the Wood County plant is the issue that hasn’t received much attention. The precise pollution limits are still up for debate. The Trump EPA has also indicated that it wants to rewrite national PFAS drinking water standards, probably loosening them, so the fight is still ongoing and coming at a difficult time. Environmentalists fear that nothing in this settlement will have as much of an impact on the permit process as that larger deregulatory push.
Actually, this story has a peculiar rhythm. For years, Chemours broke its permits. It was ordered to cease by a federal judge. That order was later reversed by an appeals court. The underlying citizen lawsuit, which had real teeth until it didn’t, was settled by the company for less than a million dollars. It’s difficult to ignore how much power changed when federal regulators intervened and essentially took the battle out of the hands of the Rivers Coalition.
The agreement was described by Governor Patrick Morrisey as “an encouraging first step,” which sounds a lot like a hedge. A more comprehensive resolution for Washington Works in particular is still being negotiated by West Virginia officials. Even those who signed the settlement are not claiming that it is the end of the story.
In North Carolina, where PFAS dumping is said to have begun in the 1970s, residents near the Cape Fear River, as well as those in Ohio and Delaware, will theoretically receive cleaner water as a result of the settlement. Eventually. In Wilmington alone, utilities have already spent more than $240 million to remove PFAS from drinking water; no one is paying them back.
It is genuinely unclear whether the upcoming permit dispute will result in actual limits or another compromise masquerading as progress. West Virginia has previously traveled this path.
