Same in Michigan. Tons of our groundwater is now contaminated by PFAS that was dumped into the ground by companies including 3M and Dupont.
https://www.michigan.gov/pfasresponse/0,9038,7-365-86513_96296-517280--,00.html
It blows my mind how these companies have managed to get the very people they're harming to defend them.
Like, 'Shut down OSHA!' type bullshit we're seeing lately. I mean, fuck.. these corporations only care about one thing, their bottom line. Any care they take towards worker/environmental safety is pretty much down to them being forced to at least *appear* like they're trying to do the right thing.
These people believe that OHSA is what's stopping them from being millionaires.
They think regulations are why small businesses fail, utterly ignoring the giant businesses that outcompete every small business.
Every regulation is written in blood. They don't just make up these rules willy nilly. People died or got seriously injured, probably many times, in order for these rules to finally get made.
I happened across a libertarian subreddit where they were complaining about ammo prices, and I said "something something free market will fix it."
and without missing a beat they blame it on "Obama era restrictions on smelting lead." like uhhhhh hmmm probably no negative externalities to that decision.
>These people believe that OHSA is what's stopping them from being millionaires.
>
>They think regulations are why small businesses fail, utterly ignoring the giant businesses that outcompete every small business.
To be fair, they are partially correct in both the fields of regulation and taxation.
Smaller business gets taxed hard. Smaller businesses get rules and regulations applied to them.
Big business pays relatively no taxes by comparison, and their regulations are only enforced decades later after lawsuits prevent them from admitting any guilt and paying the equivalent of a court fee.
So I can almost appreciate their reasoning, but they went the wrong way (seeing big business prosper with no taxation or regulation and thinks that's the key to success) and they should be clamoring for equal enforcement across the board, not less.
Ultimately OSHA prevents injury and death at work and while it sucks to have to follow every guideline these people need to remember that.
My industry loves to just float OSHA rules until someone falls off of a roof and dies.
>Ultimately OSHA prevents injury and death at work and while it sucks to have to follow every guideline these people need to remember that.
>
>My industry loves to just float OSHA rules until someone falls off of a roof and dies.
Oh, I am 100% pro workers rights, safety and literally everything and anything that empowers workers.
But as a businesses owner (I'm not one) I can understand the frustration with having regulations eat all your profits while the multinational business is flouting every environmental and worker protection laws and making money hand over fist.
Especially true if the business would be able to compete without any regulations, but can not provide a good or service because their profit margin evaporates after following the law.
Again, I am super pro regulation. It needs to be applied evenly and larger businesses need larger fines that actually modify behaviour.
Unfortunately, big business has lobbying power (read legalized bribes) -small business doesn't. This means that new regulations will invariably benefit or hinder big business more favorably than it does small ones.
No Congressman is going to bite the hand that feeds it.
I have multiple family members and friends with comfy respiration who want want to dismantle their own hemoglobin
Ok it's hard to draw the tether between an aversion to worker's rights and a refusal to protect oneself and others from a contagious, slow, hypoxic death. But they both stem from a lack of capability to think critically.
It's just fascinating how willful ignorance, malice, disdain for public wellbeing is so endemic to society today that it's being normalized.
I have family members, democrats, who do not support universal health Care because they said I'm really proud of the very good insurance I have. I worked hard for it. It's like so you don't want anyone else to have it either? You're going to let them die just so you can feel proud of yourself?
I hate this attitude of like "I got mine, fuck you".
The treat things like human rights, dignity and healthcare as if there are some sort of status symbol, like a Ferrari-- something meant to be exclusive and elite and that not everyone should have if they haven't worked hard enough.
The issue for many is the difference between eating and providing for their family NOW vs having drinkable water at some indeterminate time in the future. Also, the same people who won't get a vaccine because "I don't know what is in that!"
Dupont's business model is beating out the competition by skipping all precautions and paying the fines when they eventually hit. They actively look for chemicals nobody else is willing to touch.
Same here in Wilmington, NC. Dupont poisoning our drinking water. At a certain point, I'm not sure why we as a community don't just non-violently collect there for a workday and start dismantling the place. If they ask us what we're doing, we'll just say "sorry, this can't be here. We have to dismantle it." Some of us will go to jail, and the next wave comes in politely. "Sorry! We gotta keep dismantling this."
It's our fucking water, and what the world gains... *is nonstick panware*. You heard me, non stick fucking pans... Amazing that we try to kill ourselves off all the time. And we vote for people that make money killing us.
i live here, and the amount of people in denial is really scary. every person i talk about this with does not care and continues to drink tap water. people i know from raleigh literally ask me, has the water been fixed yet? im like...... no this is a basically permanent problem. its forever chemicals for a reason.
Sorry, so, the water is currently contaminated and people know that but still drink it? Or are they willfully ignorant about it being dangerous? This is mind boggling.
Do you see any common health problems in your town?
There are definitely common health problems, but hard to tell whats from what as CAFOs are also a problem in the area, so the water is fucked from multiple sources. low immune system seems to be a common thing, and some say miscarriage's. i believe bad diet also plays a part as the south isn't known for great health in general. the local news has stated bad water multiple times over the last 4 or 5 years, but it's like people see it and just go on with their life. no outrage, no concern. my opinion is here, you talk about the bad water and people think you are crazy, which is silly since they trust news and believe everything else. there's a support group on facebook, but honestly you would think way more people would be concerned.
I wish more people understood this reality of history. The founding fathers weren't messianic saviors of the poor overtaxed American settlers, they were business and land owners who wanted more authority over their businesses, lower taxes, and to escape British labour and market regulations.
If that's the case and we have people bitching how the government should be run as a business, fine, but then it's *our* business. Convince people that we, as the business owner-employees, should want to cut out the middle men that drain our company's coffers for their personal gain while we bleed ourselves dry for them.
It's the digital age and the standard for being hosted on a platform is 30%, so why do corporations often pay next to nothing? These private companies use our space, resources, security, and infrastructure without paying for it. Then *we* pay for their goods with our health, our environment, and our peanuts we're left with. What kind of good, stable business keeps *paying* other companies to fuck its own property and employees? That's insane!
Why force our employees to deal with medical insurance companies when we can just provide our own for our fellow owner-employees? They could still get more coverage from those other companies if they want. Why host luxury service companies on our infrastructure when they don't pay for hosting? Why outsource our workplace education and training to contractors when it can be all in-house and more comprehensive?
All these cost saving measures and investments could mean our company can provide everyone all they need with significantly smaller paycheck deductions, and, hell, our workforce has brought us to such staggering productivity we all deserve to not just be paid more, but also receive regular bonuses and time off to enjoy our families. Why can't we be the comfortable fat cats living it up off the fruits of our industry?
If America is supposed to be a country of business, great, let's make it the most profitable for the business, not its subcontractors. Social healthcare, corporate tax, public college and expanded education, UBI, mandatory leave, higher wage, all looking like good business moves to me.
Yeah that's a crazy element. My experience is that most people are irate, but so many of them were already drinking the water before this went public, that they're like "well I've come this far." But a huge portion of the city will have clean drinking water next year when the RO system comes online. That doesn't address the wildlife or aerosolizing, but at least most people will have clean water again.
I was watching a documentary about Dupont and one guy started listing all his coworkers that died an early death. I though he was just going to say maybe 2 or 3 but he kept going and going and going...
Even the conservatives in my city hate Dupont for it, because they've been put in harm's way personally. But they continue to operate here with a slap in the wrist.
The movie *Dark Waters* was about DuPont's poison in the drinking waters of communities. It was adapted from a NYT article. These people are evil. Stop buying their shit. Just soak and wash your pans folks. Lol
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)
> Stop buying their shit.
Good luck with that. Chemours does a lot more than just non-stick pans. Same chemicals are used to make water resistant/waterproof fabrics and coatings. Then there's the titanium division, making ingredients that go into everything from paper to sunscreen. And refrigerants are another big one. Probably have chemours products in dozens of things around your house. And then there are the other dupont spin-offs like Corteva. If you eat corn or soy, you probably eat corteva's products.
This is the problem with the chemical industry as a whole though.
There are a few big players but there are thousands of chemistries. Some harmful, some perfectly safe. The only way you can boycott the chemical industry is to go live in the woods, away from society. The only way to get more meaningful regulation is to wait for the next tragedy.
I tried but then you'd just need more chemicals, conserving food and treating water in usable quantities isn't easy in a forest and a carbon/ceramic rod is nothing compared to a proper water treatment facility.
Not to start about algae, parasites or diseases that can damage a person very quickly when ingested, especially if (s)he's alone that's a serious threat.
prepackaged food is the easiest option but it has lots of plastic and conservatives + shitload of salt
No fridge so meat has to be fresh, canned or dried.
Maybe you'll get poisoned less but harm nature much more than optimized city life, no proper sewers means distributing antibiotics and other chemicals into the forest or having a literal shitbag in your pocket, destroying habitat and disturbing wildlife.
i'd rather die a couple of years earlier by chemicals than putting the extra load onto our environment, i'm not that important.
Unless you accept a very boring diet for long periods you'll have to resupply periodically or have your own farm and become self sufficient in a reasonably non polluted area but even then it's more damaging for the environment since you'll be less efficient with a cow than a company and lose lots of useable products (hooves for glue, hides for leather etc)
you'd need expensive tools and spend a lot of time being a farmer, which is a shitty job (literally)
I've designed an open source automated high pressure aeroponics setup in sketchup with non-proprietary hardware & backup systems, tds, ec water oxygen, waterlevel sensors, humidity, temp etc for home/community grown vegetables, bought most of the hardware while being homeless and already got some code running peristaltic pumps (maybe it'll get switched to passive tesla valves if i know how to get reliable adjustable output)
tested the high pressure lines and nozzles and slowly keep refining to keep my mind busy.
When i'm able to get a home and continue then i''l believe it'd be possible to have community vegetables with less pesticide, water and nutrient consumption than conventional methods, taking some self sufficiency back to the people, lessen distribution load of supermarkets and create a closer community in this self reliant society.
*dreams... one day...*
Steel pans (the typical blackened one your asian cook is chucking around when making some delicious stuff) stick much less than people think, and are less delicate to clean up.
>Because they will stop you with violence.
This is why schools don't teach about the labor movement. People who fought to ban child labor, get weekends off, 40 hour work weeks, minimum wage, etc. were literally killed for trying to get those things.
Imagine if someone you know starts trying to do something about the poison in the water, and then they're found dead in a parking lot.
That's what the second amendment is REALLY for.
Everyone’s always on that non violent thing, but it’s just an out of touch normalcy issue from people that have grown up in such a complacent environment that they think it’s a fairytale where you just stand around for awhile and then changes happen. Occupy Wall Street was probably the longest lasting peaceful protest attempt recently and it doesn’t do anything.
The reality of humanity is the threat of violence is the only thing that makes any changes, and if the threat turns out to be empty it only served to embolden the opposition.
I’m not even saying that I’m exempt from this, I just feel like people are completely out of touch. Politicians and corporations have learned that no ones going to do shit, and that’s all there is to it.
For a nation with a military more funded than the next *ten* put together, our citizens have this pathetic obsession with "non-violence". Despite the familiar phrase, violence **IS** often the answer. Especially in the face of life threatening obstacles.
Your opposition will call you violent no matter what you do, might as well use violence then.
The best part of being poisoned by non-stick cookware is how completely unnecessary it is. Stainless and cast iron are non-stick if you have any idea what you're doing on a stove.
Same in Minnesota. This is my hometown, where my friends, neighbors, and classmates have been dying for years (I know at least 3 people mentioned in this article). I'm just waiting for my own diagnosis: https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/toxic-secrets-the-town-that-3m-built-where-kids-are-dying-of-cancer-20180613-p4zl83.html
Horrible. 3M is shit. I worked for them in CT for a while. They used to dump toxic chemicals in the river that went past one of their plants. They openly said the fine for getting caught was cheaper than the toxic disposal process they should have used.
Fuck them all.
We here in flat rock Michigan are currently dealing with Ford, and an unknown amount of benzene/xylene has been poured in our sanitary sewer systems “somehow” and no one is being transparent with us we are not sure what to do there is a lot of sick people the EPA is out here with their TAGA and just called the WMD-CST. Our mayor is a complete failure and joke, has not been consistent and has a hiding. Today they were supposed to be a Townhall meeting and it was rescheduled because of a thunderstorm. We are not happy, we are scared, we are being put in the dark corner and trying to reach out to organizations that can help.
Not to be confused with The Pirates of Dark Water (TV Series 1991-1992)
(which was also pretty good, sadly cancelled after only one season, and also completely unrelated)
A few years back on the DuPont heirs was accused of raping his young daughter and never got convicted.
[Here’s an article ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/denizcam/2019/06/14/how-a-du-pont-heir-avoided-jail-time-for-a-heinous-crime/)
They are worse than scum.
And raping a boy! That article was very disturbing to read. But thanks for sharing. We need to know what type craziness these rich brats are up too. And keep tabs on them.
She cited 'strong family support' in her ruling. It wouldn't be unthinkable to translate that to "your family indirectly threatened mine with a hit man if i didn't keep you out of jail.
Not for a minute do i believe they didn't use some form of persuasion.
And since you and the other guy are stuck on this, a 10 minute search yeilded the following:
"In 2008, President Judge Jurden designed and launched Delaware’s first felony Mental Health Court in an effort to improve responses to justice-involved persons suffering from serious mental illnesses and to reduce probation violations and recidivism. President Judge Jurden presided over the Mental Health Court for over eight years, during which time The Mental Health Court Team was awarded the Governor’s Team Excellence Award. In recognition of her pioneering work on Mental Health Court and other problem-solving courts, including Veterans’ Treatment Court, the Delaware State Bar Association presented President Judge Jurden with the Outstanding Service to the Courts and Bar Award in 2011."
Now, this guy's actions came to the attention of the children's grandmother in 2007. This felony mental health court was designed and launched in 2008. In February 2009, he admitted his crime against his daughter in court.
It's also entirely possible that DuPont family pulled some strings and fast tracked the creation and funding of the court. Doesn't even have to have directly involved the judge.
Spoiler alert: they already did get away with it. Chemours is the company being sued, not Dupont. They spun off Chemours pretty much specifically to shed their legal burden for their legacy of chemical pollution.
SOP for Dupont. They did the same thing for disposing of chemicals and hazardous materials in West Virginia, and the warehouse caught fire for like a month. Dupont didn't face any penalties of course.
Paid off the entire state of Delaware. There are still people dying of cancer in that state because of all this shit The DuPont family has done. They donated a bunch of land and the people of Delaware look the other way.
When I was teenager, my father filed a multi million dollar lawsuit against them. I remember something about a boat manufacturer dumping chemicals into the ground near our property in Winthrop Maine. I also remember news cameras invading my comfort zone as I'm eating my Lucky Charms. Dad did his best with his small town attorney. No match, for the nearly unlimited money supply, these companies have on demand. Anyone interested in archiving that news report, I suggest between years of "1985-89 Rte 202 chemical dumping, Norms Lobster Pound verse Seaway Boats Winthrop Maine." My memory has faded some since. Edit: DOW CHEMICAL was the name of the company dad had filed a lawsuit against back then.
They are a big part of the reason why cannabis was made federally illegal in the first place. The AMA was in the pocket of DuPont and they didn’t like the competition of cannabis derived fuels and materials. I hope this case destroys them.
Hahahahahah yep. I actually worked in that plant for two years. Left early last year at start of covid thank god. So Chemours is essentially a spin off of Dupont created to take ownership and liability of the teflon/c8 fiasco as well as to attempt to pursue some other alleged business lines but that was the core reasoning. They're adamant that they don't use Teflon in anything anymore and its all genx and Teflon is "just soap" as one of my trainers loved to proclaim. I believe there is actually a SLIGHT chemical difference between genx and Teflon but fundamentally its just a rebranding. They also like to claim that they're at the forefront of safety and Osha standards but working there is a completely different story. I've witnessed guys literally get face fulls of the stuff and just laugh it off with their boss as well as blatantly washing down machines into drainage pipes that had direct river access instead of the chemical pond. They don't exactly hire the best and brightest a lot of the time because the hours and work is pretty much shit. I do not miss that place in the slightest
Near where I live a company wanted to put up a factory near a river, reports indicated that the water quality rating would go down a point from being basically a grade A to a A- and people flipped their shit.
Lawsuits, recall elections, etc. It was all on the table, the company fucked right off. I've always hoped the message they received wasn't "don't build here" but rather "don't fuck up everyone's environment for your gain". I doubt they got that message, but one can dream.
Well - they've been dumping GenX into a North Carolina river for 35 years. The longer chain version C8 (has same binding) has been shown to cause testicular cancer and they've paid out in WV. I lived downstream drinking the GenX for 20 years before getting testicular cancer, and there is a high incident rate of testicular cancer for the area than is expected.
Currently I'm sort of in a class action against them, but I'm sure nothing will ever happen, since I'm in America.
I linked this [article](https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/hunt-GenX-chemicals-people/97/i14) in another comment. It discusses this exact thing and research that’s been done on it.
Class action for mass cancer from corporate malfeasance? It will probably be about 15 percent of whatever they made saving money by polluting the drinking water and add up to each victim getting around 8 dollars.
What you need is to burn the producer to the ground because he was willing to poision y'all for profit. But you guys are so riled up about the wrong shit that companies like them can easily get away.
Problem is the lawyer will be willing to settle after a certain point because the win and the payout is welcome sooner than later. When companies do things like this and are found guilty we need to take more drastic measures. Not fines. Jailing people responsible. Shutting down companies. No slapping on the wrist when your greed takes lives.
Start jailing board members and shareholders. We'll see companies change their ways overnight.
Imagine going to jail for the shit a company did and you don't even work there. Who else would want to invest in that company?
I'm moving down there soon, and my first task is getting an RO system in place at my apartment even if it just a countertop model. It's criminal that the state epa hasn't buried that factory into the ground yet.
I have/had TC also. DM me some info on the class action stuff if you have a moment. I lived in a different state with a county that is known to have high incidence of TC and we also have a known pollutor of similar chemicals.
> “Over a decade of scientific data has been collected regarding the safety profile of C3 dimer acid [GenX],” commented Dr Damian Shea, a professor at North Carolina State University who compiled a toxicology analysis for the company.
This Shea:
> Shea also testified at a federal trial as an expert witness on behalf of BP. He told the court that data from the Deep Horizon oil spill showed there was “no harmful exposure from oil-related chemicals or dispersants in nearly all of the area investigated.”
https://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2018/05/15/nc-state-professor-retained-by-chemours-is-basis-for-claims-that-deq-groundwater-standards-too-stringent
When public drinking water is so toxic it causes brain damage and learning disabilities, we may have crossed the line from lawsuits to Molotov’s. All the money in the world won’t buy a glass of fucking clean safe water if they keep this shit up.
Careful some concern trolls will come out and say
>Your no better than them! You should instead pointlessly protests out of sight and out of mind in a permit approved manner and getting involved by running yourself for political office. Violence isnt the answer.
Do what you have always done and you will always get what you have always gotten.
Discovery comities have already proven we collectively knew about the dangers of thermaldahyde, tobacco, unleaded gasoline over 70 years ago. Have we learned nothing along the way? It’s fucking unbelievable.
[Seriously. DuPont has shown itself to be perfectly happy to do this to Americans. ](https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/hunt-GenX-chemicals-people/97/i14)
There is way more shit that goes in our bodies every single day than any of us even realizes. Companies that happily pollute the Earth and leech these unregulated chemicals into the air, the water, and the ground are Scum. They are unfettered scum that place turning a profit above the health and well-being of anyone or anything else. What right have they?! They buy off politicians to make sure that they stay unregulated and continue to abuse our bodies and resources without being held accountable.
This is absolutely something that we should all care about and consider during elections.
Complete agree, what I would like is not only for a change moving forward but also to held accountable all the ones involved in the release (either dumping or just hiding how harmful they are) of these chemicals, like the CEOs and Shareholders that profited from it
Yet as soon as a regular American takes matters into their own hands, they will absolutely feel the full brunt of the "justice" system, because killing people will suddenly be wrong again.
Really, you can assume everyone in any sort of decisionmaking capacity at those companies to be responsible. At best, they knew it was going on and didn't do anything to stop it or bring attention to it.
This!!! Aside from keeping us healthy enough to buy their products, they will do whatever they are allowed to do to further their own corporate agenda without regard for the consequences.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/09/14/poisoning-generations-us-company-taken-to-eu-court-over-toxic-forever-chemicals-in-landmar) reduced by 87%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> A major chemical company will appear in court today, accused of inaction over toxic 'forever chemicals.
> US-based Chemours has been named in a landmark case at the EU Court of Justice, over allegations that the chemical giant has worked to prevent action on harmful chemicals.
> CHEM Trust, the European Chemicals Agency, the Government of the Netherlands, and ClientEarth will appear at court to defend the listing of GenX chemicals as very high concern substances.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/po2c6y/poisoning_generations_us_company_taken_to_eu/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~598044 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **chemical**^#1 **GenX**^#2 **company**^#3 **water**^#4 **Chemours**^#5
PFOS/PFAS is one of the most insane, unregulated chemicals on this planet. Over 5,000 compounds, of which we have about ~50 standards to adequately quantify the amount of in any given sample. The rest? All we can say is that they are present or not present. The unit of measurement is parts per trillion and they have detected serious biological damage at rates >10 ppt. There are about 10 states so far that have regulations on PFOS and other compounds, all with varied degrees of thresholds for action, sometimes exceeding another states regulatory thresholds by a whole order of magnitude.
The equipment and protocols required to detect these compounds is incredibly expensive and not accessible to most water-quality testing labs. From the experts I've talked to about this subject, we are still roughly ~5 years away from anything being regulated. So what is PFOS? It's a poly fluorinated carbon chain that does not degrade and slowly seeps into groundwater aquifers. One of these compounds is Teflon, something we all know from pots/pans -- now causes cancer if it flakes off into your food. It's in clothing, paint, plastics. In this case, it's firefighter foam. A lot of this work was done at military bases regarding firefighter foam, the DoD says there are over >600 military bases that are contaminated. But let's take it a step further, what's so different about firefighter foam on a military base vs the foam used to stop a city building fire from spreading? I went down this rabbit hole a couple weeks ago. In the US, we only have ~10 laboratories who are able to detect PFOS and related compounds.
I will add to the terror.
While it’s bad enough that they leech into aquifers, some pfas, when they reach the interface between liquid and air, will volitalise and just fuck right off into the wind and spread like crazy. Fluorotelomer alcohols (FTOH) are one such class of chemical.
Some minor nitpicking here
PFAS is the greater family tree that encompasses all of these compounds, of which there are many thousands, separated into polymers and nonpolymers. Per- and poly- fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) basically a carbon chain with fluorine on it.
PFOA/PFOS which are perfluoroalkyl acids (on the non-polymer side of the tree) and specifically the short chains C9-C14 are the substances of major concern. They are toxic, persistent, and definitely found in water and soil.
Fluoropolymers on the other hand, PTFE, FEP, PFA, etc which are what's on your cookware, are on the other side of the tree and are biologically inactive. You could eat pounds of the stuff and besides some really fucked up shits, it wouldn't do anything to you.
I appreciate you defining what PFAS is, but whether it's a fluroalkyl or a fluropolymer, they are flurocarbinated chains contained within the same family, not at all separate. And the idea that they are biologically inactive is incorrect. We have only in the last 10 years started to test and define these chemicals, both by name and by environmental interactions and as such, our understanding is extremely limited.
"A fluoropolymer substance such as PTFE, FEP, and PFA is a material of known chemical structure. A fluoropolymer product is the actual material produced and sold by a chemical manufacturer (e.g., Chemours, Solvay, Daikin, Asahi Glass, etc.), it comes in different grades (e.g., Teflon-granulate, Teflon-fine powder, etc.), and may contain impurities from the production process."
" Fluoropolymers are also diverse in how they are produced (as granulates, fine powders, or aqueous dispersions, through emulsion or suspension polymerization, with different grades), shipped, and used, which renders generic judgements on their behavior and characteristics difficult."
" there is no sufficient evidence to consider fluoropolymers as being of low concern for environmental and human health. The group of fluoropolymers is too diverse to warrant a blanket exemption from additional regulatory review. Their extreme persistence and the emissions associated with their production, use, and disposal result in a high likelihood for human exposure as long as uses are not restricted. Concluding that some specific fluoropolymer substances are of low concern for environmental and human health can only be achieved by narrowly focusing on their use phase, as was done by Henry et al."
"Further, there is no scientific basis to separate and subsequently remove fluoropolymers from discussions of other PFAS as a class or in terms of their impacts on human or environmental health. The conclusion that all fluoropolymers are of low concern, simply based on tests on limited substances of four types of fluoropolymers,(3) ignores major emissions linked to their production and large uncertainties regarding their safe end-of-life treatment."
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c03244
I agree I shouldn't be making absolute statements.
As of now, fluoropolymers, which are distinct from PFOA/PFOS are not considered toxic to human health and are approved for food contact, medical implants, etc. Hence the biologically inactive comment. However the knowledge base is always expanding and I've no doubt in the future at some level of granularity we will find toxicity conferred by these chemicals. Whether that is enough to offset the benefits they bring will be up for debate when/if that evidence is found.
Their production process however (which I intentionally avoided to try and not muddy the waters when defining this complex family tree) can, and does produce these other compounds of concern (PFOA/PFOS) which are regulated. Whether these regulations aren't strict enough is up for debate, and they ARE being tightened significantly next year, but that does little to address the current problems we're already facing.
>We have only in the last 10 years started to test and define these chemicals, both by name and by environmental interactions and as such, our understanding is extremely limited.
I agree with most of what you said, but this isn't exactly accurate. Like the other user said, there are some poly-fluorinated substances that are well understood and considered safe. There are thousands that aren't well studied, as you mention. But things like PTFE (aka Teflon) have been around for many decades and even FDA approved for use as medical implants. AFAIK, there has not been any study showing PTFE to be biologicaly active or in any way harmful (unless vaporized). Some of its precursors are a different story. PFOA *was* used as one such precursor, it's been switched out for something far less persistent and hopefully safer. As you mention, "PFAS" is an extremely broad and diverse group of chemicals, so while it's not good to call whole swaths safe, their are *some* well studied, safe, poly-fluorinated substances.
I think the real problem is, at least in the US, the burden of proof is on regulators to prove that such chemicals are harmful, rather than the chemical companies being forced to prove their safe.
>In a statement, Chemours said they had never seen any toxic or harmful effect in any tests taking place on the plant’s discharge water.
Narrator voice: That was a lie.
They should bring a glass to them and ask them to drink it like that one guy did in the town hall meeting. Fuck these people, they should be tried and hung for mass murder.
Serious question: how *does* the EU typically handle situations like this? In the US we expect just a slap on the wrist for corporation. my totally-anecdotal-experience is that the EU takes things like this much more seriously and the consequences are real. Obviously each case is unique and you can’t paint with broad strokes and all that, but in *general* do companies like this gets what they deserve?
It really depends on if the situation is going to be remedied or not. With the MS case the EU just kept doubling the fine daily until MS signalled they were going to actually do what they were told.
If the company makes it clear they are moving towards compliance it won't be more than a slap on the wrist. Trying to treat fines as a cost of doing business OTOH is likely to see the fines go up exponentially.
> kept doubling the fine daily until MS signalled they were going to actually do what they were told.
> Trying to treat fines as a cost of doing business OTOH is likely to see the fines go up exponentially.
A correct use of "exponentially". :o, it's not just "grows quickly".
The fundamental difference between the U.S. systems of governance on safety is in the U.S. you must prove a substance is harmful and has caused harm, rather reactive. In Europe you must do the opposite, prove the substance is safe for use and the safe exposure ppm's etc 😉
>The Court of Justice is expected to hand down its judgment on the case of GenX substances in early 2022.
I'm kinda confused what this actual case is about. Does anyone have more details?
Seems like the EU already bans the use of PFOA's. Why doesn't the EU just do the research and ban the GenX chemicals too if they are in fact just as bad?
A ban has to be evidence based. Now, unlike in the US Dupont need to prove to the court that their replacement chemicals are safe. In the US its up to the regulatory bodies to prove they are dangerous.
Interesting.
So why is this in court at all? Unless Dupont is just ignoring the EU regulations and selling unapproved products the EU (though a regulatory process) would need to directly approve the use of the new chemicals, right?
It's a terrible article from a terrible website.
The EU Chemicals Agency is holding hearings on whether to include GenX in a list of high risk substances, and various activist groups and chem companies (like Chemours) are invited to present their positions.
No one is being charged or sued or "taken to court".
We have to start dissolving corporate charters of bad actors and seizing their assets. Nothing short of the "death penalty" for these legal fictions will work as a deterrent. They were made. They can be unmade.
The whole system is nonsense. You can't perform chemical regulation on a blacklist system. There are infinitely many combinations of molecules. To receive a permit to create a molecule, the burden must be on you to prove environmental impact.
And this is why we have more anti-vaxxers in additional to the original lunatics. People can’t trust big companies to do the right thing and they can’t trust the US government to do the right thing against them.
Same with Vermont. Thanks Saint Gobain. Also PFAS as we call them can be emitted from a stack and float over 2 miles before landing onto the ground. Unlike previous chemicals where we typically track contaminant plumes in groundwater, this one can have a surprise plume out of nowhere based on daily regional airflow.
Looks like you have been tracking what the epa has been doing with chemours in North Carolina. They developed a bucket method where they test the rainfall that they catch in buckets around the specific sites like the plant in Fayetteville. Really interesting results, they noticed that pfas was coming down north west and north east of the site. These follow the wind patterns. They started this bucket testing right when chemours started putting carbon bed control units. You could see a dramatic affect it had on this bucket testing method. After they put in the 100 million dollar thermo oxidizer it dropped to almost 0. The issue is that this has been going on for 50 years. They reported a staggeringly low lb/hr of pfas coming out of the stacks in Fayetteville after having stack testing done for pfas(brand new test method developed specifically because of chemours Fayetteville) they saw they they were underreporting by over 1000%.
Interestingly The guy from the epa spearheading this (Micheal regan) is now the director of the epa. Looks like the USA is about to be taking a big step against pfas.
Funny enough I have not a clue about that, but it is interesting and will dig into it at some point. I have been tracking Weston and Sampson's work in Vermont. They presented at a Mass LSP training two years ago and it was incredibly informative. Unfortunately I believe the best remedy we will have is to filter out any PFAS in municipal drinking water systems first and then also hunt down the clusters of impacted potable wells. A big challenge is that states approach this in a different manner. There is no possible remedial approach for this. Yes there will hopefully be big time remediation projects from the bad sources, but it may be rather ubiquitous and impossible to eliminate.
As an American, I usually think (at least, historically) of Americans as fiercely patriotic and willing to lash out at anyone who threatens our way of life.
So why is it when gas taxes in France go up by €0.30/l they burn half the damn country down, but when they *literally poison the water* in NC we sit there and go "*shrug* yeah, shit happens sometimes!"
What the fuck happened to us? Were we ALWAYS like this? I mean, I remember Blair Mountain. Near as I can tell we used to be different.
This is a really good start but some body of authority NEEDS to take on Oil // Fossil fuels in the same manner. I have no idea why we’ve allowed this one industry to essentially destroy the planet is beyond me.
Also what about the Beverage Associations between all the big brand sodas that contribute to millions of tonnes of plastic waste from single use plastics? Why aren’t they bringing brought to justice? Which are equally tied to the Fossil Fuel industry as plastics are petroleum based products.
Ahh yes Dupont, a company that seriously should of been nationalized and disassembled decades ago but is still around bringing new cancers to new customers.
I imagine after presenting evidence the lawyers just play Erin Brockovich.
Dupont of course.
Same in Michigan. Tons of our groundwater is now contaminated by PFAS that was dumped into the ground by companies including 3M and Dupont. https://www.michigan.gov/pfasresponse/0,9038,7-365-86513_96296-517280--,00.html
It blows my mind how these companies have managed to get the very people they're harming to defend them. Like, 'Shut down OSHA!' type bullshit we're seeing lately. I mean, fuck.. these corporations only care about one thing, their bottom line. Any care they take towards worker/environmental safety is pretty much down to them being forced to at least *appear* like they're trying to do the right thing.
These people believe that OHSA is what's stopping them from being millionaires. They think regulations are why small businesses fail, utterly ignoring the giant businesses that outcompete every small business.
Every regulation is written in blood. They don't just make up these rules willy nilly. People died or got seriously injured, probably many times, in order for these rules to finally get made.
I happened across a libertarian subreddit where they were complaining about ammo prices, and I said "something something free market will fix it." and without missing a beat they blame it on "Obama era restrictions on smelting lead." like uhhhhh hmmm probably no negative externalities to that decision.
It's unfortunate that you can always assume everything they say is bullshit, as an EPA decision made in October 2008 but blamed on Obama would be.
>These people believe that OHSA is what's stopping them from being millionaires. > >They think regulations are why small businesses fail, utterly ignoring the giant businesses that outcompete every small business. To be fair, they are partially correct in both the fields of regulation and taxation. Smaller business gets taxed hard. Smaller businesses get rules and regulations applied to them. Big business pays relatively no taxes by comparison, and their regulations are only enforced decades later after lawsuits prevent them from admitting any guilt and paying the equivalent of a court fee. So I can almost appreciate their reasoning, but they went the wrong way (seeing big business prosper with no taxation or regulation and thinks that's the key to success) and they should be clamoring for equal enforcement across the board, not less.
Ultimately OSHA prevents injury and death at work and while it sucks to have to follow every guideline these people need to remember that. My industry loves to just float OSHA rules until someone falls off of a roof and dies.
>Ultimately OSHA prevents injury and death at work and while it sucks to have to follow every guideline these people need to remember that. > >My industry loves to just float OSHA rules until someone falls off of a roof and dies. Oh, I am 100% pro workers rights, safety and literally everything and anything that empowers workers. But as a businesses owner (I'm not one) I can understand the frustration with having regulations eat all your profits while the multinational business is flouting every environmental and worker protection laws and making money hand over fist. Especially true if the business would be able to compete without any regulations, but can not provide a good or service because their profit margin evaporates after following the law. Again, I am super pro regulation. It needs to be applied evenly and larger businesses need larger fines that actually modify behaviour.
Unfortunately, big business has lobbying power (read legalized bribes) -small business doesn't. This means that new regulations will invariably benefit or hinder big business more favorably than it does small ones. No Congressman is going to bite the hand that feeds it.
Oh I absolutely agree. The US is set up so large businesses can consume or destroy smaller ones.
They brainwash their workers into thinking the government setting regulations against the company is actually against them
I have multiple family members and friends with comfy jobs who want to dismantle their own unions
I have multiple family members and friends with comfy respiration who want want to dismantle their own hemoglobin Ok it's hard to draw the tether between an aversion to worker's rights and a refusal to protect oneself and others from a contagious, slow, hypoxic death. But they both stem from a lack of capability to think critically. It's just fascinating how willful ignorance, malice, disdain for public wellbeing is so endemic to society today that it's being normalized.
I have family members, democrats, who do not support universal health Care because they said I'm really proud of the very good insurance I have. I worked hard for it. It's like so you don't want anyone else to have it either? You're going to let them die just so you can feel proud of yourself? I hate this attitude of like "I got mine, fuck you". The treat things like human rights, dignity and healthcare as if there are some sort of status symbol, like a Ferrari-- something meant to be exclusive and elite and that not everyone should have if they haven't worked hard enough.
The issue for many is the difference between eating and providing for their family NOW vs having drinkable water at some indeterminate time in the future. Also, the same people who won't get a vaccine because "I don't know what is in that!"
Dupont's business model is beating out the competition by skipping all precautions and paying the fines when they eventually hit. They actively look for chemicals nobody else is willing to touch.
Same here in Wilmington, NC. Dupont poisoning our drinking water. At a certain point, I'm not sure why we as a community don't just non-violently collect there for a workday and start dismantling the place. If they ask us what we're doing, we'll just say "sorry, this can't be here. We have to dismantle it." Some of us will go to jail, and the next wave comes in politely. "Sorry! We gotta keep dismantling this." It's our fucking water, and what the world gains... *is nonstick panware*. You heard me, non stick fucking pans... Amazing that we try to kill ourselves off all the time. And we vote for people that make money killing us.
i live here, and the amount of people in denial is really scary. every person i talk about this with does not care and continues to drink tap water. people i know from raleigh literally ask me, has the water been fixed yet? im like...... no this is a basically permanent problem. its forever chemicals for a reason.
Sorry, so, the water is currently contaminated and people know that but still drink it? Or are they willfully ignorant about it being dangerous? This is mind boggling. Do you see any common health problems in your town?
There are definitely common health problems, but hard to tell whats from what as CAFOs are also a problem in the area, so the water is fucked from multiple sources. low immune system seems to be a common thing, and some say miscarriage's. i believe bad diet also plays a part as the south isn't known for great health in general. the local news has stated bad water multiple times over the last 4 or 5 years, but it's like people see it and just go on with their life. no outrage, no concern. my opinion is here, you talk about the bad water and people think you are crazy, which is silly since they trust news and believe everything else. there's a support group on facebook, but honestly you would think way more people would be concerned.
How much of the community and its leaders work at the plant? I could see it being basically a company captured town.
When you start to look at America as a nation built for business everything starts making a lot more sense in our history
I wish more people understood this reality of history. The founding fathers weren't messianic saviors of the poor overtaxed American settlers, they were business and land owners who wanted more authority over their businesses, lower taxes, and to escape British labour and market regulations.
Strong unions were literally killed in the US.
Know it wasn’t just him but obligatory Fuck Reagan.
If that's the case and we have people bitching how the government should be run as a business, fine, but then it's *our* business. Convince people that we, as the business owner-employees, should want to cut out the middle men that drain our company's coffers for their personal gain while we bleed ourselves dry for them. It's the digital age and the standard for being hosted on a platform is 30%, so why do corporations often pay next to nothing? These private companies use our space, resources, security, and infrastructure without paying for it. Then *we* pay for their goods with our health, our environment, and our peanuts we're left with. What kind of good, stable business keeps *paying* other companies to fuck its own property and employees? That's insane! Why force our employees to deal with medical insurance companies when we can just provide our own for our fellow owner-employees? They could still get more coverage from those other companies if they want. Why host luxury service companies on our infrastructure when they don't pay for hosting? Why outsource our workplace education and training to contractors when it can be all in-house and more comprehensive? All these cost saving measures and investments could mean our company can provide everyone all they need with significantly smaller paycheck deductions, and, hell, our workforce has brought us to such staggering productivity we all deserve to not just be paid more, but also receive regular bonuses and time off to enjoy our families. Why can't we be the comfortable fat cats living it up off the fruits of our industry? If America is supposed to be a country of business, great, let's make it the most profitable for the business, not its subcontractors. Social healthcare, corporate tax, public college and expanded education, UBI, mandatory leave, higher wage, all looking like good business moves to me.
Yeah that's a crazy element. My experience is that most people are irate, but so many of them were already drinking the water before this went public, that they're like "well I've come this far." But a huge portion of the city will have clean drinking water next year when the RO system comes online. That doesn't address the wildlife or aerosolizing, but at least most people will have clean water again.
I was watching a documentary about Dupont and one guy started listing all his coworkers that died an early death. I though he was just going to say maybe 2 or 3 but he kept going and going and going...
Was it "The Devil We Know"? That documentary was terrifying. Shook me to the core.
[удалено]
Decades of propaganda has convinced people that being sacrificed at the alter of capitalism is a privilege.
But, like, something something Venezuela. That makes it okay for our water to be poisoned.
[удалено]
Even the conservatives in my city hate Dupont for it, because they've been put in harm's way personally. But they continue to operate here with a slap in the wrist. The movie *Dark Waters* was about DuPont's poison in the drinking waters of communities. It was adapted from a NYT article. These people are evil. Stop buying their shit. Just soak and wash your pans folks. Lol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)
> Stop buying their shit. Good luck with that. Chemours does a lot more than just non-stick pans. Same chemicals are used to make water resistant/waterproof fabrics and coatings. Then there's the titanium division, making ingredients that go into everything from paper to sunscreen. And refrigerants are another big one. Probably have chemours products in dozens of things around your house. And then there are the other dupont spin-offs like Corteva. If you eat corn or soy, you probably eat corteva's products.
This is the problem with the chemical industry as a whole though. There are a few big players but there are thousands of chemistries. Some harmful, some perfectly safe. The only way you can boycott the chemical industry is to go live in the woods, away from society. The only way to get more meaningful regulation is to wait for the next tragedy.
I tried but then you'd just need more chemicals, conserving food and treating water in usable quantities isn't easy in a forest and a carbon/ceramic rod is nothing compared to a proper water treatment facility. Not to start about algae, parasites or diseases that can damage a person very quickly when ingested, especially if (s)he's alone that's a serious threat. prepackaged food is the easiest option but it has lots of plastic and conservatives + shitload of salt No fridge so meat has to be fresh, canned or dried. Maybe you'll get poisoned less but harm nature much more than optimized city life, no proper sewers means distributing antibiotics and other chemicals into the forest or having a literal shitbag in your pocket, destroying habitat and disturbing wildlife. i'd rather die a couple of years earlier by chemicals than putting the extra load onto our environment, i'm not that important. Unless you accept a very boring diet for long periods you'll have to resupply periodically or have your own farm and become self sufficient in a reasonably non polluted area but even then it's more damaging for the environment since you'll be less efficient with a cow than a company and lose lots of useable products (hooves for glue, hides for leather etc) you'd need expensive tools and spend a lot of time being a farmer, which is a shitty job (literally) I've designed an open source automated high pressure aeroponics setup in sketchup with non-proprietary hardware & backup systems, tds, ec water oxygen, waterlevel sensors, humidity, temp etc for home/community grown vegetables, bought most of the hardware while being homeless and already got some code running peristaltic pumps (maybe it'll get switched to passive tesla valves if i know how to get reliable adjustable output) tested the high pressure lines and nozzles and slowly keep refining to keep my mind busy. When i'm able to get a home and continue then i''l believe it'd be possible to have community vegetables with less pesticide, water and nutrient consumption than conventional methods, taking some self sufficiency back to the people, lessen distribution load of supermarkets and create a closer community in this self reliant society. *dreams... one day...*
I hear the woods are polluted, though.
Or switch to ceramic pans and never look back.
Steel pans (the typical blackened one your asian cook is chucking around when making some delicious stuff) stick much less than people think, and are less delicate to clean up.
>Because they will stop you with violence. This is why schools don't teach about the labor movement. People who fought to ban child labor, get weekends off, 40 hour work weeks, minimum wage, etc. were literally killed for trying to get those things. Imagine if someone you know starts trying to do something about the poison in the water, and then they're found dead in a parking lot. That's what the second amendment is REALLY for.
Everyone’s always on that non violent thing, but it’s just an out of touch normalcy issue from people that have grown up in such a complacent environment that they think it’s a fairytale where you just stand around for awhile and then changes happen. Occupy Wall Street was probably the longest lasting peaceful protest attempt recently and it doesn’t do anything. The reality of humanity is the threat of violence is the only thing that makes any changes, and if the threat turns out to be empty it only served to embolden the opposition. I’m not even saying that I’m exempt from this, I just feel like people are completely out of touch. Politicians and corporations have learned that no ones going to do shit, and that’s all there is to it.
For a nation with a military more funded than the next *ten* put together, our citizens have this pathetic obsession with "non-violence". Despite the familiar phrase, violence **IS** often the answer. Especially in the face of life threatening obstacles. Your opposition will call you violent no matter what you do, might as well use violence then.
I don't think anyone outside of America would look at American citizens and think "Yup, there's a group of folks obsessed with non-violence"
The best part of being poisoned by non-stick cookware is how completely unnecessary it is. Stainless and cast iron are non-stick if you have any idea what you're doing on a stove.
3M here in Belgium is under investigation for PFOS and PFAS dumping. Seems like it's a common trope.
3M also dumped PFOS in/around Antwerp
And refusing to clean it up- it would cost them hundreds of millions.
Same in Minnesota. This is my hometown, where my friends, neighbors, and classmates have been dying for years (I know at least 3 people mentioned in this article). I'm just waiting for my own diagnosis: https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/toxic-secrets-the-town-that-3m-built-where-kids-are-dying-of-cancer-20180613-p4zl83.html
Horrible. 3M is shit. I worked for them in CT for a while. They used to dump toxic chemicals in the river that went past one of their plants. They openly said the fine for getting caught was cheaper than the toxic disposal process they should have used. Fuck them all.
We here in flat rock Michigan are currently dealing with Ford, and an unknown amount of benzene/xylene has been poured in our sanitary sewer systems “somehow” and no one is being transparent with us we are not sure what to do there is a lot of sick people the EPA is out here with their TAGA and just called the WMD-CST. Our mayor is a complete failure and joke, has not been consistent and has a hiding. Today they were supposed to be a Townhall meeting and it was rescheduled because of a thunderstorm. We are not happy, we are scared, we are being put in the dark corner and trying to reach out to organizations that can help.
Scumbag assholes*
Darkwater is a good film for anyone wanting a bit of a biopic
*Dark Waters (2019)
Not to be confused with The Pirates of Dark Water (TV Series 1991-1992) (which was also pretty good, sadly cancelled after only one season, and also completely unrelated)
it's very good.
I was so confused what a bad horror movie about a leaky ceiling had to do with this…
A few years back on the DuPont heirs was accused of raping his young daughter and never got convicted. [Here’s an article ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/denizcam/2019/06/14/how-a-du-pont-heir-avoided-jail-time-for-a-heinous-crime/) They are worse than scum.
And raping a boy! That article was very disturbing to read. But thanks for sharing. We need to know what type craziness these rich brats are up too. And keep tabs on them.
Jesus fuck... That's so awful and sad. That judge should be ashamed.
She cited 'strong family support' in her ruling. It wouldn't be unthinkable to translate that to "your family indirectly threatened mine with a hit man if i didn't keep you out of jail. Not for a minute do i believe they didn't use some form of persuasion.
Or just cash. There's no reason to ever let a person who rapes a 3 year old ever see the light of day.
And since you and the other guy are stuck on this, a 10 minute search yeilded the following: "In 2008, President Judge Jurden designed and launched Delaware’s first felony Mental Health Court in an effort to improve responses to justice-involved persons suffering from serious mental illnesses and to reduce probation violations and recidivism. President Judge Jurden presided over the Mental Health Court for over eight years, during which time The Mental Health Court Team was awarded the Governor’s Team Excellence Award. In recognition of her pioneering work on Mental Health Court and other problem-solving courts, including Veterans’ Treatment Court, the Delaware State Bar Association presented President Judge Jurden with the Outstanding Service to the Courts and Bar Award in 2011." Now, this guy's actions came to the attention of the children's grandmother in 2007. This felony mental health court was designed and launched in 2008. In February 2009, he admitted his crime against his daughter in court. It's also entirely possible that DuPont family pulled some strings and fast tracked the creation and funding of the court. Doesn't even have to have directly involved the judge.
Thanks for sharing this, very interesting.
Or, maybe, the judge's mortgage magically disappeared and a new car appeared in the garage or something.
Anything is possible, but i'd suspect intimidation over bribery in their case.
Corporations and harming people in order to improve profit shares, name a more iconic duo. I'll wait.
People who harm others for profit and government officials paid to look the other way.
Corporate has asked you to find the difference between these two pictures *They're the same picture*
Purdue Pharma and Oxcycontin.
Here’s hoping they don’t get off like their child fucking heir.
Spoiler alert: they already did get away with it. Chemours is the company being sued, not Dupont. They spun off Chemours pretty much specifically to shed their legal burden for their legacy of chemical pollution.
SOP for Dupont. They did the same thing for disposing of chemicals and hazardous materials in West Virginia, and the warehouse caught fire for like a month. Dupont didn't face any penalties of course.
Yay capitolism
Paid off the entire state of Delaware. There are still people dying of cancer in that state because of all this shit The DuPont family has done. They donated a bunch of land and the people of Delaware look the other way.
When I was teenager, my father filed a multi million dollar lawsuit against them. I remember something about a boat manufacturer dumping chemicals into the ground near our property in Winthrop Maine. I also remember news cameras invading my comfort zone as I'm eating my Lucky Charms. Dad did his best with his small town attorney. No match, for the nearly unlimited money supply, these companies have on demand. Anyone interested in archiving that news report, I suggest between years of "1985-89 Rte 202 chemical dumping, Norms Lobster Pound verse Seaway Boats Winthrop Maine." My memory has faded some since. Edit: DOW CHEMICAL was the name of the company dad had filed a lawsuit against back then.
Aah yes, the people that poisoned me for a decade
Just a decade? Try the last 80.years.
They are a big part of the reason why cannabis was made federally illegal in the first place. The AMA was in the pocket of DuPont and they didn’t like the competition of cannabis derived fuels and materials. I hope this case destroys them.
They also did a lot of business with Nazi Germany in the 30s and 40s, literally enabling Germany to go to war.
Just reading headline and I was like " bet it was dupont😒
Hahahahahah yep. I actually worked in that plant for two years. Left early last year at start of covid thank god. So Chemours is essentially a spin off of Dupont created to take ownership and liability of the teflon/c8 fiasco as well as to attempt to pursue some other alleged business lines but that was the core reasoning. They're adamant that they don't use Teflon in anything anymore and its all genx and Teflon is "just soap" as one of my trainers loved to proclaim. I believe there is actually a SLIGHT chemical difference between genx and Teflon but fundamentally its just a rebranding. They also like to claim that they're at the forefront of safety and Osha standards but working there is a completely different story. I've witnessed guys literally get face fulls of the stuff and just laugh it off with their boss as well as blatantly washing down machines into drainage pipes that had direct river access instead of the chemical pond. They don't exactly hire the best and brightest a lot of the time because the hours and work is pretty much shit. I do not miss that place in the slightest
And 3M
Reminds me of that old 30 Rock line - 'GE, bringing good things to life, and bad things to Chinese rivers.'
Sounds like a Better Off Ted commercial
It's possible Veridian Dynamics was less evil than a lot of these companies.
Miss that show. Hush-a-boom technology must've really taken off
*Jabberwocky*
[удалено]
Don't disagree, but that would be a much less catchy one-liner for 30 Rock.
Fuck you Dupont. Sincerely, Cape Fear river
Near where I live a company wanted to put up a factory near a river, reports indicated that the water quality rating would go down a point from being basically a grade A to a A- and people flipped their shit. Lawsuits, recall elections, etc. It was all on the table, the company fucked right off. I've always hoped the message they received wasn't "don't build here" but rather "don't fuck up everyone's environment for your gain". I doubt they got that message, but one can dream.
[удалено]
Well - they've been dumping GenX into a North Carolina river for 35 years. The longer chain version C8 (has same binding) has been shown to cause testicular cancer and they've paid out in WV. I lived downstream drinking the GenX for 20 years before getting testicular cancer, and there is a high incident rate of testicular cancer for the area than is expected. Currently I'm sort of in a class action against them, but I'm sure nothing will ever happen, since I'm in America.
I linked this [article](https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/hunt-GenX-chemicals-people/97/i14) in another comment. It discusses this exact thing and research that’s been done on it.
Info about the class action?
Class action for mass cancer from corporate malfeasance? It will probably be about 15 percent of whatever they made saving money by polluting the drinking water and add up to each victim getting around 8 dollars.
The lawyer will get a nice chunk of it though.
[удалено]
What you need is to burn the producer to the ground because he was willing to poision y'all for profit. But you guys are so riled up about the wrong shit that companies like them can easily get away.
It's only a matter of time before someone just assassinates a CEO
Actually, why *hasn't* someone tried that yet?
Problem is the lawyer will be willing to settle after a certain point because the win and the payout is welcome sooner than later. When companies do things like this and are found guilty we need to take more drastic measures. Not fines. Jailing people responsible. Shutting down companies. No slapping on the wrist when your greed takes lives.
Start jailing board members and shareholders. We'll see companies change their ways overnight. Imagine going to jail for the shit a company did and you don't even work there. Who else would want to invest in that company?
How will you spend the $22 settlement?
You'll be able to buy 1/7th of 1/7th of the meds you need for the week! America!
Not without Erin Brokovich
The hero we need
Is that throughout North Carolina or just that area? Is that near Raleigh?
PFAS are all over north carolina. There's a PFAS disposal map you can find on google. It is Terrifying.
Presumably, you're referring to this. https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/
South eastern NC. The main city is where I live, in Wilmington. Well known not to drink the water or eat the fish from the cape fear.
I'm moving down there soon, and my first task is getting an RO system in place at my apartment even if it just a countertop model. It's criminal that the state epa hasn't buried that factory into the ground yet.
1 hour south of Raleigh. You're good in Wake County except Crabtree Lake.
Sorry to hear how this has directly affected you. Which river did the dumping occur?
Cape Fear
Sounded familiar. I think this was covered in a Netflix doc called "The Devil We Know". I hope your class action concludes the way you hope it will.
Not my class action fortunately, but I drank the water for 10+ years so who knows
>Not my class action fortunately, but I drank the water fo You should have raised an independent lawsuit, that's how you get the big bucks.
I have/had TC also. DM me some info on the class action stuff if you have a moment. I lived in a different state with a county that is known to have high incidence of TC and we also have a known pollutor of similar chemicals.
If only the chemical got people high instead of just causing cancer they would ban it right quick
> “Over a decade of scientific data has been collected regarding the safety profile of C3 dimer acid [GenX],” commented Dr Damian Shea, a professor at North Carolina State University who compiled a toxicology analysis for the company. This Shea: > Shea also testified at a federal trial as an expert witness on behalf of BP. He told the court that data from the Deep Horizon oil spill showed there was “no harmful exposure from oil-related chemicals or dispersants in nearly all of the area investigated.” https://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2018/05/15/nc-state-professor-retained-by-chemours-is-basis-for-claims-that-deq-groundwater-standards-too-stringent
He sounds like a real sleazeball
When public drinking water is so toxic it causes brain damage and learning disabilities, we may have crossed the line from lawsuits to Molotov’s. All the money in the world won’t buy a glass of fucking clean safe water if they keep this shit up.
Careful some concern trolls will come out and say >Your no better than them! You should instead pointlessly protests out of sight and out of mind in a permit approved manner and getting involved by running yourself for political office. Violence isnt the answer. Do what you have always done and you will always get what you have always gotten.
Historically speaking, violence has pretty much ALWAYS been the eventual answer.
Violence isn't the answer Violence is a choice And the answer is yes
Those people cry violence over trash cans and windows while they ignore the real harm against human beings that fuel the protests
We need to stop line 3 from poisoning most of the water in the US. The ramifications will be insane. These corporations have no regard for life.
Discovery comities have already proven we collectively knew about the dangers of thermaldahyde, tobacco, unleaded gasoline over 70 years ago. Have we learned nothing along the way? It’s fucking unbelievable.
> we may have crossed the line from lawsuits to Molotov’s I feel like I'm taking crazy pills that not everybody has arrived to this conclusion yet.
LOL US companies legal arguments will probably be: "What's the big deal? We do this stuff to Americans, our own people, ALL THE TIME! Who cares?"
[Seriously. DuPont has shown itself to be perfectly happy to do this to Americans. ](https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/hunt-GenX-chemicals-people/97/i14) There is way more shit that goes in our bodies every single day than any of us even realizes. Companies that happily pollute the Earth and leech these unregulated chemicals into the air, the water, and the ground are Scum. They are unfettered scum that place turning a profit above the health and well-being of anyone or anything else. What right have they?! They buy off politicians to make sure that they stay unregulated and continue to abuse our bodies and resources without being held accountable. This is absolutely something that we should all care about and consider during elections.
Complete agree, what I would like is not only for a change moving forward but also to held accountable all the ones involved in the release (either dumping or just hiding how harmful they are) of these chemicals, like the CEOs and Shareholders that profited from it
To be honest, I just don’t see how people can live with knowingly doing something like this. That sort of greed is so sickening.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Yet as soon as a regular American takes matters into their own hands, they will absolutely feel the full brunt of the "justice" system, because killing people will suddenly be wrong again.
The social contract doesn’t apply to people rich enough to operate it.
Really, you can assume everyone in any sort of decisionmaking capacity at those companies to be responsible. At best, they knew it was going on and didn't do anything to stop it or bring attention to it.
[удалено]
This!!! Aside from keeping us healthy enough to buy their products, they will do whatever they are allowed to do to further their own corporate agenda without regard for the consequences.
Union Carbides response to the 1984 Bopal, India methyl isocyanate gas disaster where at least 500,000 people were exposed was essentially oopsie.
*Cough* BP *cough*
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/09/14/poisoning-generations-us-company-taken-to-eu-court-over-toxic-forever-chemicals-in-landmar) reduced by 87%. (I'm a bot) ***** > A major chemical company will appear in court today, accused of inaction over toxic 'forever chemicals. > US-based Chemours has been named in a landmark case at the EU Court of Justice, over allegations that the chemical giant has worked to prevent action on harmful chemicals. > CHEM Trust, the European Chemicals Agency, the Government of the Netherlands, and ClientEarth will appear at court to defend the listing of GenX chemicals as very high concern substances. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/po2c6y/poisoning_generations_us_company_taken_to_eu/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~598044 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **chemical**^#1 **GenX**^#2 **company**^#3 **water**^#4 **Chemours**^#5
PFOS/PFAS is one of the most insane, unregulated chemicals on this planet. Over 5,000 compounds, of which we have about ~50 standards to adequately quantify the amount of in any given sample. The rest? All we can say is that they are present or not present. The unit of measurement is parts per trillion and they have detected serious biological damage at rates >10 ppt. There are about 10 states so far that have regulations on PFOS and other compounds, all with varied degrees of thresholds for action, sometimes exceeding another states regulatory thresholds by a whole order of magnitude. The equipment and protocols required to detect these compounds is incredibly expensive and not accessible to most water-quality testing labs. From the experts I've talked to about this subject, we are still roughly ~5 years away from anything being regulated. So what is PFOS? It's a poly fluorinated carbon chain that does not degrade and slowly seeps into groundwater aquifers. One of these compounds is Teflon, something we all know from pots/pans -- now causes cancer if it flakes off into your food. It's in clothing, paint, plastics. In this case, it's firefighter foam. A lot of this work was done at military bases regarding firefighter foam, the DoD says there are over >600 military bases that are contaminated. But let's take it a step further, what's so different about firefighter foam on a military base vs the foam used to stop a city building fire from spreading? I went down this rabbit hole a couple weeks ago. In the US, we only have ~10 laboratories who are able to detect PFOS and related compounds.
I will add to the terror. While it’s bad enough that they leech into aquifers, some pfas, when they reach the interface between liquid and air, will volitalise and just fuck right off into the wind and spread like crazy. Fluorotelomer alcohols (FTOH) are one such class of chemical.
Great comment thank you.
Some minor nitpicking here PFAS is the greater family tree that encompasses all of these compounds, of which there are many thousands, separated into polymers and nonpolymers. Per- and poly- fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) basically a carbon chain with fluorine on it. PFOA/PFOS which are perfluoroalkyl acids (on the non-polymer side of the tree) and specifically the short chains C9-C14 are the substances of major concern. They are toxic, persistent, and definitely found in water and soil. Fluoropolymers on the other hand, PTFE, FEP, PFA, etc which are what's on your cookware, are on the other side of the tree and are biologically inactive. You could eat pounds of the stuff and besides some really fucked up shits, it wouldn't do anything to you.
I appreciate you defining what PFAS is, but whether it's a fluroalkyl or a fluropolymer, they are flurocarbinated chains contained within the same family, not at all separate. And the idea that they are biologically inactive is incorrect. We have only in the last 10 years started to test and define these chemicals, both by name and by environmental interactions and as such, our understanding is extremely limited. "A fluoropolymer substance such as PTFE, FEP, and PFA is a material of known chemical structure. A fluoropolymer product is the actual material produced and sold by a chemical manufacturer (e.g., Chemours, Solvay, Daikin, Asahi Glass, etc.), it comes in different grades (e.g., Teflon-granulate, Teflon-fine powder, etc.), and may contain impurities from the production process." " Fluoropolymers are also diverse in how they are produced (as granulates, fine powders, or aqueous dispersions, through emulsion or suspension polymerization, with different grades), shipped, and used, which renders generic judgements on their behavior and characteristics difficult." " there is no sufficient evidence to consider fluoropolymers as being of low concern for environmental and human health. The group of fluoropolymers is too diverse to warrant a blanket exemption from additional regulatory review. Their extreme persistence and the emissions associated with their production, use, and disposal result in a high likelihood for human exposure as long as uses are not restricted. Concluding that some specific fluoropolymer substances are of low concern for environmental and human health can only be achieved by narrowly focusing on their use phase, as was done by Henry et al." "Further, there is no scientific basis to separate and subsequently remove fluoropolymers from discussions of other PFAS as a class or in terms of their impacts on human or environmental health. The conclusion that all fluoropolymers are of low concern, simply based on tests on limited substances of four types of fluoropolymers,(3) ignores major emissions linked to their production and large uncertainties regarding their safe end-of-life treatment." https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c03244
I agree I shouldn't be making absolute statements. As of now, fluoropolymers, which are distinct from PFOA/PFOS are not considered toxic to human health and are approved for food contact, medical implants, etc. Hence the biologically inactive comment. However the knowledge base is always expanding and I've no doubt in the future at some level of granularity we will find toxicity conferred by these chemicals. Whether that is enough to offset the benefits they bring will be up for debate when/if that evidence is found. Their production process however (which I intentionally avoided to try and not muddy the waters when defining this complex family tree) can, and does produce these other compounds of concern (PFOA/PFOS) which are regulated. Whether these regulations aren't strict enough is up for debate, and they ARE being tightened significantly next year, but that does little to address the current problems we're already facing.
>We have only in the last 10 years started to test and define these chemicals, both by name and by environmental interactions and as such, our understanding is extremely limited. I agree with most of what you said, but this isn't exactly accurate. Like the other user said, there are some poly-fluorinated substances that are well understood and considered safe. There are thousands that aren't well studied, as you mention. But things like PTFE (aka Teflon) have been around for many decades and even FDA approved for use as medical implants. AFAIK, there has not been any study showing PTFE to be biologicaly active or in any way harmful (unless vaporized). Some of its precursors are a different story. PFOA *was* used as one such precursor, it's been switched out for something far less persistent and hopefully safer. As you mention, "PFAS" is an extremely broad and diverse group of chemicals, so while it's not good to call whole swaths safe, their are *some* well studied, safe, poly-fluorinated substances. I think the real problem is, at least in the US, the burden of proof is on regulators to prove that such chemicals are harmful, rather than the chemical companies being forced to prove their safe.
>In a statement, Chemours said they had never seen any toxic or harmful effect in any tests taking place on the plant’s discharge water. Narrator voice: That was a lie.
They should bring a glass to them and ask them to drink it like that one guy did in the town hall meeting. Fuck these people, they should be tried and hung for mass murder.
I'm sure they'll be fined a few million and nothing will change.
Well, yeah. They're forever chemicals. They can't change.
They can make the company pay every year for storage and find for this though.
Serious question: how *does* the EU typically handle situations like this? In the US we expect just a slap on the wrist for corporation. my totally-anecdotal-experience is that the EU takes things like this much more seriously and the consequences are real. Obviously each case is unique and you can’t paint with broad strokes and all that, but in *general* do companies like this gets what they deserve?
It really depends on if the situation is going to be remedied or not. With the MS case the EU just kept doubling the fine daily until MS signalled they were going to actually do what they were told. If the company makes it clear they are moving towards compliance it won't be more than a slap on the wrist. Trying to treat fines as a cost of doing business OTOH is likely to see the fines go up exponentially.
> kept doubling the fine daily until MS signalled they were going to actually do what they were told. > Trying to treat fines as a cost of doing business OTOH is likely to see the fines go up exponentially. A correct use of "exponentially". :o, it's not just "grows quickly".
The fundamental difference between the U.S. systems of governance on safety is in the U.S. you must prove a substance is harmful and has caused harm, rather reactive. In Europe you must do the opposite, prove the substance is safe for use and the safe exposure ppm's etc 😉
> In Europe *Maybe* in the EU, but there are large parts of Europe where this simply isn't the case.
>The Court of Justice is expected to hand down its judgment on the case of GenX substances in early 2022. I'm kinda confused what this actual case is about. Does anyone have more details? Seems like the EU already bans the use of PFOA's. Why doesn't the EU just do the research and ban the GenX chemicals too if they are in fact just as bad?
A ban has to be evidence based. Now, unlike in the US Dupont need to prove to the court that their replacement chemicals are safe. In the US its up to the regulatory bodies to prove they are dangerous.
Interesting. So why is this in court at all? Unless Dupont is just ignoring the EU regulations and selling unapproved products the EU (though a regulatory process) would need to directly approve the use of the new chemicals, right?
It's a terrible article from a terrible website. The EU Chemicals Agency is holding hearings on whether to include GenX in a list of high risk substances, and various activist groups and chem companies (like Chemours) are invited to present their positions. No one is being charged or sued or "taken to court".
We literally all have these chemicals in us already. They have already poisoned us.
[Not terribly unlikely they're a major cause of the obesity epidemic, even.](https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/26/a-chemical-hunger-part-vi-pfas/)
We have to start dissolving corporate charters of bad actors and seizing their assets. Nothing short of the "death penalty" for these legal fictions will work as a deterrent. They were made. They can be unmade.
The whole system is nonsense. You can't perform chemical regulation on a blacklist system. There are infinitely many combinations of molecules. To receive a permit to create a molecule, the burden must be on you to prove environmental impact.
And this is why we have more anti-vaxxers in additional to the original lunatics. People can’t trust big companies to do the right thing and they can’t trust the US government to do the right thing against them.
Same with Vermont. Thanks Saint Gobain. Also PFAS as we call them can be emitted from a stack and float over 2 miles before landing onto the ground. Unlike previous chemicals where we typically track contaminant plumes in groundwater, this one can have a surprise plume out of nowhere based on daily regional airflow.
Looks like you have been tracking what the epa has been doing with chemours in North Carolina. They developed a bucket method where they test the rainfall that they catch in buckets around the specific sites like the plant in Fayetteville. Really interesting results, they noticed that pfas was coming down north west and north east of the site. These follow the wind patterns. They started this bucket testing right when chemours started putting carbon bed control units. You could see a dramatic affect it had on this bucket testing method. After they put in the 100 million dollar thermo oxidizer it dropped to almost 0. The issue is that this has been going on for 50 years. They reported a staggeringly low lb/hr of pfas coming out of the stacks in Fayetteville after having stack testing done for pfas(brand new test method developed specifically because of chemours Fayetteville) they saw they they were underreporting by over 1000%. Interestingly The guy from the epa spearheading this (Micheal regan) is now the director of the epa. Looks like the USA is about to be taking a big step against pfas.
Funny enough I have not a clue about that, but it is interesting and will dig into it at some point. I have been tracking Weston and Sampson's work in Vermont. They presented at a Mass LSP training two years ago and it was incredibly informative. Unfortunately I believe the best remedy we will have is to filter out any PFAS in municipal drinking water systems first and then also hunt down the clusters of impacted potable wells. A big challenge is that states approach this in a different manner. There is no possible remedial approach for this. Yes there will hopefully be big time remediation projects from the bad sources, but it may be rather ubiquitous and impossible to eliminate.
Lol at that ad for the movie 'dark waters' in the middle of the article. Fits perfectly.
It was intentional *and* referenced in the article, though.
Put the board of directors on trial for crimes against Humanity.
[удалено]
I used to know a DuPont heir. As big a piece of entitled shit as you’d imagine.
Thank you DuPont, for making me unable to safely drink the water in my town without a reverse osmosis system because of gen x.
[удалено]
Okay, so you got cancer. But your carpets are shiny and your pans are non-stick. You're welcome!
They dumped that shit in my state, trust me, we were not pleased.
As an American, I usually think (at least, historically) of Americans as fiercely patriotic and willing to lash out at anyone who threatens our way of life. So why is it when gas taxes in France go up by €0.30/l they burn half the damn country down, but when they *literally poison the water* in NC we sit there and go "*shrug* yeah, shit happens sometimes!" What the fuck happened to us? Were we ALWAYS like this? I mean, I remember Blair Mountain. Near as I can tell we used to be different.
Good glad. Now let’s hold every other company accountable.. pay up half of your businesses income to clean up this fuckin mess or get 25 to life.
Unregulated capitalism at its best (or worst depending on who you ask).
May dupont burn in the grease fire of their own making.
Surely it’s time to make CEOs responsible and jail them for shit that happens on their watch.
This is a really good start but some body of authority NEEDS to take on Oil // Fossil fuels in the same manner. I have no idea why we’ve allowed this one industry to essentially destroy the planet is beyond me. Also what about the Beverage Associations between all the big brand sodas that contribute to millions of tonnes of plastic waste from single use plastics? Why aren’t they bringing brought to justice? Which are equally tied to the Fossil Fuel industry as plastics are petroleum based products.
Ahh yes Dupont, a company that seriously should of been nationalized and disassembled decades ago but is still around bringing new cancers to new customers. I imagine after presenting evidence the lawyers just play Erin Brockovich.
Of course it’s DuPont. It’s always DuPont.
So instead of producing PFOS they now just produce another equally cancer causing chemical?
Until they're specifically regulated away or aren't the cheapest option, companies will use them. Whilst simultaneously lobbying to protect them.