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Home > "How Chemical Companies Avoid Paying for Pollution"

"How Chemical Companies Avoid Paying for Pollution" [1]

"DuPont factories pumped dangerous substances into the environment. The company and its offspring have gone to great lengths to dodge responsibility."

"FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — One humid day this summer, Brian Long, a senior executive at the chemical company Chemours, took a reporter on a tour of the Fayetteville Works factory.

Mr. Long showed off the plant’s new antipollution technologies, designed to stop a chemical called GenX from pouring into the Cape Fear River, escaping into the air and seeping into the ground water.

There was a new high-tech filtration system. And a new thermal oxidizer, which heats waste to 2,000 degrees. And an underground wall — still under construction — to keep the chemicals out of the river. And more.

“They’re not Band-Aids,” Mr. Long said. “They’re long-term, robust solutions.”

Yet weeks later, North Carolina officials announced that Chemours had exceeded limits on how much GenX its Fayetteville factory was emitting. This month, the state fined the company $300,000 for the violations — the second time this year the company has been penalized by the state’s environmental regulator."

David Gelles and Emily Steel report for the New York Times October 20, 2021. [2]

Chemicals [3]
Environmental Health [4]
Laws & Regulations [5]
Pollution [6]
Water & Oceans [7]
National (U.S.) [8]
SE (AL AR FL GA KY LA MS NC PR SC TN) [9]
Public [10]
Source: NYTimes [2], 10/21/2021
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Source URL:https://www.sej.org/headlines/how-chemical-companies-avoid-paying-pollution

Links
[1] https://www.sej.org/headlines/how-chemical-companies-avoid-paying-pollution [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/business/chemours-dupont-pfas-genx-chemicals.html [3] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/chemicals/toxics [4] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/environmental-health [5] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/laws [6] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/pollution [7] https://www.sej.org/category/topics-beat/water [8] https://www.sej.org/category/region/national [9] https://www.sej.org/category/region/national/southeast [10] https://www.sej.org/taxonomy/term/81