![]() ![]() But it wasn’t until the early 2000s, when the environmental attorney Rob Bilott sued DuPont for pollution from its Teflon plant in Parkersburg, W.Va., that the dangers of PFAS started to be widely known. Industry researchers have long been aware of their toxicity. Both Congress and the Biden administration have moved to better regulate PFAS, which contaminate the drinking water of as many as 80 million Americans. The substances have come under scrutiny in recent years for their tendency to persist in the environment, and to accumulate inside the human body, as well as for their links to health problems like cancer and birth defects. The presence of PFAS in oil and gas extraction threatens to expose oil-field employees and emergency workers handling fires and spills as well as people who live near, or downstream from, drilling sites to a class of chemicals that has faced increasing scrutiny for its links to cancer, birth defects, and other serious health problems.Ī class of man-made chemicals that are toxic even in minuscule concentrations, for decades PFAS were used to make products like nonstick pans, stain-resistant carpeting and firefighting foam. But Chemours, which was spun off from DuPont in 2015, has not spoken publicly about the use of these chemicals in drilling and fracking.Īn Exxon spokesman, in response to questions regarding whether it uses the chemicals, said, “We do not manufacture PFAS.”Ĭhevron did not respond to a request for comment. that it had failed to report information about the health and environmental effects of PFAS, in the largest administrative penalty the agency had ever imposed at the time. In 2005, DuPont also agreed to pay $16 million to settle allegations by the E.P.A. ![]() The Biden administration had made addressing PFAS a top priority, he added, for example by proposing a rule to require all manufacturers and importers of PFAS since 2011 to disclose more information on the chemicals, including their environmental and health effects.Ĭhemours, which has in the past agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle injury claims related to PFOA pollution, declined to comment. He said the redactions in the documents were mandated by a statute protecting confidential business information. spokesman, said that the chemicals in question were approved a decade ago, and that amendments to laws since then now required the agency to affirm the safety of new chemicals before they are allowed into the marketplace. “This isn’t something I was aware of,” said Tony Choate, a Chickasaw Nation spokesman. ![]() Nine of those wells were in Carter County, Okla., within the boundaries of Chickasaw Nation. Because not all states require companies to report chemicals to the database, the number of wells could be higher. But the FracFocus database, which tracks chemicals used in fracking, shows that about 120 companies used PFAS - or chemicals that can break down into PFAS, the most common of which was “nonionic fluorosurfactant” and various misspellings - in more than 1,000 wells between 20 in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Wyoming. There is no public data that details where the E.P.A.-approved chemicals have been used. Those tests were not mandatory and there is no indication that they were carried out. scientists recommended additional testing. scientists pointed to preliminary evidence that, under some conditions, the chemicals could “degrade in the environment” into substances akin to PFOA, a kind of PFAS chemical, and could “persist in the environment” and “be toxic to people, wild mammals, and birds.” The E.P.A. In a consent order issued for the three chemicals on Oct. The records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by a nonprofit group, Physicians for Social Responsibility, are among the first public indications that PFAS, long-lasting compounds also known as “ forever chemicals,” may be present in the fluids used during drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. ![]() The E.P.A.’s approval of the three chemicals wasn’t previously publicly known. in 2011 approved the use of these chemicals, used to ease the flow of oil from the ground, despite the agency’s own grave concerns about their toxicity, according to the documents, which were reviewed by The New York Times. For much of the past decade, oil companies engaged in drilling and fracking have been allowed to pump into the ground chemicals that, over time, can break down into toxic substances known as PFAS - a class of long-lasting compounds known to pose a threat to people and wildlife - according to internal documents from the Environmental Protection Agency. ![]()
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