Dupont Article 2006 Feb. 19 by John Fuquay - APFO and Ohio Town
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Published in The Fayetteville Observer on Sunday, February 19, 2006

Risk is Part of Daily Life in this Town

By John Fuquay, Staff writer

LITTLE HOCKING, Ohio — Principal Dave Burton stands outside his elementary school in the morning to greet students and parents.

It’s just one of the many features that stamp Little Hocking as a small town that is a simple, quiet place to live.

The town has no grocery stores or fast-food restaurants and no police department. Downtown is the intersection of Federal Street and State Route 124, where there is a community store, post office and the water district office. Just about every other building in town is either a church or a house.

Streets wind up and down sloping bluffs that overlook the Ohio River. Older brick homes are closer to the river, and newer homes with vinyl siding are closer to state Highway 7. Most of the town’s 3,200 residents live between the river and Highway 7.

“This is about as rural as you’re going to find in Ohio,” said Tom Gibbs, the school district superintendent.

Water often is an issue in remote areas, where a single water line break can shut down a system. But Little Hocking has had to deal with much more serious concerns.

C8, or ammonium perfluorooctanoate, has invaded the water of tens of thousands of residents along the Ohio-West Virginia line, where DuPont has discharged C8 for more than 50 years. Little Hocking is across the Ohio River from DuPont’s plant.

C8 was found in six public water systems in the Ohio Valley, leading DuPont last year to settle a class-action lawsuit and pay $107 million to find out what happens when humans have abnormally high amounts of C8 in their blood. The settlement also will pay for equipment so the six water systems can remove C8 from the water.

Of all the systems, Little Hocking had the highest levels of C8. While DuPont considers 1part per billion safe, and the lawsuit included any system with more than 0.5 parts per billion, one Little Hocking well had 7 parts per billion.

“As far as I know, that’s the highest in the country,” said Bob Griffin, manager of the Little Hocking Water Association. “We had to tell our customers they’re drinking the water at their own risk.”

DuPont agreed to offer bottled water to the 12,000 people served by the Little Hocking Water Association and says it has set aside $2 million to pay for it. Griffin said most people accepted the offer.

Lou Hall, who works at a pizza restaurant that uses bottled water for food preparation, said residents are divided over the issue. She said the contamination doesn’t bother her. But she also said, “I don’t know why DuPont has allowed it to spread around so much.”

At Burton’s school, water fountains have been turned off, covered with tarps and emblazoned with signs warning people not to drink the water.

As if to add insult to injury, spring water from one of the vendors supplying bottled water tested positive for C8 last month.

Griffin said installation of a carbon filter designed to eliminate the C8 from the Little Hocking water system is nearly complete.

“But we view that as an interim solution,” he said. “Our goal all along is we want water without C8.”