C-8 exposure from drinking water is linked to cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, and other serious illnesses. Just a decade ago, DuPont was forced to filter drinking water in Little Hocking, Belpre, Pomeroy, Tuppers Plains, Lubeck, and Mason County to remove harmful levels of C-8 contamination resulting from the company’s decades-long practice of dumping C-8 into the Ohio River and landfills where it leached into the water we drink every day.
Our water must be filtered as well, and DuPont, the company that contaminated it, must be held accountable. The longer the company drags its feet, the more children, mothers, fathers, friends, and neighbors will get sick from C-8-linked diseases.
In September 2015, we sent a letter to local authorities in communities bordering the Ohio River in West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky to warn them that the latest science indicates that C-8 contamination poses a serious public health risk to their communities. We cited a 2013 University of Cincinnati study that discovered C-8 contamination in northern Kentucky – 200 miles downriver from Vienna and DuPont’s former Washington Works facility, the source of the Mid-Ohio Valley’s C-8 contamination.
According to the latest science, released last year by leading researchers from Harvard and the University of Massachusetts, C-8 exposure is harmful at levels as low as 0.001 parts per billion, less than a teaspoon in an Olympic-sized pool. At levels that low, it’s safe to say that the only safe level of C-8 in water and human blood is zero.