PARKERSBURG – An attorney who represented local residents in regards to chemicals that ended up in the local water supply has questions he thinks people locally as well as the state and federal level need to ask in regards to a recently announced settlement between Chemours, the state and the federal government in regards to dealing with “forever chemicals” in the local water that originated at the Washington Works plant.

Attorney Harry Deitzler, who had previously represented a number of area residents regarding water quality issues in class action lawsuits that resulted in settlements that have continued to address water quality concerns and led to work being done to install filtration systems.

He had read the press release issued by the governor’s office announcing the settlement between the Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) announced the multi-state settlement with The Chemours Company under the Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Toxic Substance Control Act, and West Virginia Water Pollution Control Act.

Under the agreement, Chemours will pay a civil penalty of $22.5 million for alleged violations and conduct a multi-year, $90 million program to mitigate PFAS discharges. Chemours will also install PFAS pollution controls for surface water discharges and air emissions at its facility in West Virginia, at an estimated cost of $60 million, supply clean drinking water for more than a decade to communities that surround its facilities in West Virginia and New Jersey at an estimated cost of $280 million, and evaluate options and implement corresponding controls to reduce releases of PFAS and other toxic chemicals from its facility in North Carolina, according to a press release from the office of West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey.

Combined, the cost of the penalty and injunctive relief programs are estimated to exceed $450 million. The settlement allows Chemours to continue manufacturing PFAS for critical commercial and military applications while preventing future contamination and protecting communities from that contamination, the press release said.

Deitzler, who has not read the final settlement documentation, said the governor’s press release makes it seem like the parties involved will be allowed to put more chemicals in the water to deal with the chemicals there in referring to a section of the proposal that will be rolling back the limits of PFAS in drinking water.

As the legal action he was involved in was settled years ago, he had no input on this agreement.

Deitzler said PFAS is a general term for the chemicals they were dealing with and PFOS (Perfluorooctane Sulfonate) was the chemical found in the Lubeck area.

“It sounds good that they are agreeing to clean up the water,” he said. However, he is concerned about other chemicals that might be used to clean the water.

“If they are allowed to put more in than before that defeats the purpose of everything we were trying to help people with,” he said. “It is good if they are actually going to clean the water.

“It is bad if they are solving the problem by saying you can put more chemicals in the water and not be in violation.”

He was concerned about wording describing rolling back the limits of the chemicals allowed and it might not be good for the people who are directly affected.

He said people should be able to access the agreement since it is a public document. Once people are able to go through it, they will have a better idea of what is happening.

Lubeck and Mason County were part of the class action suit Deitzler worked on. The other four water systems included systems in Ohio in Belpre and south of Belpre which were not listed as part of this agreement, he said.

“This (agreement) doesn’t affect any of those,” Deitzler said. “When we got our initial settlement, the agreement was that (the plant) would filter the water of all six water districts.”

He talked about how settlement money was originally used to help gather data on the health impacts on 60,000-80,000 people in the area which showed information on diseases among the local population as a result of the chemicals.

“(The plant) still has to filter the water of the affected water districts,” Deitzler said.

Parkersburg Public Works Director Eric Bennett said he is looking into what the deal will cover and how it might impact things locally. He has not heard anything officially about how the settlement will impact local construction on filtration systems.

Contact Brett Dunlap at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com