The business of DuPont was dangerous from the start. The black powder that the company produced during its early decades was extremely volatile, and fatal explosions were a frequent occurrence for its workforce. So perilous was the powder that the company had difficulty getting ships and trains to transport it to customers. For a long time the most common means of conveyance was the mule train, though that became controversial after three DuPont wagons loaded with 450 kegs of powder exploded in 1854 while traveling through the middle of Wilmington, Delaware, killing the drivers, the mules and several bystanders while also digging a large crater in the street. Many towns consequently passed ordinances barring powder wagons from their thoroughfares.
In the mid-1970s DuPont was put on the defensive by growing evidence that Freon, its product used in aerosol cans and in refrigerants, was contributing to the destruction of the earth's ozone layer, in turn creating an increased danger of skin cancer from the sun's rays....
...In 1988 DuPont’s Conoco subsidiary agreed to pay a $250,000 civil penalty for violating the Clean Air Act at an Oklahoma oil refinery and also agreed to spend more than $1.5 million on pollution controls at the facility....
...In 1989 evidence emerged that the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant, which DuPont had built and operated for the federal government since 1951, had serious structural flaws and safety problems that the company failed to report. Numerous accidents at the South Carolina plant, which made plutonium and the tritium gas needed in nuclear warheads, were also kept secret....
...In the early 1990s DuPont was hit with hundreds of lawsuits than after a wave of reports that its fungicide Benlate was causing widespread plant damage. The company had to take the product off the market and initially paid more than $500 million in compensation....
...The company has also had a mixed record regarding other hazardous materials. In the late 1980s it was responsible for more toxic releases than any other manufacturing company.
In 1991 DuPont was fined $1.9 million for dumping corrosive acids and toxic solvents at a plant in New Jersey.
In 1993 the EPA charged DuPont with Toxic Substances Control Act violations for failing to include test data in a pre-manufacture notice submitted in 1984; the agency proposed a fine of $158,375.
In 1998 DuPont was fined $1.9 million by the EPA for misbranding and mislabeling pesticides.
In 2000 DuPont agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle alleged EPA violations related to a 1995 release of more than 23,000 gallons of a sulfuric acid solution into the air at the company’s plant in Wurtland, Kentucky.
In 2002 the EPA announced that it had settled charges brought against Pioneer Hi-Bred, which had been acquired by DuPont three years earlier, concerning the mishandling in Hawaii of genetically modified corn grown for seed.
In 2003 DuPont paid $550,000 to settle charges that it violated the Clean Air Act with a chemical release at a fluoroproducts plant in Kentucky.
DuPont was a pioneer in developing and continues to be a major producer of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), which over the past decade have come to be regarded as one of the most highly toxic, extraordinarily persistent and likely carcinogenic group of chemicals that work their way into the bloodstream of humans and wildlife. DuPont’s highest profile PFC-based product is Teflon, best known for its use in non-stick cookware.
In 2004 the Environmental Protection Agency charged that for two decades DuPont failed to report signs of health and environmental problems linked to perfluorooctanoic acid (or PFOA), the PFC used in making Teflon. Residents living near the plant in West Virginia where DuPont produced PFOA sued the company, which agreed to pay about $100 million to settle the case......In 2011 DuPont reached a preliminary $8.3 million settlement with a group of residents living near a company plant in New Jersey.
In 2005 the EPA and the Justice Department announced that DuPont had agreed to pay more than $2.3 million to settle Clean Air Act charges related to leaks of ozone-depleting refrigerants at a plant in Tennessee.
In 2006 the federal government and the Delaware Department of Natural Resources reached an agreement with DuPont and Ciba under which the companies agreed to pay more than $1.6 million to clean up the DuPont Newport Superfund Site...
...In 2007 the EPA and the Justice Department announced that they had settled Clean Air Act charges against DuPont with an agreement under which the company would spend at least $66 million on emissions control equipment at four sulfuric acid production plants in Louisiana, Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky....
...In 2009 the EPA revealed that after Koch Industries acquired a dozen synthetic fiber plants from DuPont, the company reported to the EPA that the facilities had extensive environmental compliance problems. An audit found more than 600 violations.
In 2010 DuPont agreed to pay $70 million to plaintiffs to settle a class-action suit concerning decades of pollution by the company’s former zinc smelter in West Virginia. DuPont also agreed to fund a 30-year medical testing program that was estimated to cost another $80 million....
Also in 2010 DuPont agreed to pay a penalty of $3.3 million to the EPA to resolve 57 Toxic Substances Control Act violations involving the failure to immediately notify the EPA of research results showing substantial risks found during the testing of chemicals for possible use as surface protection.
In 2011 the EPA ordered DuPont to halt immediately the sale or distribution of the herbicide Imprelis that had been found to be harming a large number of trees....
...Also in 2011, the EPA, the Justice Department and state agencies in Delaware entered into a consent decree with DuPont under which the company agreed to pay a penalty of $500,000 for numerous water quality violations at its Edge Moor plant....
In 2014 the EPA announced that DuPont would pay a $1.275 million penalty and take corrective actions to settle charges relating to the toxic releases at the Belle facility.
A few weeks later, the EPA announced that DuPont would pay $1.853 million to settle allegations that it failed to submit reports about potential adverse effects of is Imprelis herbicide and that the company sold the product with labeling that did not ensure its safe use.
