Chemical maker DuPont agrees to $27M settlement in polluted water lawsuit in upstate New York

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HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — Chemical maker DuPont has agreed to a $27 million settlement to resolve a nearly decade-long lawsuit over the contamination of an upstate New York village's water supply.

The deal was announced Wednesday by lawyers representing residents of Hoosick Falls, located northwest of Albany, just as the case was headed to trial in federal court this week.

The settlement brings the total recovered in the class action suit brought in 2016 to more than $90 million, lawyers for Rochester-based firm Faraci Lange said.

Three other companies — Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, Honeywell International and 3M —settled for a total of more than $65 million in 2021. DuPont was the last remaining defendant.

“We are gratified to have reached what we believe will be the final resolution of this case that will provide significant added benefit to the residents of Hoosick Falls and the Town of Hoosick,” said Stephen Schwarz.

DuPont declined to comment Friday, but the Delaware-based company noted that the case relates to E.I. DuPont de Nemours, which operated its performance chemicals business until it was spun out in 2015.

The DuPont settlement, which must still be approved by a federal judge, also includes another $6 million in funding for an existing medical monitoring program for exposed residents, according to attorneys.

In their class action suit, Hoosick Falls residents claimed that a local Teflon fabric coating facility operated by Saint-Gobain and Honeywell caused local drinking water to become contaminated with perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA.

DuPont, which made Teflon materials used at the facility, and 3M, which made the PFOA used by DuPont in its products, were added as defendants to the lawsuit in 2018.

PFOA was once widely used in certain industrial processes but is now considered a harmful “forever chemical” because it can persist in the environment for decades without decomposing.

It has been linked to a number of serious illnesses including kidney and testicular cancer and has recently been classified as a carcinogen.