Robert “Rob” A. Bilott, J.D., pictured here, gave an historical overview of PFAS-related litigation history, as well as related scientific and regulatory developments, in today’s keynote presentation that kicked off NGWA’s PFAS Management, Mitigation, and Remediation Conference, June 19 in Westerville, Ohio.
The conference, which concludes June 20, focuses on approaches for the management, mitigation, and remediation of sites contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Bilott, partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, brought the very first PFAS environmental exposure case to the forefront in 1999. It resulted in the discovery and public disclosure of PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) in drinking water supplies for approximately 70,000 people in West Virginia and Ohio. That discovery spurred national regulatory interest and investigation into PFAS and the filing in 2001 of the nation’s first class-action litigation on behalf of individuals exposed to PFOA in their drinking water.
More than 100 conference attendees heard how Bilott helped negotiate and obtain a class settlement in 2004 that secured benefits for the class valued in excess of $300 million, including water filtration systems for impacted private and public water supplies, funding of independent scientific health studies for PFOA, blood testing of 69,000 people, and eventual medical monitoring and confirmation of probable links to human disease that resolved issues of general causation for the class members’ personal injury claims.
As a result of that groundbreaking class settlement and probable link findings on PFOA, more than 3500 class members were able to pursue individual personal injury claims against DuPont for diseases linked to their PFOA drinking water exposures, all of which were eventually consolidated into multidistrict litigation proceedings in federal court in Ohio.
Bilott’s litigation also spurred the first regulatory investigations, assessments, and enforcement actions involving PFAS, leading to the largest civil administrative penalty ever obtained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at the time for the withholding of PFAS toxicity and risk information.
While private and public water supplies are now testing for, and treating, these substances, Bilott believes testing for environmental exposure at manufacturing plants where polytetrafluoroethene or PTFE is being used could be next. PTFE is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene that has numerous applications; the best-known brand name of PTFE-based formulas is Teflon by Chemours, a spin-off of DuPont, which originally discovered the compound.
The conference agenda today also featured multiple sessions on management and mitigation, and a panel titled “From Assessment to Remediation: Is PFAS Different?” The second day of the conference, June 20, will begin with the plenary session, “Contaminants and Compliance: The 30,000 Ft. Perspective” by Jeff Rose and Amy Dindal of Battelle.