Sarah Brunswick
“Good God, Joe . . . What the hell is that stuff doing in your water?”
–Regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Scientist
Joe Kiger’s water bill reported that his drinking water contained low levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), but said not to worry. He lived in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and much of the town worked at DuPont’s Washington Works plant. His wife, Darlene, was previously married to a DuPont chemist who had bouts of the so-called “Teflon flu” when he worked with too much PFOA. Darlene remembered that he brought home extra PFOA for cleaning dishes and that DuPont had paid for his schooling and secured their mortgage. But she also remembered that he stopped wearing his work clothes home when their second child was born—DuPont had learned that PFOA was harmful to women and children. Later, Darlene asked herself if PFOA had anything to do with the emergency hysterectomy she needed. When the water bill came, Darlene could not help but wonder what “DuPont ha[d] to do with [their] drinking water.”