Confronting Toxic Oysters, MS DuPont Plans PR Blitz, "Town Meetings"

[hatrack]

HANCOCK COUNTY - Officials at DuPont DeLisle have launched a series of town meetings to tout plant operations and community involvement. But pending litigation and headline-making oysters have a way of steering the conversation in a different direction. "People have brought up the oyster study and the lawsuits, and we've talked about them as best we can," plant spokesman Terry Gooding said. "We also let them know that in the meantime, we're committed to operating our plant to the highest standards of environmental responsibility."

An independent study earlier this year asserted that oysters harvested near St. Louis Bay were so contaminated with hazardous compounds discharged from the DuPont plant that eating more than one a day would be dangerous.

To test the study's results, the state Department of Environmental Quality launched its own review of the shellfish last week; in June the agency released results from a preliminary study done the month before. Preliminary results from the first DEQ report showed levels of compounds in oysters harvested in some areas of the bay were 72 times lower than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's "action level."

EDIT

In 2002, a four-firm legal team led by Gulfport attorney Kathleen Smiley filed 2,200 lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs who claim pollution from the titanium dioxide plant has caused a variety of illnesses. The first trial was expected to begin in April, but was rescheduled to August 17 in Jones County Circuit Court. Talk of the pending litigation often surfaces during Q&A sessions held at the end of the DuPont town meetings. "We have maintained that we don't believe there's any connection between the allegations in the lawsuits and our plant operations," Gooding said.

EDIT

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/local/12267217.htm