The Washington Works PFAS (C8/GenX) Case: What Wood County Land Buyers Should Know

How this started: the original C8 (PFOA) case

DuPont's Washington Works plant, in Wood County near Parkersburg, manufactured and used a chemical known as C8 (perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA) for decades to help produce nonstick and water/oil/heat-resistant products, disposing of waste in an unlined landfill and, over time, releasing the persistent chemical into local water supplies. In 2005, DuPont entered a class-action settlement valued at well over $300 million on behalf of roughly 70,000 people living near the plant. As part of that settlement, an independent survey called the C8 Health Project collected interview data and blood samples from about 69,000 people near Washington Works over a year (August 2005-July 2006), and funded an independent C8 Science Panel of scientists tasked with determining what health conditions the chemical caused, plus a long-term health-monitoring program for affected residents.

The same litigation led to a concrete, physical fix for six public water systems in the immediate area: granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration systems were constructed in 2005 for Lubeck and Mason County, West Virginia, and Belpre, Little Hocking, Pomeroy, and Chester/Tuppers Plains, Ohio. If your target parcel is served by any of these specific systems, that filtration infrastructure is part of why -- confirm directly with the utility whether it remains in place and effective for current contaminant levels.

A second chemical, a second contamination episode: GenX

Washington Works later shifted to a replacement chemical known as GenX, and in January 2018, GenX was detected in three on-site production wells and one on-site drinking-water well at the plant, prompting EPA to ask DuPont/Chemours (Chemours had by then taken over the site) to test nearby water supplies, including Little Hocking, before and after carbon treatment. In March 2018, the Little Hocking Water Association -- whose well field sits close to the plant, just across the Ohio River -- told its customers that company testing had found GenX as high as 52 ppt in private wells and 81 ppt in public wells, though LHWA reported no detectable GenX levels in its own treated drinking water. On the Wood County side, testing at the Lubeck Public Service District in May 2018 found no detectable GenX either before or after treatment. As of September 2023, Chemours and DuPont had sampled 835 residential drinking-water wells across the West Virginia and Ohio side of the river combined, consistent with settlement requirements to test and, where PFOA concentrations exceed a 70 parts-per-trillion (ppt) threshold, offer affected properties alternate water.

A long-running legal and environmental matter, with a major 2026 settlement

This has not been a closed, historical matter. In December 2024, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition filed a Clean Water Act complaint in West Virginia federal court alleging past and ongoing exceedances of PFOA and HFPO-DA discharge limits under the Washington Works facility's NPDES permit, alleging discharges into the Ohio River in violation of that permit dating back to 2019. In August 2025, a federal judge ordered Chemours to stop releasing PFAS chemical waste from the Washington Works facility into the Ohio River. Separately, Chemours, DuPont, and Corteva reached a $110 million settlement with the state of Ohio in November 2023 over PFAS contamination claims tied to the same plant, and in August 2025 the same three companies reached a proposed $875 million settlement, payable over 25 years, with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to resolve legacy PFAS claims there -- illustrating the scale and duration of the company's ongoing PFAS liability nationally, with Washington Works as one of its most significant sites.

The most significant recent development: on June 24, 2026, the EPA, the U.S. Department of Justice, and West Virginia's own DEP jointly announced what they described as the first comprehensive federal settlement with a major PFAS manufacturer, resolving claims against Chemours across facilities in West Virginia, New Jersey, and North Carolina, including Washington Works. The settlement totals roughly $450 million: a $22.5 million civil penalty (West Virginia's reported share is about $11.25 million), a $90 million multi-year program to further reduce PFAS discharges, an estimated $60 million earmarked specifically for new PFAS pollution-control equipment at Washington Works, and roughly $280 million toward clean drinking water supply and ongoing monitoring for communities near the West Virginia and New Jersey facilities combined.

None of this means every well or water system near Parkersburg is currently contaminated -- filtration systems installed since 2005 have measurably reduced detected levels in several systems tested, per the reporting above, and the June 2026 settlement commits real money to further reduce discharges and fund clean drinking water. It does mean this has been an active legal and regulatory matter for two decades, that the June 2026 settlement will phase in its pollution-control and funding commitments over years rather than overnight, and that a buyer evaluating land in Wood County near the plant, the Ohio River, or any of the specific water systems named above should treat current water quality as a question to verify freshly, not something fully settled by any single agreement, past or present.

What to check before you buy

1. If your parcel is on a private well anywhere in the greater Parkersburg/Wood County area near the Ohio River, test specifically for PFAS compounds (PFOA, GenX/HFPO-DA, and related per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) -- a standard well-water test package does not typically include these unless specifically requested.
2. If your parcel is served by a public water system, ask the utility directly whether it uses GAC (granular activated carbon) or another PFAS-specific treatment method, and request its most recent PFAS testing results rather than relying on a general "safe drinking water" assurance.
3. If your well or property was part of the original C8 litigation testing area, ask whether it is eligible for any ongoing alternate-water provision under the settlement's 70 ppt PFOA threshold.
4. Check current news and EPA/WVDEP filings for how the June 2026 federal settlement is actually being implemented -- pollution-control installation, drinking-water funding disbursement, and monitoring -- since a settlement announcement is not the same as completed remediation.
5. Don't rely solely on this page's 2026 research pass for current PFAS levels -- contamination levels, treatment effectiveness, and litigation status can change, and only a current test result or direct utility/regulator contact reflects today's actual conditions.