Waste from C8 manufacturing has been deposited primarily in the Letart Landfill (Letart, Mason County), the Dry Run Landfill (Lubeck, Wood County) and Riverbank Landfill (Ohio River).  In addition, court records revealed that DuPont had been emitting quantities of C8 into the air, and that C8 had been leaking into ground water sources from an as yet undetermined land source.  Separate legal proceedings have been taken against both DuPont and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection with regard to the failure to report and destruction of documents relating to environmental contamination with C8.  The human drinking water supply in 2 water districts in West Virginia and 4 water districts in Ohio have been contaminated with C8. 

The disclosure of environmental C8 contamination raised concern about possible deleterious health effects of C8.  Though underlying physiologic and biologic mechanisms are not fully clarified, animal toxicologic and ecologic studies have linked C8 to rodent gastrointestinal cancer, altered rodent lipid metabolism, acute toxicity to honeybees, and bioaccumulations in tissues of  humans, birds, and fish.  In 2005, the EPA Science Advisory Board listed C8 as a likely carcinogen.  In February 2005, presiding Wood Circuit Judge George W. Hill Jr., approved a settlement in the class action suit Jack Leach et al v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.  Terms of the settlement include provisions that DuPont provide equipment to remove C8 from the human drinking water supply in the affected water districts, pay for legal fees, and provide economic support for an independent study of health effects of C8 as well as payments for health and education project for the benefit of the Class and, pertinent to this IRB application, funding of a community health study, known as the “C8 Health Project”, to document the health effects of C8 on residents in the affected water districts.