A proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule could require new workplace protections for workers at Chesterfield’s DuPont Spruance plant.
The new rule would regulate a chemical called N-methylpyrrolidone — or NMP for short. It’s a solvent with a wide range of industrial and consumer uses.
“We identified unreasonable risks to human health, mostly through miscarriages and reduced fertility, as well as damage to liver, kidneys, immune system and nervous system,” said Niva Kramek, of the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
EPA is required under the Toxics Substance Control Act to regulate chemicals it determines pose an unreasonable risk to health.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin weighed in, urging federal regulators to avoid any rulemaking that would affect the production of Kevlar, which uses NMP, at the Chesterfield DuPont plant. The super-strong fiber is used in firefighting gear, body armor, aircraft bodies and more.
“While I agree worker safety is crucial, it would be imprudent for EPA to implement restrictions to a degree that would unnecessarily put national safety in jeopardy,” Youngkin wrote.
The governor called for a Workplace Chemical Protection Program to protect Kevlar workers from exposure while continuing use of the chemical. That could include personal protective equipment, worker training and reporting requirements.
EPA’s final rule requires WCPPs for Kevlar production and most other industrial applications, according to Kramek.
“We want to prevent the potentially exposed person in the workplace from coming in direct dermal contact with the chemical,” Kramek said.
Skin contact accounts for the majority of NMP exposures, though vapor inhalation can also pose health risks.
The DuPont Spruance plant
The Spruance plant is DuPont’s largest manufacturing facility in the world. It employs over 2,000 people, including about 500 dedicated to Kevlar production.
Daniel Turner, DuPont’s public affairs director, told VPM News the company engaged EPA officials during the risk assessment process to share information about the company’s use of the chemical.
Turner said DuPont is reviewing the proposal to determine if it should make any comment, but that it would honor any new WCPP requirement.
“We currently have worker protection practices in place, and we are confident that we will be able to make any adjustments necessary to comply with all elements of the NMP WCPP,” Turner wrote in an email.
EPA’s risk evaluation came to a similar conclusion.
“We think this is one of the examples of the industrial uses of NMP where the worker protections are largely already in place, aligned with what we would be requiring,” Kramek said.
Several other companies and industry groups have requested an extension to EPA’s comment period on the proposed regulation.
EPA’s work on NMP began over a decade ago with a risk assessment on the chemical’s use in paint and coating removers. But under a 2016 amendment to the Toxic Substances Control Act, EPA was ordered to select 10 chemicals to conduct much broader studies on.
NMP made the list and received a new full-chemical risk assessment.
“It was for all conditions of use, everything from manufacturing, processing, industrial and commercial use, consumer use, distribution, commerce and disposal,” Kramek said.
The EPA found that NMP has unreasonable risks to the general public in one use case: adhesives and sealants. The proposed rule would impose concentration limits on NMP in those products.
Kramek said other consumer products with NMP contain lower concentrations of the chemical and are used infrequently enough to not pose an unreasonable risk. But some industrial applications of the same product categories face an outright ban, due to high frequency of exposures.
The federal agency determined that NMP has negligible impacts on fenceline communities adjacent to facilities that use the chemical and is not proposing additional limits on emissions.
If the proposed rule is finalized, it would go into effect in a staggered manner over at least two years — with some industries having additional time to come into compliance.
The public comment period on EPA’s proposal is open until July 29.
