Corporate Misconduct Accountability Project | EvilCorporations.com
Environmental Contamination · Park City, Utah · 2024
DuPont and Chemours Buried Toxic Mine Waste Under a Utah School and Walked Away for Decades
For over a century, DuPont and its chemical spin-off Chemours profited from milling operations that left lead, arsenic, cadmium, and zinc in the soil beneath a Park City junior high school and a residential neighborhood, then refused to pay to clean it up.
🔴 Critical Severity
TL;DR
DuPont and its successor company Chemours left behind a massive dump of toxic mining waste in Park City, Utah, that now sits directly beneath Treasure Mountain Junior High School and an adjacent residential neighborhood. The hazardous materials include lead, arsenic, cadmium, and zinc, substances that poison children’s developing brains and bodies at any exposure level. In 2016, the EPA discovered elevated lead levels in the school’s soils and had to rush in to scrape away the top six inches of contaminated ground. The U.S. government sued DuPont and Chemours in September 2024 to recover the cleanup costs these corporations refused to pay on their own.
This is not an ancient relic of a different era. DuPont owned and operated this contaminated property through 1947 and continued leasing it for mining activity. Chemours, spun off from DuPont in 2015, explicitly assumed liability for this site and has still not made the public whole. Meanwhile, children attended school on poisoned ground.
Children should not pay with their health for a century of corporate profiteering. Demand that DuPont and Chemours be held fully and financially accountable for every dollar of cleanup costs, now and in the future.
100+
Years of contamination left in the soil
3,500ft
Length of the Grasselli toxic waste dump
165+
Acres of contaminated land purchased by DuPont predecessors
2016
Year EPA found elevated lead at the school (decades after DuPont left)
The Allegations: A Breakdown
Core Allegations
What DuPont and Chemours did
| 01 | DuPont and its predecessor companies operated milling facilities and owned the land where toxic tailings containing lead, zinc, cadmium, and arsenic were stored for decades in Park City, Utah. | high |
| 02 | The Grasselli Dump, a tailings impoundment owned by DuPont predecessors for approximately 40 years, grew to roughly 3,500 feet long and now lies directly beneath Treasure Mountain Junior High School and its recreation fields. | high |
| 03 | Surface water and wind transported toxic particles from the Grasselli Dump throughout the surrounding area, spreading contamination beyond the original property boundaries into a public school and residential neighborhood. | high |
| 04 | DuPont continued leasing the contaminated property to other companies for mining and milling through 1947, allowing additional use of solvents and acids on already-poisoned land, compounding the hazard. | high |
| 05 | When DuPont spun off Chemours in 2015, Chemours expressly assumed environmental liabilities for the Park City site. Both companies have since declined to voluntarily reimburse the United States for cleanup costs, forcing federal litigation. | high |
| 06 | EPA soil samples confirmed the presence of lead, zinc, cadmium, and arsenic at the site, all classified as hazardous substances under federal law, in concentrations requiring emergency remediation near the school. | high |
Public Health and Safety
Children in the crosshairs
| 01 | In 2016, EPA discovered elevated lead levels in soils directly at Treasure Mountain Junior High School, triggering a time-critical emergency removal action. Children had been using those recreation fields without knowledge of the contamination underneath. | high |
| 02 | EPA was forced to physically remove the top six inches of contaminated soil from the school grounds, backfill with clean material, regrade, and reseed the area. This is the kind of emergency measure reserved for genuine toxic disasters. | high |
| 03 | Lead exposure in children causes permanent neurological damage, lower IQ, behavioral disorders, and developmental delays. There is no safe level of lead exposure for children. The school’s contamination created ongoing risk for every student who attended. | high |
| 04 | The Prospector Park residential development, built in the mid to late 1970s, was constructed directly on top of portions of the Grasselli Dump. Residents lived on contaminated land for decades without knowing it. | high |
| 05 | Cadmium and arsenic, also confirmed at the site, are known human carcinogens. Long-term exposure to these substances through soil contact or dust inhalation raises cancer risk significantly, particularly for children who play outdoors. | high |
Community Impact
A neighborhood built on poison
| 01 | The toxic tailings impoundment sits beneath not only a public school but also Prospector Park, a residential community whose residents had no idea their homes were built on a century-old chemical waste dump. | high |
| 02 | Surface water from the site transported heavy metal contamination through Silver Creek and its tributaries, spreading toxic materials across the broader Silver Creek watershed and threatening downstream communities and ecosystems. | medium |
| 03 | Following EPA’s emergency cleanup, the Park City School District was required to install a sprinkler system, maintain vegetation, and record an environmental covenant on the school property. The community now carries the administrative burden of monitoring land that DuPont poisoned. | medium |
Profit Over People
Extraction, abandonment, and wealth
| 01 | DuPont’s predecessors built milling operations in Park City beginning in 1907 to extract zinc and other metals for refining and sale. The toxic tailings left behind were simply the unpaid cost of that profit-making, passed on to the public. | high |
| 02 | After ceasing milling operations, DuPont continued leasing the contaminated land to generate income from additional mining and milling, while making no provisions for the environmental damage already caused or being added. | high |
| 03 | DuPont structured the 2015 Chemours spinoff so that Chemours absorbed the environmental liabilities while DuPont retained its core brand and business. This corporate maneuver insulated DuPont’s financial core while placing cleanup obligations on a newly created company with fewer resources. | high |
Corporate Accountability Failures
Decades of non-response
| 01 | Neither DuPont nor Chemours voluntarily stepped forward to fund cleanup of a site their corporate predecessors poisoned. The U.S. government had to sue them in September 2024 to compel reimbursement of costs already spent protecting children. | high |
| 02 | Tolling agreements signed in March and April 2021 show that DuPont and Chemours were aware of their potential liability years before the lawsuit was filed, yet the federal government still received no voluntary reimbursement during that period. | high |
| 03 | The U.S. government is seeking a declaratory judgment to hold DuPont and Chemours liable not just for past cleanup costs but for all future response costs, suggesting that full remediation of this site remains incomplete and ongoing. | medium |
| 04 | No individual executives from DuPont or Chemours face personal criminal charges or penalties in connection with the Park City contamination, despite the fact that children attended school on poisoned ground for generations. | medium |
Timeline of Events
1872
Silver discovered in the Park City area. Mining operations begin, eventually producing toxic tailings that will contaminate the watershed for more than a century.
1907
Grasselli Chemical Company of Ohio builds a dry mill in Park City to process tailings and extract zinc and heavy metals for profit at its Cleveland refinery.
1909
Grasselli Ohio creates Grasselli Utah as a subsidiary to manage Park City operations. The company expands to a wet mill by 1910, processing even more tailings and generating more toxic waste.
1920s
Grasselli Ohio and Grasselli Utah own 200 acres of land near the contaminated site. The Grasselli Dump grows to 3,500 feet long. Fine-grained tailings containing lead, cadmium, and arsenic spread through surface water and wind into the surrounding area.
1928
DuPont acquires all assets and liabilities of Grasselli Ohio through a formal Agreement of Reorganization, making DuPont the legal successor responsible for the contamination.
1928-1947
DuPont owns the contaminated property and continues leasing it to other companies for mining, milling, and the application of solvents and acids to extract residual silver from the poisoned tailings.
Mid-1970s
The Prospector Park residential development is built directly on top of portions of the Grasselli Dump. Homebuyers are not informed they are purchasing homes on toxic mine waste.
2015
DuPont spins off Chemours, transferring environmental liabilities including those for the Park City site to the newly created company. Chemours formally assumes these obligations.
2016
EPA discovers elevated lead levels in soils at Treasure Mountain Junior High School and conducts an emergency removal action: scraping away six inches of contaminated soil, backfilling with clean material, and reseeding the grounds.
January 2017
EPA and the Park City School District sign an administrative order on consent. The school district agrees to install a sprinkler system, maintain vegetation, and record an environmental covenant on the property.
April 2018
EPA issues its final pollution report for the school and surrounding area, formally documenting the contamination and its sources.
2021
Both DuPont and Chemours sign tolling agreements with the U.S. government, acknowledging the statute of limitations issue while still declining to voluntarily pay for cleanup.
September 2024
The United States files a federal lawsuit against DuPont and Chemours under CERCLA, seeking full reimbursement of past cleanup costs plus a declaratory judgment holding them liable for all future response costs at the site.
Direct Quotes from the Legal Record
QUOTE 1
Location of the toxic dump
Community Impact
“The northern portion of a former tailings impoundment, historically known as the ‘Grasselli Dump’ because the impoundment was owned by Defendants for approximately 40 years, lies underneath the junior high school.”
💡 This sentence places the toxic waste dump directly beneath a school attended by children, and names DuPont’s predecessors as the owners who created it. This is not an abstract environmental harm. It is poisonous industrial waste beneath children’s classrooms and playing fields.
QUOTE 2
Residential development built on toxic waste
Community Impact
“Prospector Park, a residential development built in the mid to late 1970s, was built overtop the other portions of the Grasselli Dump.”
💡 Families purchased homes, raised children, and lived their daily lives on top of a toxic waste dump without any disclosure that the ground beneath them was contaminated by decades of mining and chemical operations.
QUOTE 3
Scale of the Grasselli Dump
Core Allegations
“The Grasselli property came to be known as the Grasselli Dump because of the large tailings impoundment that grew to be roughly 3,500 ft. long, 500-1,000 ft. wide, and an average of 2 ft. deep.”
💡 This is not a small spill or accidental leak. This was an industrial-scale waste deposit the size of dozens of football fields, created deliberately through decades of corporate operations and then abandoned for communities to live on.
QUOTE 4
DuPont’s express assumption of liability
Corporate Accountability Failures
“DuPont expressly assumed all Grasselli Ohio’s liabilities.”
💡 DuPont cannot claim ignorance or distance from the Grasselli contamination. When DuPont bought Grasselli in 1928, it took on all liabilities in writing. This is a company that knew what it owned and chose for nearly a century not to clean it up.
QUOTE 5
Chemours explicitly assumed the liability
Corporate Accountability Failures
“As part of the spinoff, Chemours expressly assumed certain environmental liabilities, including those for DuPont and its predecessors at OU1.”
💡 Chemours cannot claim the contamination predates its existence. It knowingly accepted responsibility for this site in 2015. That it still has not voluntarily remediated the damage demonstrates that corporate liability transfers are often designed to obscure accountability rather than ensure it.
QUOTE 6
Hazardous substances confirmed by sampling
Public Health and Safety
“Samples collected at OU1 confirm hazardous substances including lead, zinc, cadmium, and arsenic, which are ‘hazardous substances’ within the meaning of Sections 101(14) and 102 of the Act.”
💡 This is not an allegation. The EPA collected physical samples from the school and surrounding area and confirmed the presence of four distinct toxic heavy metals. Children were attending school on ground that federal testing confirmed was contaminated.
QUOTE 7
DuPont continued profiting from the contaminated land
Profit Over People
“DuPont continued leasing it to other entities for the purpose of prospecting, exploring, developing, mining, and milling mineral ores, which included the use of solvents and acids to extract residual silver from the tailings.”
💡 Even after its own milling operations ended, DuPont continued to extract financial value from the contaminated land by leasing it. It was not just the original pollution that was the problem: DuPont actively facilitated additional chemical use on already-poisoned ground for years afterward.
QUOTE 8
Contamination spread beyond property lines
Community Impact
“Surface water and wind also transported small particles, grain size tailings, and other mine wastes containing heavy metals from the Grasselli Dump throughout OU1.”
💡 Toxic contamination from the Grasselli Dump did not stay neatly within property boundaries. It migrated through water and air, meaning the harm DuPont and its predecessors created spread into the broader community well beyond the original site.
Commentary
How did a toxic waste dump end up under a school and neighborhood without anyone stopping it?
▾
The Grasselli Dump was created in the early 1900s, long before modern environmental laws existed. The land was industrial property used for milling operations, and when those operations ended, the company simply walked away. Decades later, as Park City grew, residential and educational development expanded onto the same land. The Prospector Park neighborhood was built in the 1970s and Treasure Mountain Junior High School operated on this ground with no public disclosure of the contamination underneath. This is the direct result of allowing corporations to externalize the costs of their industrial activity: they extracted profit from the land and left the toxic consequences for the community to absorb, unknowingly, for generations.
Is this lawsuit likely to succeed?
▾
The legal case is strong. CERCLA, the federal Superfund law, establishes strict liability for past owners and operators of contaminated sites, meaning DuPont and Chemours do not need to have intended the harm for the law to hold them responsible. The complaint establishes a clear chain of corporate succession from Grasselli Ohio to DuPont to Chemours, with DuPont expressly assuming liabilities at each corporate reorganization and Chemours formally accepting responsibility in its 2015 spinoff documents. The federal government has already spent money on cleanup (the 2016 emergency action) and is seeking reimbursement of documented costs. Both companies signed tolling agreements in 2021, indicating they acknowledged the issue existed. The question is less whether they are liable and more how much they will ultimately pay.
What actual harm did the lead and other toxins cause to children at the school?
▾
The complaint does not enumerate individual health cases, but the scientific record on lead exposure is unambiguous. Lead causes permanent neurological damage in children at any level of exposure. There is no safe threshold. Even low-level exposure is associated with reduced IQ, attention and behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, and delayed development. Children who played on the school’s recreation fields, sat in the dust, or came into contact with contaminated soil were at risk. Cadmium and arsenic, also confirmed at the site, are classified as known human carcinogens. The 2016 emergency removal action, which required physically stripping away six inches of school grounds, confirms the contamination was serious enough to demand immediate federal intervention. The harm to children who attended that school over the decades before 2016 cannot be measured or undone.
Why did it take until 2024 to sue DuPont and Chemours if the contamination was found in 2016?
▾
The federal government and both companies spent years in negotiations before litigation became necessary. Both DuPont and Chemours signed tolling agreements in 2021 that paused the statute of limitations clock while talks continued. Those agreements expired in October 2024, and the United States filed suit in September 2024, just before the deadline. This pattern, where corporations engage in extended negotiations that delay accountability rather than resolve it, is a well-documented corporate tactic for managing environmental liability. Every year of delay is a year the public bears the cost of contamination these companies created.
What can I do to prevent this from happening again?
▾
Several concrete actions matter. First, support full funding of the EPA Superfund program, which has historically been underfunded relative to the scale of contaminated sites nationwide. Second, support policies that require corporations to post financial assurance bonds before beginning industrial operations, ensuring cleanup funds exist before the pollution happens rather than after. Third, demand that your representatives support corporate successor liability laws that prevent corporations from using spinoffs and reorganizations to escape environmental obligations. Fourth, support whistleblower protection laws that make it easier for corporate employees to report environmental violations without fear of retaliation. Fifth, if you live near a known or suspected contaminated site, contact your state environmental agency to request soil testing. Finally, support organizations like Earthjustice and the Environmental Defense Fund that litigate on behalf of communities harmed by corporate pollution.
Is DuPont a repeat environmental offender?
▾
Yes, emphatically. DuPont is one of the most consequential corporate polluters in American history. The company is separately notorious for decades of contaminating communities with PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as “forever chemicals”) through its Teflon manufacturing operations in Parkersburg, West Virginia, a scandal that poisoned the water of tens of thousands of residents and has been the subject of major litigation, settlements, and a major motion picture. The Park City case is part of a decades-long pattern in which DuPont profited from industrial chemistry while passing the environmental and health costs onto the public. Chemours, its spin-off, has continued to face legal actions over PFAS contamination as well. This is not an isolated incident. It is a corporate pattern.
Has the school been fully cleaned up?
▾
The 2016 emergency removal action addressed the most acute contamination at the school by removing the top six inches of contaminated soil. However, the federal lawsuit filed in 2024 seeks a declaratory judgment holding DuPont and Chemours liable for future response costs, which signals that the government anticipates further remediation will be needed. An environmental covenant now encumbers the school property, and the school district is required to maintain vegetation and a sprinkler system to keep dust from re-contaminating the surface. The underlying tailings dump, the Grasselli Dump, still exists beneath the school. The 2016 action was triage, not a complete solution. Full remediation of a site this large and this deeply contaminated takes years and significant resources.
https://www.justice.gov/enrd/media/1371426/dl?inline
U.S. v. EIDP, Inc. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours and Company and Chemours Company FC, LLC_complaint_evil_corporationsDownload
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