DuPont's lead-paint deal criticized

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — When the state dropped DuPont Co. from its lawsuit against former makers of lead paint last year, DuPont had agreed to donate $9 million to a group for cleanup and education efforts in Rhode Island.

At the time, Attorney General Patrick Lynch described the Children's Health Forum as a nonprofit organization focused on preventing childhood exposure to lead.

But no one mentioned the ties between DuPont and the Washington-based group: It was founded by a lawyer hired by DuPont to work on lead-poisoning issues; it received most of its funding from the Wilmington, Del.-based company; and most of its board members have ties to DuPont.

Watchdogs say the previously unreported relationship casts a cloud over the deal, which let DuPont out of a case that could cost other lead-paint companies billions of dollars. Three were found responsible in February of creating a public nuisance, and a judge is considering how much they will be forced to pay for cleanup.

The June 2005 deal allowed DuPont to give $12.5 million to charity, including $9 million to Children's Health Forum.

The Associated Press reported in June that Lynch took campaign donations from people with ties to DuPont, including one from its chief negotiator while the deal was being discussed. Lynch says he did nothing wrong.

Robert Arruda, president of Operation Clean Government, a nonpartisan public watchdog in Rhode Island, did not know of DuPont's connection to Children's Health Forum until informed by the AP.

"It does not pass the smell test," he said.

The deal is unusual because when states have previously sued an industry, such as lawsuits against tobacco companies, settlement money has gone directly to the state or been put into a foundation not controlled by the industry. It's also unusual because Lynch and DuPont say the deal was not a legal settlement but simply an agreement.

Lynch spokesman Michael Healey said the attorney general did not know the group had a relationship with DuPont when he struck the deal, and DuPont would not say if it informed him.

Although the state has no written agreement with Children's Health Forum about how the group spends the money, it is supposed to dole it out to groups in Rhode Island, who will ask for it through a commission set up by Lynch. The money has not yet been distributed.

Children's Health Forum was founded in 2002 by Dr. Benjamin Hooks, a former head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, after DuPont hired him to help the company address childhood lead poisoning, according to DuPont. At the time, DuPont was named in lawsuits around the country over the damaging effects of lead paint, which can cause brain damage and learning disabilities.

The group got its start-up money from DuPont and received $2 million from the company in 2004. When the state's deal was announced, four of Children's Health Forum's five board members had current or previous business ties to DuPont.

A well-known lead-paint activist in Rhode Island, Roberta Hazen Aaronson of Childhood Lead Action Project, said an independent party should have been selected to dole out the money.

"The fact that DuPont now is going to have such control over this process does not sound right," Arruda said. "This money should be given to the state of Rhode Island."