Virginia Historical Society Podcast

On October 5, 2017, Gregory Wilson delivered a Banner Lecture entitled “Toxic Dust: The History and Legacy of Virginia’s Kepone Disaster.” In July 1975, news broke about workers at Life Science Products Company in Hopewell poisoned while making the pesticide Kepone, the brand name of chlordecone. Further investigations showed Life Science had contracted with Allied Chemical, a larger firm with a plant in Hopewell, to make Kepone and that both companies dumped Kepone waste into the James River and its nearby tributaries. The events led to a number of significant events, including a fishing and harvesting ban that remained in various forms through the 1980s, new state and federal environmental regulations, and federal court cases that led to the creation of the Virginia Environmental Endowment in 1977. Forty years later, Kepone remains in the James River sediment but in much reduced levels. Still, traces of Kepone have been found in James River fish today. The complete toxic effects of Kepone are not fully kno