DuPont settles mercury suit

DuPont has agreed to pay $50 million to clean up mercury released into Virginia’s South River between 1929 and 1950. The deal, with the state of Virginia and the U.S. Departments of Justice and the Interior, is subject to a federal judge’s final approval. DuPont used the mercury at a facility in Waynesboro, Va., where it manufactured acetate yarn and flake. Other legacy environmental problems continue to plague DuPont. Last month the town of Carneys Point, N.J., filed a $1 billion suit seeking the cleanup of the firm’s former Chambers Works manufacturing site.