Local attorney Robert Bilott, whose story has made national headlines, took on a high-profile case against the DuPont chemical company.  He filed a federal suit against DuPont in 1999, in West Virginia. He exposed that DuPont had operated above the Environmental Protection Agency for decades, intentionally hiding the dangers of Teflon and the chemical PFOA (C8), to which people have been exposed. Recently, the jury ordered DuPont to pay $500,000 in punitive damages to an Ohio man who got cancer from exposure to a toxic chemical produced by DuPont's West Virginia plant.