The Du Pont Co. may be its own best client for its own new venture: an innovative enterprise dedicated to cleaning contaminated groundwater and soil. Allies in the endeavor are two smaller companies: Biosystems, a Chester, Pa., firm specializing in groundwater clean-up and Dallas-based Halliburton Co., an engineering consulting firm to the petroleum industry. The three will operate jointly as DuPont Biosystems, employing microbiologists, chemists, environmental engineers, and geologists—and get to work right in the corporate backyard.
Earlier this year, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection ordered Du Pont to pay $39 million to clean up. groundwater that had been polluted by one of its New Jersey plants. The settlement has been described as the largest by one company for a single location in the United States, so Du Pont Biosystems, a consultant to the project, will be wielding a large broom.
Nearly a decade after they discovered the ...
