DuPont bought C8 from 3M and used it to prevent Teflon from clumping during the manufacturing process. As a boy, he had cooled his bare feet in this creek. Its just like that other calf up yonder, he said, panning over the matted grass.
Dead cows with mysterious bloody noses and green organs - The Sun The herd that had once been nearly three hundred head had dwindled to just about half that. He was certain that DuPont was fouling the waters that his cattle drank, and he'd already lost more than half of his herd to bizarre illnesses. The document, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, called on global scientists, manufacturers, and retailers to work together to limit the use of PFASs and develop safer alternatives. The smell was odd. Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. Sue Bailey was pregnant when she worked in the Teflon division of the plant. Issued by Microsoft's ASP.NET Application, this cookie stores session data during a user's website visit. From playing with computers to building networks: How the space for Black Software was made.
. Flies. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right.
How dying cows led to a $671M settlement - Columbus Business First Trial lawyer Harry Deitzler, whos played by Bill Pullman in the film, told Slate in a telephone interview that while Dark Waters captured Bilotts sense of commitment and general modesty, it was less accurate in its depiction on one particular issue: Robert Bilott has not been known to be an especially big fan of Mai Tais, either in general or on special occasions. This time he is seeking to force 3M and DuPont to pay for medical monitoring of every American exposed to PFAS. Bilott did marry a fellow lawyer, Sarah Barlage, who left her career defending corporations against workers compensation claims to raise their sons. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
The Non-Stick Chemical That Stuck DuPont with a Stiff Bill In The DuPont detected PFOA in the drinking water of communities near the Teflon plant. 'Dark Waters' is slated to release on November 22, 2019, and has Mark Ruffalo playing the role of a tenacious attorney, who takes the fight to a big chemical company. PFAS are ubiquitous. Behind him, white-faced Herefords grazed in rolling meadows. The same year, DuPont found that water in one local district contained PFOA levels at three times that figure. Used by Yahoo to provide ads, content or analytics. So, the couple sold about 60 acres to DuPont. GRAPHIC CONTENT: An excerpt from Wilbur Earl Tennant's video showing the mysterious wasting disease affecting his cows in the 1990s. The JSESSIONID cookie is used by New Relic to store a session identifier so that New Relic can monitor session counts for an application. R ob Bilott, a corporate lawyer-turned-environmental crusader, doesn't much care if he's made enemies over the years. And theyre going to find out one of these days that somebodys tired of it.. He focuses on the froth-covered creek before the tape cuts to a dissected calf with blackened teeth and oddly colored organs. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. . Thank you for helping us continue making science fun for everyone. Birds sang through the white-hot humidity as he panned the camcorder across the creek. Join Facebook to connect with Wilbur Tennant and others you may know. This cookie is used to manage the interaction with the online bots. In his research, Bilott had come across a DuPont letter that referred to a chemical known as . Tennants Farm Pond Dam is a cultural feature (dam) in Wood County. The Intercept notes that the legal process "uncovered hundreds of internal communications revealing that DuPont employees for many years suspected that C8 was harmful and yet continued to use it, putting the company's workers and the people who lived near its plants at risk.". The unlikely hero was an Ohio-based corporate defense lawyer paid to protect chemical companies, just like the one the farmer suspected of foul play. He especially enjoyed hunting, working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson Josh and . death of 260 cattle in West Virginia. Thats whats so scary about these chemicals, said Jamie DeWitt, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at East Carolina University who studies PFAS. He zoomed out and panned over to an industrial pipe spewing froth into the creek. Anyone could see that something was terribly wrong, not only with the landfill itself but with the agencies responsible for monitoring it. "We have always and will continue to work with those in the scientific, not-for-profit and policy communities who demonstrate a serious and sincere desire to improve our health, our communities, and our planet.". On the other line was Wilbur Tennant (played by Bill Camp), a cattle farmer from Parkersburg, W.V. For example, New Hampshire sued 3M and DuPont, along with a handful of companies that make firefighting foam containing PFAS. Then one autumn day in 2000, local schoolteacher Joe Kiger . Predictably, his complaints to government went ignored.
Persistent farmer whose cows died from a mysterious disease helped Did they think no one would notice? Back in the '90s, Tennant noticed something strange was happening to his cows. DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. This cookie is set by Facebook to display advertisements when either on Facebook or on a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising, after visiting the website. Dark Waters'messed up true story reveals an emerging public health and environmental threat, the pervasiveness of "forever chemicals," and an alleged corporate cover-up. As one of Bilotts colleagues told the New York Times, To say that Rob Bilott is understated is an understatement. Its also true that Bilott did not have the same Ivy League pedigree of many of his colleagues at Taft, having been raised on Air Force bases across the continental United States and West Germany, and it was through these working-class connections that he was introduced to the Tennant family farm case. He had carried a rifle as he went about the farm, always ready to shoot dinner. No matter how much he fed them, they always looked to be wasting away, and some even bled from their mouth as they bellowed, according to the New York Times Magazine. Today, that site is home to Chemours Washington Works, a spinoff of DuPont that employs more than 600 people and produces a variety of products used in construction, aerospace, and household goods. DuPont bought 66 acres of the Tennant's farm land from Wilbur Tennant's brother Jim and his wife Della [1]. Yet to this day the companies deny responsibility, Bilott said in an interview. Earl retired from the WV Department of Highways as an equipment operator. That day had never come, so he decided he would make them watch a video. Much like many river cities, Parkersburg's history speaks of a working class, industrial heritage, which saw companies set up shop on the shores of the Ohio River, bringing jobs and economic stability. They are still in all of us..
Tennants Farm Pond Dam (in Wood County, WV) - HomeTownLocator Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website.
The Messed Up True Story Behind Dark Waters - Grunge.com Wilbur Tennant shot this video on his property between 1995 and 1997. The use of these cookies is strictly limited to measuring the site's audience. He hardly ever saw minnows swimming in the creek anymore, except the ones that floated belly up. The cattle farmer stood at the edge of a creek that cut through a sun-dappled hollow. Dry Run was less than a miles walk from the home place, across Lee Creek, through an open field, and along a pair of tire tracks.
Dark Waters true story: How a lawyer exposed a chemical giant - mirror . In real life as in the film, Bilotts earliest professional experiences after law school were working on behalf of chemical companies for his employer, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, providing the firms corporate clients with guidance on how best to comply with the so-called Superfund law passed by Congress in 1980 to regulate sites tainted with hazardous substances. Calf born dead. Earl loved his cows, and the cows loved Earl. He had stopped feeding his family venison from the deer he shot on his land. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. In time, the connection between the Tennants and DuPont would run as deep as the Ohio River. It stars Mark Ruffalo as Bilott, along with Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare . riding horses, milking cows and watching Secretariat win the Triple Crown on TV. I noticed that in at least one of the scenes where I was portrayed. Joseph and Darlene Kiger in Park City, Utah, in 2018.
The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare - Brutal Proof These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. The Post read a statement from DuPont that reiterated the company's commitment to health and safety and protecting the environment: "Although DuPont does not make the chemicals in question, we have announced a series of commitments around our limited use of PFAS and are leading [the] industry in supporting federal legislation and science-based regulatory efforts to address these chemicals." Bryan Schutmaat for The New York Times. As Bilott recollected in a panel discussion with the Washington Post, it was Wilburs obstinate refusal to simply take his monetary settlement and walk away that compelled Bilott to keep pursuing new legal avenues to hold DuPont to account. But that's just the start. And if it sounds familiar, it should. Robert Bilott isn't done. The sp_t cookie is set by Spotify to implement audio content from Spotify on the website and also registers information on user interaction related to the audio content. When DuPont settled that lawsuit in 2004, the company agreed to finance a study of PFOAs health effects. . DuPont immediately removed all female workers from areas where they might come into contact with the chemical.". He suspected one of his town's largest employers was up to no good, allegedly dumping chemicals and contaminating his farm's water supply, and the result was hundreds of sickened and dead cattle. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. He marked each one on a calendar, a simple slash mark for each grotesque death. NID cookie, set by Google, is used for advertising purposes; to limit the number of times the user sees an ad, to mute unwanted ads, and to measure the effectiveness of ads. The film seems to imply that the fire might have been an arson attempt that hit the wrong house, though it doesnt suggest who might have lit it. His hand shook as he pressed the zoom button, zeroing in on a stagnant pool.
Wilbur Tennant - Ancestry.com And the money came in handy, too, since Jim, a Washington Works employee, had for years suffered from flu-like symptoms and illnesses that baffled doctors, as outlined in a Delaware Online article from 2016. Wilbur Tennant and his wife, Sandra, won a legal settlement from DuPont two years ago after they accused the company of sickening their family and killing their cattle by dumping C8 into a landfill near their farm. The spleen was thinner and whiter than any spleen he had come cross. Dozens began dramatically losing weight, dying even after Tennant doubled their feed on the advice of veterinarians who couldnt determine what was killing the animals. But two years before 3M announced its phaseout in 2000, the company informed EPA officials for the first time that PFOA and PFOS accumulate in human blood, take years to leave the body and dont break down in the environment. She had a calf over there. Bilott soon discovered that Dry Run Creek, the offshoot of the Ohio River that Tennant's livestock drank from, was full of C8, an industry name for perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, one of the . The substance is stable, persistent, and very difficult to break down. Lawyers in Parkersburg, West Virginia, turned him down when he urged them to sue DuPont, then one of areas biggest employers. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. The farmer's name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. It is cut from the same cloth as movies like 'Erin Brockovich' and 'A Civil Action'. Bilott, whose story was chronicled in an engrossing and detailed 2016 New York Times story by Nathaniel Rich, goes from a 1999 lawsuit on behalf of Tennant to a 2001 class action involving several . In the 1990s Wilbur began to notice weird deformities in his cows and some of them were even dying. He often walked through the woods shirtless and shoeless, his trousers rolled up, and he moved with an agile strength built by a lifetime of doing things like lifting calves over fences. As a father, he had watched his little girls splash around in its shallow ripples. Bilott has spent more than twenty years litigating hazardous dumping of the chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). Alternatives for PFOA and PFOS promoted as safe by industry are just as dangerous, if not more so, scientists are finding. Her calf, black and white, lay dead on its side in a circle of matted grass. apples, bread, green beans and ground beef. There is something wrong with this water, Tennant says on the videotape. ''Rob's letter lifted the curtain on a . Earl had sought help, but no one would step up. The problem had to be Dry Run, he thought. Dark Waters tells the true story of American farmer Wilbur Tennant who calls on lawyer Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) to help him sue a chemical company Credit: Focus Features.
Farmer uncovers company's dark secret after cows kept dying: 'An Dark Waters and the True Story of Lawyer Rob Bilott | Time Thats where theyre supposed to come down here and pull water samples, to see whats in that water. He pointed the camera at a stagnant pool of water flanked by knee-high grass. He died of cancer in 2009. LOCATION. As company scientists noted in internal documents, Nine out of ten people in the highest-dosed group were noticeably ill for an average of nine hours with flu-like symptoms that included chills, backache, fever, and coughing.. Its surface was matte with a crusty film that wrinkled against the shore. He was 7 years old. Where they should have been smooth, they looked ropy, covered with ridges. In 1998, a farmer named Wilbur Earl Tennant knocked on the door of a lawyer named Robert Bi-lott on the grounds that the vegetation structure of the land he owned was impaired, the cattle he was breeding were affected and the only responsible was the factory located next to the river, ow-ning a wasteland adjacent to his property. For decades it had been the backbone of 3Ms Scotchgard brand of stain-resistant products. His freezer had brimmed with venison, wild turkey, squirrel, and rabbit. These chemicals are most harmful when ingested and consequently bioaccumulate, meaning they build up over time in the body (just as they build up in the environment). The campaign coincided with the release of the film "Dark Waters" starring Mark Ruffalo inspired by the true story of Bilott, who discovered a community had been dangerously exposed for decades to deadly chemicals. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently operated a site in Parkersburg that is more than 35 times the size of the Pentagon, was . With no one from the government or even local veterinarians willing to do it, Earl decided to do an autopsy himself. The June 23, 2000, letter listed something in the landfill that didnt appear in the other documents or in Tafts chemical dictionaries. Tennant wants to sue chemical giant . The pipe flowed out of a collection pond at the low end of a landfill. His mothers grandfather had bought this land, and it was the only home he had ever known. The goal of the merger was to combine two businesses that dabbled in . Wilbur Tennant shot this video on his property in the 1990's. Tennant was a farmer who sold part of his land in Parkersburg, West Virginia, to DuPont, for what the company had assured him would be a non-hazardous landfill. The Devil We Know: Directed by Stephanie Soechtig, Jeremy Seifert. May 15, 2009; Location: Washington, West Virginia; Tribute & Message From The Family. It was to be incinerated or sent to chemical-waste facilities. During manufacturing processes, PFAS chemicals are released into the air, soil, and water around industrial facilities, the EPA reports. After contacting the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, he felt stonewalled. According to the New York Times Magazine, "By 1990, DuPont had dumped 7,100 tons of PFOA sludge into Dry Run Landfill. We'll assume you're okay with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance. just a dukes mix of everything. Until lately, the cattle always fattened up nicely on that, plus the corn he grew to finish them and a grain mix he bought from the feed store. Bilott later determined it was one of the forever chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid, commonly referred to today as PFOA. And after Bilott watched and listened, he took action. Its dumping pits were unlined, designed for the disposal of nonhazardous wasteoffice paper and everyday trash.
The 20-year legal battle with DuPont that started with one West At fifty-four, Earl was an . He walked there every day to count heads and check fences. In the 1980s, Jim Tennant and his wife, Della, got an offer from DuPont. Dry Run used to flow gin clear. Even though the Tennant case had already settled, Bilott pushed on, building a larger case against DuPont on behalf of residents in a Parkersburg-area water district. Over the decades they steadily acquired land and cattle, until 200 cows roamed more than 600 hilly acres. . This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. He didnt believe it anymore. How accurately does Dark Waters depict the twists and turns of this maze? 3M and DuPont have argued in court and in public statements that neither chemical is harmful to people at typical levels of exposure. Theres been fifty-six cows thats been burnt just like this.. It was really his dedication to bringing that out that really inspired me to try to find a way to address the bigger problem., Amazingly, the Pakula-esque paranoid thriller scene, in which Wilbur Tennant spots a low-level helicopter hovering ominously over his property, uses the scope of his hunting rifle to better examine the vehicle, and scares it off in the process, did in fact occur. DuPont established a presence along the Ohio River in 1948 with the Washington Works plant near Parkersburg. It is based on a shocking true story, where a series . A group of citizens in West Virginia challenges a powerful corporation to be more environmentally responsible. (Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call). Both companies denied any wrongdoing. Rob Bilott's Exposure is a real-life whodunit, a page-turning courtroom drama, a David-and-Goliath story of one man against an industrial colossus and a shocking expos of America's utterly broken environmental policy.You should also take this book personally - because the "exposure" of the title is yours. As unbelievable as it may sound, DuPont really did, in the 1960s, offer some of its staff Teflon-laced cigarettes as a human experiment into the potential side effects of the PFOA-produced nonstick material, as the movie recounts. I dont understand them great big dark red places across there. The company turned this land into the unlined Dry Run Landfill. Wilbur Tennant had become desperate. A corporate courtroom drama typically doesn't need extensive visual effects, but "Dark Waters" had a few key moments that could not be created practically. Bilott helped companies comply with new environmental regulations established by the Superfund legislation and became an expert at the chemistry of pollutants, according to the New York Times Magazine. C8 is a "surfactant," a chemical compound that reduces surface tension.
Robert Bilott - Wikipedia LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. Two weeks after he filmed the foamy water, Earl aimed the camcorder at one of his cows.
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". None of this information was shared with the public. Maps, Driving Directions & Local Area Information Bilott tries to communicate to Tennant that he "isn't that kind of environmental lawyer," yet Tennant's exasperated resilience strikes a chord with the compassionate . His name is Wilbur Tennant. These cookies help provide anonymized information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. It all started with Wilbur Tennant's dying cows. Washington, West Virginia. This video contains graphic imagery. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. In less than two years he had lost at least one hundred calves and more than fifty cows. Tennants Farm Pond Dam, Wood County, West Virginia. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently operated a site in Parkersburg that is more than 35 times the size of the Pentagon, was responsible. A month before DuPonts letter about PFOA, the Minnesota-based conglomerate 3M announced it would stop making a chemical with a similar sounding name: perfluorooctane sulfonic acid or PFOS. Its something I have never run into before., He reached back into the cow and pulled out a liver that looked about right. Studies have found potential links between PFOA exposure and high cholesterol, thyroid disorders, and testicular and kidney cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
The Teflon Toxin, Part 2: Wilbur Tennant vs. DuPont on Vimeo Something is the matter right there. At fifty-four, Earl was an imposing figure, six feet tall, lean and oxshouldered, with sandpaper hands and a permanent squint. Edit Search New Search Filters (1) To get better results, add more information such as Birth Info, Death Info and Locationeven a guess will help. The EPA on its own only recently started to take steps to study, monitor, and regulate the use of PFAS and released an update to its action plan programin February 2020. DuPont's scientists understood that the landfill drained into the Tennants' remaining property, and they tested the water in Dry Run Creek. Per the article, "In March 1981, DuPont sent a pathologist and a birth defects expert to review the 3M data Bailey had read about in the locker room. The farm would have stretched even longer if one of Wilbur Tennant's brothers, Jim, did not sell 66 acres to the DuPont company in the early 1980's for a landfill they were going to create for their factory. The olive green water had a greenish brown foam encrusting the grassy bank. Todd Haynes new film Dark Waters wades into some of the most complicated topics in public health, chemistry, and the law to dramatize the story of environmental attorney Robert Bilott and his nearly two decades of civil actions against DuPont. Wilbur's brother, Jim, was also employed as a laborer at the Washington Works plant, along with hundreds more who found steady work at the area's largest employer. But the point I want to make, and make it real clear, he said, zooming in, thats the mouth of Dry Run.. Class Action - Part 1. He was an excellent marksman, and his family had always had enough meat to eat. YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. During the years before DuPont settled the lawsuit paying the Tennants an undisclosed amount without assigning blame for the dead cows the company sent Bilott boxes of documents he requested through the normal court process. are linked to DuPont's landfilling of PFOA. The symptoms shown in the movieincluding such discolorations as blackened teethare also similar to the ones that Tennant really did videotape before sending the tapes to Bilott. The federal agency notes that it has made significant progress in addressing the public health concerns "from issuing groundwater cleanup guidance to proposing a positive regulatory determination for both PFOA and PFOS, EPA has made progress under every aspect of the Action Plan.". This is the hundred and seventh calf thats met this problem right here. But his first big meeting is interrupted by Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp, outstanding), a cattle farmer from Parkersburg, W.Va., the rural town where Bilott's grandmother lives and where he used to . As he does in the film, the real Bilott did begin to experience strange symptoms in 2010 similar to the strokelike transient ischemic attack seen in the movie. By that point, 153 animals died had died grisly deaths on his property . Whatever had killed this cow appeared to Earl to have eaten her from the inside out. Wilbur Tennant shot this video in the late 1990s on his property in West Virginia. The Messed Up True Story Behind Dark Waters, Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia. In 1998, corporate lawyer Robert Bilott ( Mark Ruffalo) is approached by Wilbur Tennant ( Bill Camp) a farmer from his hometown of Parkersburg, West Virginia. That's just some of the video footage Wilbur showed lawyer Robert Bilott, according to an excerpt from Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. It was different from the regular dead-cow smells he had dealt with all his life. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Bilotts law firm, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, typically represents corporate clients like DuPont in environmental cases, not people like Tennant. While the character of the hand-wringing Taft lawyer James Ross, portrayed by The Good Places William Jackson Harper, seems to have been invented, along with the scene where Ross suggests that Bilotts class-action suit might read to the public as nothing more than a shakedown of an iconic American company, Bilott did tell the New York Times that he perceived that there were some What the hell are you doing? responses within the firm.