It all started with Wilbur Tennant's dying cows. Earl pulled on white gloves and pried open the cows mouth, probing her gums and teeth. Bubbles formed as it tumbled over stones in a sudsy film. It is cut from the same cloth as movies like 'Erin Brockovich' and 'A Civil Action'. And theyre going to find out one of these days that somebodys tired of it.. The tongue looked normal, but some of the teeth were coal black, interspersed with the white ones like piano keys. Cookie used to remember the user's Disqus login credentials across websites that use Disqus. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Bilott, with begrudging support of his firm (Tim Robbins plays his boss), confirms Wilbur's worst fears: the local DuPont plant has been dumping toxic waste on land next to the Tennant farm. But you just give me time. 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. He toldThe Intercept in 2015 that it bubbled up out of glass containers and "was everywhere." DuPont named this sight Dry Run Landfill after the creek that ran onto the Tennant farm. Wilbur Tennant is one farmer in a community who sees DuPont as something more than an employer. And I burn them all. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Even though he sold them to be finished and slaughtered for beef, he didnt have the heart to kill one himself, unless it had a broken leg and he needed to end its suffering. This cow died about twenty, thirty minutes ago, Earl said. Over the decades they steadily acquired land and cattle, until 200 cows roamed more than 600 hilly acres. He zoomed in. According to the New York Times Magazine, "By 1990, DuPont had dumped 7,100 tons of PFOA sludge into Dry Run Landfill. W. Earl Tennant Wilbur Earl Tennant, 67 of New England passed away suddenly at his residence May 15, 2009. . As in the movie, these events really did lead to a large class-action suit that triggered a massive epidemiological study that, after a yearslong wait, showed there really was a probable link between PFOA and certain conditions, including high cholesterol, kidney cancer, and testicular cancer, though the movie depicts one scientist going so far as to tell Bilott that the results are irrefutable. (DuPont has continued to deny that it did anything wrong.). 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How would you like for your livestock to have to drink something like that? he asked his imagined audience. Tennant stated that . This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Its dumping pits were unlined, designed for the disposal of nonhazardous wasteoffice paper and everyday trash. It was to be incinerated or sent to chemical-waste facilities. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The carcass was starting to smell. "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.". These cookies do not allow the tracking of navigation on other websites and the data collected is not combined or shared with third parties. Next door to Tennant's farm was a landfill owned by E.I. And if it sounds familiar, it should. Birds sang through the white-hot humidity as he panned the camcorder across the creek. We consulted a variety of sources, including Nathaniel Richs 2016 New York Times Magazine feature The Lawyer Who Became DuPonts Worst Nightmare (upon which the movie is based), Bilotts own book, other longform articles, and attorney Harry Deitzler (the personal-injury lawyer played in the movie by Bill Pullman), to help sort out whats true and whats embellished. The C8 Science Study (named for DuPonts internal code for PFOA) found a probable link between the chemical and certain diseases in humans, some of which 3M and DuPont had found in animals years, if not decades, earlier. Then, in 1998 Bilott received a phone call from Wilbur Tennant who lived on his farm in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Google DoubleClick IDE cookies are used to store information about how the user uses the website to present them with relevant ads and according to the user profile. GRAPHIC CONTENT: An excerpt from Wilbur Earl Tennant's video showing the mysterious wasting disease affecting his cows in the 1990s. 30 Broad Street, Suite 801 The problem had to be Dry Run, he thought. Tennants Farm Pond Dam, Wood County, West Virginia. Photos by Focus Features and EPK. In less than two years he had lost at least one hundred calves and more than fifty cows. He couldnt quite place it. Michael Hawthorne is a Pulitzer-finalist investigative reporter who focuses on the environment and public health for the Chicago Tribune. . The cookie does not store any personally identifiable data. emily in paris savoir office. DuPont bought 66 acres of the Tennant's farm land from Wilbur Tennant's brother Jim and his wife Della [1]. The goal of the merger was to combine two businesses that dabbled in . This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. 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 . Earl had sought help, but no one would step up. His freezer had brimmed with venison, wild turkey, squirrel, and rabbit. Around here, that economic engine was DuPont, known for innovations like nylon, Tyvek, and Teflon. DuPont and 3M kept the U.S. EPA in the dark for years, company and government records show. According to the book, DuPont had commissioned a photographer to take aerial photos of the property as part of its defense. By the 1980s, DuPont had allegedly begun dumping PFOA waste into the Dry Creek Landfill, near the Tennant property. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. 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. It was small and ephemeral, fed by the rains that gathered in the creases of the ancient mountains that rumpled West Virginia and gave it those misty blue, almost-heaven vistas. Wilbur Tennant's brother Jim really was a DuPont employee plagued with a serious ailment his doctors could not diagnose, and the chemical company did buy his 66 acres of the family's 600-some . As a boy, he had cooled his bare feet in this creek. 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. Photo illustration by Slate. As a father, he had watched his little girls splash around in its shallow ripples. People who didnt know him very well called him Wilbur, but friends and family called him Earl. His earlier efforts had all revealed unpleasant surprises: tumors, abnormal organs, unnatural smells. Bill Pullman was portraying me, and hes taller and younger, and everyone appeared to be drinking. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". 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 . You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Both companies denied any wrongdoing. This time he is seeking to force 3M and DuPont to pay for medical monitoring of every American exposed to PFAS. Yes, DuPont is still in business, although it has struggled slightly to survive independently from time to time due to its poor public reputation. 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. Sometimes the cattle watered at a spring-fed bathtub trough at the farthest end of the field, but mostly they drank from Dry Run. In 1973 she [took] him to the cattle farm belonging to the Tennants' neighbors, the Grahams, with whom White was friendly. And it takes immense courage and conviction to do that. Did they think no one would notice? The farmer's name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. 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. "I've been dealing with this for . He had formerly worked for the Wood County Schools as a bus. Excerpt from Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. The cattle farmer stood at the edge of a creek that cut through a sun-dappled hollow. He was 7 years old. But what about the alarming moment when a fire breaks out at the home of Joseph Kigers father, who shares his name? But that's just the start. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". It dont do you any good to go to the DNR about it. Nothing jumped out in page after page he reviewed, Bilott recalled. They are everywhere. It is a chemical used in the manufacturing process of Teflon. The carcasses lay where they fell. The flies hummed as loud as bees. He hardly ever saw minnows swimming in the creek anymore, except the ones that floated belly up. LinkedIn sets this cookie for LinkedIn Ads ID syncing. He started the legal process in 1999 against DuPont by filing motions compelling it to turn over documents pertaining to hazardous materials used at the Washington Works plant near Parkersburg. "If that's what it takes to get people the information they need and to protect people, we're willing to do it.". Not even buzzards and scavengers would eat them. 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. 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. At least thats what his family had been told thirteen years before by the company that had bought their land. All Public Member Trees results for Wilbur Tennant. Just months before Rob Bilott made partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister, he received a call on his direct line from a cattle farmer. His pleas for help fell on deaf ears, according to the Huffington Post's article, "Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia." 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. Jim still calls it "the home place," although its windows are now boarded up and the outhouse is crumbling into the field. Because I was feeding her enough feed that she shoulda gained weight instead of losing weight. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Behind him, white-faced Herefords grazed in rolling meadows. You notice them dark place there, all down through? After the Tennants had been paid and Bilotts law firm collected its fees for representing them, he found himself coming back again and again to the piles of industry documents he had collected, urged on by the persistent Tennant. Eight years later 3M paused one of its animal studies after every monkey fed PFOS died. DuPont de Nemours & Co., used to dump chemical waste from the company's . A few years after the sale, Tennant suspected DuPont had filled the landfill with more than just garbage. 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. 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. Whatever had killed this cow appeared to Earl to have eaten her from the inside out. The muscle looked fine, but a thin, yellow liquid gathered in the cavity where it once beat. He was an excellent marksman, and his family had always had enough meat to eat. On August 31st of 2017, E. I. Dupont de Nemours Company and the Dow Chemical Company merged as part of a $130 billion merger. He focuses on the froth-covered creek before the tape cuts to a dissected calf with blackened teeth and oddly colored organs. They were green like the foamy water that ran out of a pipe from the nearby Dry Run Landfill and into the creek from which the Tennant cattle drank. Shorty after that, DuPont started to medically monitor female workers at the Washington Works plant to, as the company's medical director noted, "answer a single question does C8 cause abnormal children?" Yes, the household name used as a cookware coating agent that is advertised to make food not stick and is known for its durability in . In 2000, Bilott found notations on an internal DuPont document that referred to a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), also known as C8, in Dry Run Creek. Bilott later determined it was one of the forever chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid, commonly referred to today as PFOA. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. In 1998, cattle farmer Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, West Virginia, contacted Bilott and claimed that his livestock was dying because the runoff from a DuPont landfill had contaminated a creek on . There is something wrong with this water, Tennant says on the videotape. Hunting had been one of Earls greatest pleasures. The herd that had once been nearly three hundred head had dwindled to just about half that. The West Virginia-based . Back in the '90s, Tennant noticed something strange was happening to his cows. He knew his neighbors and his community was being poisoned, Bilott told the Post. After contacting the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, he felt stonewalled. Some of the more surprising moments in the film were in fact real and confirmed by Bilott in his memoir about the case, like when the farmer Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp), who brought the case to . By that point, 153 animals died had died grisly deaths on his property . Even down near the tips of it. This cookie is used for storing country code selected from country selector. Did they think he would just sit by? Maybe if he filmed it, they could see for themselves and realize he was not just some crazy old farmer. Up until about a decade ago, few in the public knew about C8, let alone its potential health effects, but DuPont allegedly knew its toxic effects for decades and purportedly failed to tell employees or the public, according to The Intercept. The same year, the EPA fined DuPont more than $10 million for "failing to report 'substantial risk of injury to human health' from C8 (PFOA)," according to The Intercept. In March, a federal judge limited the case to Ohio residents with a specific amount of the chemicals in their blood, which alone could include up to 11 million people. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. And, based on Centers for Disease Control data, PFAS chemicals were found the blood of 98 percent of people studied. "Though PFOA was not classified by the government as a hazardous substance, 3M sent DuPont recommendations on how to dispose of it. A creek connects the landfill and the fields of Tennant's farm. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. Science Friday is produced by the Science Friday Initiative, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Bilott did marry a fellow lawyer, Sarah Barlage, who left her career defending corporations against workers compensation claims to raise their sons. He was born at New England, a son of the late Blaine Tennant and Lydia (Wildman) Tennant. 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. He didnt believe it anymore. Wilbur Earl Tennant. Robert Bilott is a partner at Taft, Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, Ohio. DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. They concluded that 'the study was valid' and that 'the observed fetal eye defects were due to C8,' according to internal DuPont documents. Babies are born every day with these chemicals. It contained an extraordinarily high concentration of PFOA. 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. When DuPont settled that lawsuit in 2004, the company agreed to finance a study of PFOAs health effects. The olive green water had a greenish brown foam encrusting the grassy bank. Forever chemicals found in drinking water throughout Illinois: Search the database >>>. His cattle now drank from its pools. Editors note: In 1999, Robert Bilott sued E.I. 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. It had paid for the 150 acres of land his great-grandfather had bought and for the two-story, four-room farmhouse pieced together from trees felled in the woods, dragged across fields, and raised by hand. . Calf born dead. Earl loved his cows, and the cows loved Earl. Wilbur Tennant shot this video on his property between 1995 and 1997. It wasnt just his cattle dying. 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). 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. The problem, he thought, was not what they were eating but what they were drinking. Wilbur Earl Tennant was a cattle farmer in Parkersburg, Virginia, who was known to his family and friends as Earl. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. They are still in all of us.. It was contaminated with high levels of PFOA. It also helps in fraud preventions. 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. A downstate Illinois native, Hawthorne joined the Tribune in 2004 after covering the environment and state government in Ohio, Illinois and Florida. 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. The story started in Parkersburg, West Virginia, home to about 32,000 people and about a three-hour drive due east of Cincinnati. a series of Camcorder videos showing "soapy froth" in a creek running through DuPont's landfill property and into Tennant's farm. The company told the family that they wanted to use the land to . This video contains graphic imagery. . The primary coordinates for Tennants Farm Pond Dam places it within the WV 26184 ZIP Code delivery area. The Tennants were initially reluctant, especially because of its intended use, but DuPont promised it would house only nonhazardous waste, like scrap metal and ash, according to the Huffington Post. Deitzler suggests it would have been a historic first for no partners at a firm of Tafts size and corporate client base to express qualms about a class-action suit of this kind. "In 1991, DuPont scientists determined an internal safety limit for PFOA concentration in drinking water: one part per billion.