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Robert Bilott isn't done. GRAPHIC CONTENT: An excerpt from Wilbur Earl Tennant's video showing the mysterious wasting disease affecting his cows in the 1990s. But that's just the start. The following is an excerpt of Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont by Robert Bilott and Tom Shroder. This cookie is used for load balancing purposes. Hunting had been one of Earls greatest pleasures. 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 story started in Parkersburg, West Virginia, home to about 32,000 people and about a three-hour drive due east of Cincinnati. These included a polluted river . The Taft offices are in Cincinnati, Ohio. Wilbur Tennant's family farm was located next to a "non-hazardous" landfill operated by the chemical company. The West Virginia-based . The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. Bill Pullman was portraying me, and hes taller and younger, and everyone appeared to be drinking. 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. May 15, 2009; Location: Washington, West Virginia; Tribute & Message From The Family. But the point I want to make, and make it real clear, he said, zooming in, thats the mouth of Dry Run.. A thicker foam gathered in eddies, trembling like egg whites whipped into stiff peaks so high they sometimes blew off on a breeze. A group of citizens in West Virginia challenges a powerful corporation to be more environmentally responsible. Even down near the tips of it. In 2005, DuPont agreed to phase out its use of C8 (PFOA) by 2015, according to The Intercept. "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.". "PFASs are extremely persistent in the environment primarily because the chemical bond between the carbon and fluorine atoms is extremely strong and stable," according to the Environmental Protection Agency. His name is Wilbur Tennant. This cookie is used to manage the interaction with the online bots. In his memoir, Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont, published earlier this year, Bilott says that doctors could only really diagnose the issue as unusual brain activity after an MRI similar to the one he undergoes in the film. In Minnesota, 3M paid an $850 million settlement after the states attorney general used the industry documents in a lawsuit demanding clean drinking water for communities near one of its manufacturing plants outside Minneapolis. 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. According to the book, DuPont had commissioned a photographer to take aerial photos of the property as part of its defense. Predictably, his complaints to government went ignored. Alternatives for PFOA and PFOS promoted as safe by industry are just as dangerous, if not more so, scientists are finding. Not even buzzards and scavengers would eat them. Sometimes the cattle watered at a spring-fed bathtub trough at the farthest end of the field, but mostly they drank from Dry Run. Because I was feeding her enough feed that she shoulda gained weight instead of losing weight. They are still in all of us.. He requested all documents that DuPont had related to PFOA. When she returned to work at DuPont, Bailey learned about a study by 3M (the manufacturer of C8) that found similar deformities in unborn rats exposed to the chemical, according to the Huffington Post. Invest in quality science journalism by making a donation to Science Friday. Thunderstorms occasionally swelled the creek so much that he couldnt wade across it. Created by Bluecadet. Now it looked like dirty dishwater. 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. DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. 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. Wilbur Earl Tennant and his siblings took over the land when their father abandoned them in the 1950s, according to the Huffington Post. And after Bilott watched and listened, he took action. . This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Did they think he would just sit by? The West Virginia-based farmer was convinced a toxic river that ran into his farmland was to blame, since the animals' strange symptoms began when his brother sold some land to a chemical company to use as a landfill site a . 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 . YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. Thats why they called it Dry Run. "Mysterious wasting disease" and. "If that's what it takes to get people the information they need and to protect people, we're willing to do it.". The sp_landing 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. . Two weeks after he filmed the foamy water, Earl aimed the camcorder at one of his cows. Bryan Schutmaat for The New York Times. In another field, a grown cow lay dead. death of 260 cattle in West Virginia. 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. It was contaminated with high levels of PFOA. Wilbur Earl Tennant, 67 of New England passed away suddenly at his residence May 15, 2009. Tennants Farm Pond Dam is a cultural feature (dam) in Wood County. Thank you for helping us continue making science fun for everyone. Foam began appearing in a creek that meandered past the landfill before spilling into the Tennants pasture, he later testified in a court filing. However, the company didn't tell employees or regulators and ended the study, the Huffington Post reports. Wilbur Tennant shot this video in the late 1990s on his property in West Virginia. It is cut from the same cloth as movies like 'Erin Brockovich' and 'A Civil Action'. They would nuzzle him as he scratched their heads. He zoomed in. All Public Member Trees results for Wilbur Tennant. These cookies do not allow the tracking of navigation on other websites and the data collected is not combined or shared with third parties. LinkedIn sets the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection. How accurately does Dark Waters depict the twists and turns of this maze? Bilott created a timeline that showed what DuPont and 3M knew about the chemicals. In the 1980s, Jim and his wife, Della, would sell acreage to DuPont for use as a landfill for scrap metal, according to the New York Times Magazine. When they bought half of the farm from Wilbur they began to use it for a landfill to store the toxins being . There is something wrong with this water, Tennant says on the videotape. Somebodys not doing their duty, he said to the camera, to anyone who would listen. In 1970, a company that purchased 3Ms PFOS-based firefighting foam abruptly halted a demonstration after it killed fish in a nearby stream. The sometimes contentious tenor of Bilotts relationship with Wilbur Tennant is also true to life. ''Rob's letter lifted the curtain on a . Wilbur Tennant. 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. He didnt believe it anymore. Babies are born every day with these chemicals. The farmer's name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. Like the movie, Richs article portrays Bilott as an unassuming and understated man driven by an innate sense of decency. The saga began for Bilott when Wilbur Tennant, a cattle farmer from Parkersburg, West Virginia, called Bilott a few months before he made partner at a white-shoe Cincinnati law firm. 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 . The suit alleges negligence claiming the chemicals contaminated the state's natural resources, according to New Hampshire Public Radio. When DuPont settled that lawsuit in 2004, the company agreed to finance a study of PFOAs health effects. Isnt that lovely?. In time, the connection between the Tennants and DuPont would run as deep as the Ohio River. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. 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. Hard labor was his birthright. Neither Tennant nor Bilott would accept this as the end of the case. He panned again: a bonfire on a grassy slope, a pyre of logs as fat as garbage cans. And I burn them all. During manufacturing processes, PFAS chemicals are released into the air, soil, and water around industrial facilities, the EPA reports. Flies. So, the couple sold about 60 acres to DuPont. Wilbur Tennant had become desperate. The local employer wanted to buy some of their property for a landfill for its Washington Works plant nearby, where it produces, among other things, Teflon, which contains the chemical C8. This cookie is used to detect and defend when a client attempt to replay a cookie.This cookie manages the interaction with online bots and takes the appropriate actions. In October 2018, he filed a lawsuit on behalf of a firefighter, who used fire suppression foam and equipment containing PFAS for 40 years. Next door to Tennant's farm was a landfill owned by E.I. DuPont established a presence along the Ohio River in 1948 with the Washington Works plant near Parkersburg. A farmer's cows suddenly start dying off. 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." Recently, the cows had started charging, trying to kick him and butt him with their heads, as this one had before she died. After this sale, Tennant's cattle started to become sick and Tennant began to understand that . "Though PFOA was not classified by the government as a hazardous substance, 3M sent DuPont recommendations on how to dispose of it. DuPont initially refused, but a court order ultimately forced them to turn over what amounted to more than 100,000 pages, some dating back 50 years. On the other side of his property line, Dry Run Landfill was filling up the little valley that had once belonged to his family. The primary coordinates for Tennants Farm Pond Dam places it within the WV 26184 ZIP Code delivery area. Her calf, black and white, lay dead on its side in a circle of matted grass. 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 de Nemours & Co., used to dump chemical waste from the company's . He knew his neighbors and his community was being poisoned, Bilott told the Post. I noticed that in at least one of the scenes where I was portrayed. Earl pulled on white gloves and pried open the cows mouth, probing her gums and teeth. 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. July 7, 1996 Washington, West Virginia. It's a story straight out of a legal thriller penned by John Grisham, though instead of the Deep South, this one takes place in Appalachia. Bilotts law firm, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, typically represents corporate clients like DuPont in environmental cases, not people like Tennant. It dont do you any good to go to the DNR about it. Of Bilotts Famous Letter to the EPA, Terp told the Times that he didnt recall if there was any particular reaction internally and that the partners at Taft were proud of the work that he has done.. . Standing walleyed in an open field was a polled Hereford red with a white face and floppy ears. 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. The visit to the Grahams' farm was one of his happiest childhood memories. He especially enjoyed hunting, working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson Josh and . Wamsley suffered from ulcerative colitis, a condition that can lead to rectal cancer, which, in his case it, did. On the other line was Wilbur Tennant (played by Bill Camp), a cattle farmer from Parkersburg, W.V. Wilbur Tennant shot this video on his property between 1995 and 1997. Despite internal debate, it declined to make the information public," the magazinenotes. Wilbur Tennant, a cattle farmer in Parkersburg, W.Va., the site of a huge DuPont plant, had over many years gradually built up his herd. DuPont's own instructions specified that it was not to be flushed into surface water or sewers," according to the New York Times Magazine. 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.. These emerging contaminants linger, breaking down only when incinerated at very high temperatures. Turns out his grandmother lived in the same town as the farmer and that's the connection that brought the underdog and the hero together. Where they should have been smooth, they looked ropy, covered with ridges. Class Action - Part 1. Yes, DuPont is still in business, although it has struggled slightly to survive independently from time to time due to its poor public reputation. Her white hide was crusted with diarrhea, and her hip bones tented her hide. R ob Bilott, a corporate lawyer-turned-environmental crusader, doesn't much care if he's made enemies over the years. This video contains graphic imagery. Vacillating Wildly From Dispiriting to Exhilarating, A New Biopic Reduces One of Historys Greatest Writers to a Cottagecore Emo Girl, How Steven Spielbergs Autobiographical New Movie Rewrites His Story, The Lawyer Who Became DuPonts Worst Nightmare, He knew his neighbors and his community was being poisoned, commissioned a photographer to take aerial photos. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. This cow died about twenty, thirty minutes ago, Earl said. Tennant is convinced that a landfill operated by the DuPont company upstream from his farm is the cause of the continuing maladies suffered by his cattle and his family. Copyright 2019 by Robert Bilott. This cookie is managed by Amazon Web Services and is used for load balancing. The company turned this land into the unlined Dry Run Landfill. A creek connects the landfill and the fields of Tennant's farm. Over the course of that lawsuit, Bilott discovered that DuPont had been using a chemical called PFOA in the production of Teflon for decades, while quietly studying its effects on lab animals and factory workers. They concluded that 'the study was valid' and that 'the observed fetal eye defects were due to C8,' according to internal DuPont documents. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. His freezer had brimmed with venison, wild turkey, squirrel, and rabbit. Washington, West Virginia. It is a chemical used in the manufacturing process of Teflon. Behind him, white-faced Herefords grazed in rolling meadows. I dont recall him drinking, Deitzler says. This time he is seeking to force 3M and DuPont to pay for medical monitoring of every American exposed to PFAS. Thats the largest gall I ever saw in my life! DuPont later paid more than $750 million to settle lawsuits filed by Teflon plant neighbors with PFOA-linked diseases, including testicular and kidney cancer, high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease and pregnancy-induced hypertension. A videotape Tennant shot with a VHS camcorder shows emaciated cows with tumors on their hides. The US House of Representatives passed a bill in January 2020 that would require the EPA to deem per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) hazardous and establish a national drinking water standard. PFOA is part of a larger class of PFAS chemicals. LOCATION. DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Dry spells shrank it to a necklace of pools that winked with silver minnows. Bilott did marry a fellow lawyer, Sarah Barlage, who left her career defending corporations against workers compensation claims to raise their sons. Both companies denied any wrongdoing. The Teflon Toxin, Part 2: Wilbur Tennant vs. DuPontNot Yet Rated. About 600 are in use today, according to the EPA. The stream looked like many other streams that flowed through his sprawling farm. Robert Bilott (born August 2, 1965) is an American environmental attorney from Cincinnati, Ohio.Bilott is known for the lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs injured by waste dumped in rural communities in West Virginia. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. 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. While DuPont did also conduct walk-throughs and physical searches of the Tennants belongings, deeply alienating some of the familys renters, the movie depicts some of Tennants evidence going mysteriously missing. Used by Yahoo to provide ads, content or analytics. Now it was filled with specimens you might find in a pathology lab. Patches of missing hair, discolorations in their . Wilbur's brother, Jim, was also . The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". 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. Tennant and his brother Jim wanted to get to the bottom of it, so they dissected some carcasses. 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?" He was an excellent marksman, and his family had always had enough meat to eat. No one would help him. riding horses, milking cows and watching Secretariat win the Triple Crown on TV. Edit your search or learn more. Wilbur Earl Tennant was a cattle farmer in Parkersburg, Virginia, who was known to his family and friends as Earl. Tennant stated that . 1998: Wilbur Tennant contacts Taft's and Hollisters' (Taft) lawyer, Robert Billot, to assist in his case against DuPont for dumping chemical waste into the river that his cows drink from, causing them severe health problems. The olive green water had a greenish brown foam encrusting the grassy bank. Her son, Bucky, was born in 1981 with nose and eye deformities. No one believed him when he told them about the things he saw happening to his land. By the 1980s, DuPont had allegedly begun dumping PFOA waste into the Dry Creek Landfill, near the Tennant property. "The innards was bright green.". In May 2015, a consortium of scientists across many disciplines released a document called the Madrid Statement. The use of these cookies is strictly limited to measuring the site's audience. The state vet wouldnt even come out to the farm. With no one from the government or even local veterinarians willing to do it, Earl decided to do an autopsy himself. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Thats whats so scary about these chemicals, said Jamie DeWitt, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at East Carolina University who studies PFAS. Home. DuPont responds with a study of the Tennant farm conducted with the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A) that . 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. a series of Camcorder videos showing "soapy froth" in a creek running through DuPont's landfill property and into Tennant's farm. 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. He walked there every day to count heads and check fences. Just because there really is something in the water doesnt mean you cant also be paranoid. It dont do you any good to go to the DNR about it. (Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call). As a boy, he had cooled his bare feet in this creek. None of this information was shared with the public. I could find no record of any such incident taking place. Mr. Tennant believed early on that something coming out of the plant and landfill was poisoning the water and the animals on his farm. Used to help protect the website against Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks. The cows grazed on a mixed pasture of white Dutch clover, bluegrass, fescue, red clover . Bubbles formed as it tumbled over stones in a sudsy film. Dry Run used to flow gin clear. DuPont appeared to be concerned enough about PFOA that the company tested employees at the Teflon plant and found the chemical in their blood, the letter to the EPA revealed. New York, NY 10004. DuPont's scientists understood that the landfill drained into the Tennants' remaining property, and they tested the water in Dry Run Creek. The Devil We Know: Directed by Stephanie Soechtig, Jeremy Seifert. But you just give me time. Robert Bilott is a partner at Taft, Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, Ohio. 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 . Bilott also discovered that years before he sued DuPont on behalf of the Tennants, company scientists had tested the creek running through the familys pasture. Revelations by another chemical company gave Bilott leverage to go back into court and request more records from DuPont. On August 31st of 2017, E. I. Dupont de Nemours Company and the Dow Chemical Company merged as part of a $130 billion merger. 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. Over the decades they steadily acquired land and cattle, until 200 cows roamed more than 600 hilly acres. In 2005, the company agreed to fund studies on the health effects of C8. This cookie is set by the provider Akamai Bot Manager. It flowed through a corner of the three-hundred-acre farm, in a place Earl called the holler. A small valley cut between hillsides, the holler was where he moved the herd to graze throughout the summer. It contained an extraordinarily high concentration of PFOA. The JSESSIONID cookie is used by New Relic to store a session identifier so that New Relic can monitor session counts for an application. He hardly ever saw minnows swimming in the creek anymore, except the ones that floated belly up. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The farm spread roughly 600 acres, and had a total of 200 cattle roaming around. And if it weren't for one West Virginia farmer, Wilbur Tennant, we still might not know much about them. Bilott is back in court again. In April 2000, after 3M conducted tests and studies on a similar, sister chemical to C8 (PFOA) called PFOS, the company notified the Environmental Protection Agency it found that "even modest exposure could have devastating health effects" and started to phase out PFOS use, as well as PFOA, according to the Huffington Post. 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. Theres been fifty-six cows thats been burnt just like this.. 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. This cookie is native to PHP applications. Thats Hollywood, I guess. (Bilott has not yet responded to my email and telephone inquiries about whether he has ever enjoyed a celebratory Mai Tai or any other tropical, rum-based cocktail.). Just months before Rob Bilott made partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister, he received a call on his direct line from a cattle farmer. Its head was tipped back at an awkward angle. DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. DuPont immediately removed all female workers from areas where they might come into contact with the chemical.". . 'Dark Waters' is an upcoming American legal thriller helmed by Todd Haynes. 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. 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 . (Maddie McGarvey/for the Washington Post) If Wilbur Earl Tennant's cows hadn't died from a mysterious wasting disease during the . Tennant told him that DuPont had bought land from his family that was adjacent to his farm, for what the company had assured him would be a non-hazardous landfill, according to a letter Bilott later filed with the Environmental Protection Agency. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". By that point, 153 animals died had died grisly deaths on his property . Wilbur Tennant shot this video in the late 1990s on his property in West Virginia. This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. DuPont detected PFOA in the drinking water of communities near the Teflon plant. Joseph and Darlene Kiger in Park City, Utah, in 2018. From playing with computers to building networks: How the space for Black Software was made. Her eyes were sunk deep in her head. They're in virtually everything we use, including stain-resistant fabric and carpets, nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, and firefighting foam. The other companies named in the lawsuit did not respond to Time's requests for comment. The underdog was a farmer whose family worked the land for generations, building it from a small operation to a thriving livelihood. PFOA and PFOS are among more than 9,000 versions of synthetic chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS. And, based on Centers for Disease Control data, PFAS chemicals were found the blood of 98 percent of people studied. . Tennant didnt live to witness the scope of what unfolded after he persuaded Bilott to file the lawsuit about his dead cows. And theyre going to find out one of these days that somebodys tired of it.. And, like many Grisham novels, it's a tale worthy of the big screen.

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