Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Bilott created a timeline that showed what DuPont and 3M knew about the chemicals. How would you like for your livestock to have to drink something like that? he asked his imagined audience. These "forever chemicals" are an emerging global health and environmental issue. Thats the largest gall I ever saw in my life! Theres been fifty-six cows thats been burnt just like this.. Did they think no one would notice? No one believed him when he told them about the things he saw happening to his land. . These cookies do not allow the tracking of navigation on other websites and the data collected is not combined or shared with third parties. He owned 200 cows that grazed on 600 acres. 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. Bilott is currently suing several makers and users of these chemicals on behalf of all Americans with PFAS in their blood. Used by Yahoo to provide ads, content or analytics. death of 260 cattle in West Virginia. You could poke it with a stick and leave a hole. The pipe flowed out of a collection pond at the low end of a landfill. Tennant was a West Virginia farmer whose family owned land near a DuPont factory on the Ohio River where the chemical giant made one of its signature inventions: Teflon nonstick and anti-stain coatings used in carpets, clothing, cookware and hundreds of other products. 'Dark Waters' is an upcoming American legal thriller helmed by Todd Haynes. Tennant and his brother Jim wanted to get to the bottom of it, so they dissected some carcasses. DuPont then really did proceed to turn that plot into a dumping ground for sludge that it knew to be toxic, going so far as to quietly conduct tests for perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in the nearby river and expressing concern for the health of the Tennants livestock in internal documents nearly a decade before they would be denying culpability and blaming the Tennants in court. LOCATION. Now it was filled with specimens you might find in a pathology lab. 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. W. Earl Tennant Wilbur Earl Tennant, 67 of New England passed away suddenly at his residence May 15, 2009. . 1: The Farm. 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. Cows that drank from the creek had been healthy. 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. 3M and DuPont have argued in court and in public statements that neither chemical is harmful to people at typical levels of exposure. Foam began appearing in a creek that meandered past the landfill before spilling into the Tennants pasture, he later testified in a court filing. Predictably, his complaints to government went ignored. That looks a little bit like cancer to me.. emily in paris savoir office. It is cut from the same cloth as movies like 'Erin Brockovich' and 'A Civil Action'. riding horses, milking cows and watching Secretariat win the Triple Crown on TV. Around here, that economic engine was DuPont, known for innovations like nylon, Tyvek, and Teflon. 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. When their attorney, Robert Bilott of Cincinnati, asked the EPA to order DuPont to stop using C8, the company sought a restraining . 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. People who didn't know him very well called him Wilbur, but friends and family called him Earl. "If we can't get where we need to go to protect people through our regulatory channels, through our legislative process, then unfortunately what we have left is our legal process," Bilott told Time in November 2019. May 15, 2009; Location: Washington, West Virginia; Tribute & Message From The Family. 0 Comments Comments All Public Member Trees results for Wilbur Tennant. There is about a teacup or so full of itits a real dark yeller. Bilott had now discovered the cause in the deaths of the cattle on Tennant's farm and had called DuPont regarding this information. He was speaking to the camcorder pressed to his eye. C8 is a "surfactant," a chemical compound that reduces surface tension. Washington, West Virginia. 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.. 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. Wilbur Tennant shot this video in the late 1990s on his property in West Virginia. 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. 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. 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. It contained an extraordinarily high concentration of PFOA. 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. Bilotts law firm, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, typically represents corporate clients like DuPont in environmental cases, not people like Tennant. He focuses on the froth-covered creek before the tape cuts to a dissected calf with blackened teeth and oddly colored organs. The cattle farmer stood at the edge of a creek that cut through a sun-dappled hollow. When he cut out the other lung, he noted dark purple splotches where they should have been fluffy and pink. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. But that's just the start. 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. Despite internal debate, it declined to make the information public," the magazinenotes. . The chemical companies are appealing the decision. He requested all documents that DuPont had related to PFOA. It smelled rotten. It was to be incinerated or sent to chemical-waste facilities. 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. But what about the alarming moment when a fire breaks out at the home of Joseph Kigers father, who shares his name? Flies. 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. (Chicago Tribune Handout). 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. On the other side of his property line, Dry Run Landfill was filling up the little valley that had once belonged to his family. 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 . See how thats all wallered down? The edge in his voice was anger. He was born at New England, a son of the late Blaine Tennant and Lydia (Wildman) Tennant. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. He wasnt an expert, but the disease seemed clear enough that he bagged the physical evidence and left it in his freezer for the day he could get someone with credentials interested enough to take a look. Tennants Farm Pond Dam is a cultural feature (dam) in Wood County. Azure sets this cookie for routing production traffic by specifying the production slot. A load balancing cookie set to ensure requests by a client are sent to the same origin server. Location of conflict: Little Hocking, City of Belpre, Tuppers Plains, Village of Pomeroy, Lubeck Public Service District, and Mason County Public Service District: . Taking on the case of Wilbur Tennant (played by Bill Camp in the film), a West Virginian farmer whose land is contaminated from toxic run-off dumped near his premises by DuPont Company, Bilott (Ruffalo) quickly encounters the gargantuan machine of corporate disinformation, negligence, cover-up, and strong-arm tactics that allow the company to . working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson . Photo illustration by Slate. The same year, DuPont found that water in one local district contained PFOA levels at three times that figure. The pattern element in the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. DuPont's scientists understood that the landfill drained into the Tennants' remaining property, and they tested the water in Dry Run Creek. The cows grazed on a mixed pasture of white Dutch clover, bluegrass, fescue, red clover . are linked to DuPont's landfilling of PFOA. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. "Hold on to something," Jim Tennant warned as he fired up his tractor. And Im gonna cut her open and find out what caused her to die. In time, the connection between the Tennants and DuPont would run as deep as the Ohio River. DuPont and 3M kept the U.S. EPA in the dark for years, company and government records show. 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. 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. DuPont bought 66 acres of the Tennant's farm land from Wilbur Tennant's brother Jim and his wife Della [1]. 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. "Mysterious wasting disease" and. About 600 are in use today, according to the EPA. 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. Earl pulled on white gloves and pried open the cows mouth, probing her gums and teeth. 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. Their innards smelled funny and were sometimes riddled with what looked to him like tumors. As a linchpin bolstering Dark Waters case as a message movie, the events depicted on the Tennant cattle farm in Parkersburg, West Virginia, really ought to be accurate, and for the most part, they are. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. DuPont detected PFOA in the drinking water of communities near the Teflon plant. This cookie is native to PHP applications. LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. The Tennants had sold some of their property to DuPont years earlier. The stream looked like many other streams that flowed through his sprawling farm. They're in virtually everything we use, including stain-resistant fabric and carpets, nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, and firefighting foam. Details of what DuPont allegedly knew and when came to light in pages and pages of documents, initially as part of the lawsuit Bilott filed against the company on behalf of Wilbur Tennant and then in more than 3,000 subsequent personal injury suits that have followed in the past two decades. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. You notice them dark place there, all down through? Over the decades they steadily acquired land and cattle, until 200 cows roamed more than 600 hilly acres. He especially enjoyed hunting, working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson Josh and . The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on 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. The farmer Wilbur Tennant had suspected that the chemical company DuPont was responsible for the death of many of his cows. wilbur tennant farm location. Thats whats so scary about these chemicals, said Jamie DeWitt, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at East Carolina University who studies PFAS. It is based on a shocking true story, where a series . Where they should have been smooth, they looked ropy, covered with ridges. It wasnt his first. 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. Something is the matter right there. She had spent the summer in the hollow, drinking out of Dry Run until shed started to act strangely. He didnt believe it anymore. . Tennant had a problem. 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. Twitter sets this cookie to integrate and share features for social media and also store information about how the user uses the website, for tracking and targeting. There is something wrong with this water, Tennant says on the videotape. Bilott is back in court again. Wilbur Tennant is on Facebook. For decades it had been the backbone of 3Ms Scotchgard brand of stain-resistant products. He sued DuPont again on behalf of thousands of people who lived near the Teflon plant and for decades had been exposed to PFOA through drinking water and air pollution. Bill Pullman was portraying me, and hes taller and younger, and everyone appeared to be drinking. That things about . And if it weren't for one West Virginia farmer, Wilbur Tennant, we still might not know much about them. 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. 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. The goal of the merger was to combine two businesses that dabbled in . But you just give me time. Wilbur's brother, Jim, was also . The problem had to be Dry Run, he thought. 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. DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He was an excellent marksman, and his family had always had enough meat to eat. "I've been dealing with this for . du Pont de Nemours and Co, better known as DuPont, on behalf of a West Virginia farmer whose cows were dying. 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. Two of seven babies born to Teflon plant employees in 1981 had facial deformities similar to what 3M had found in newborn rats. Attorney Rob Bilott discusses the Fight Forever Chemicals campaign on Nov. 19, 2019. 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. By the late 1990s, West Virginia farmer Wilbur Tennant was at his wits end. He zoomed in. In the 1980s, Jim Tennant and his wife, Della, got an offer from DuPont. Forever chemicals found in drinking water throughout Illinois: Search the database >>>. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better experience for the visitors. Jim Tennant and his wife, Della, sold DuPont a 66-acre tract of land that became part of the Dry Run Landfill. They just turn their back and walk on. It all started with Wilbur Tennant's dying cows. When he noticed his cows were mysteriously dying, he filmed what was happening on the farm, and the toxic legacy of C8 - DuPont's Teflon chemical - was discovered. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. DuPont determined that PFOA passed from pregnant employees to their fetuses. Wilbur Earl Tennant and his siblings took over the land when their father abandoned them in the 1950s, according to the Huffington Post. The carcass was starting to smell. The June 23, 2000, letter listed something in the landfill that didnt appear in the other documents or in Tafts chemical dictionaries. LinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser ID. Once this came to light, reports indicate, the Tennants settled their lawsuit against DuPont in August 2000, but the fight wasn't over. No one would help him. Some states aren't waiting for the feds to act, taking steps to hasten a response to "forever chemicals" through mitigation and regulation, and some of those steps include court action. He had formerly worked for the Wood County Schools as a bus. The tongue looked normal, but some of the teeth were coal black, interspersed with the white ones like piano keys. Both companies denied any wrongdoing. Tennant wants to sue chemical giant . Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. Tennant Farm, December 1999, from DuPont Cattle Team Report. When the Grahams heard in 1998 that Wilbur Tennant was looking for legal help, they remembered Bilott, White's grandson, who had grown up to become an environmental . (Maddie McGarvey/for the Washington Post) If Wilbur Earl Tennant's cows hadn't died from a mysterious wasting disease during the . In November 2019, the Washington Post hosted a podcast with Mark Ruffalo and Robert Bilott to discuss the film and the lawsuit. Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category . DuPont immediately removed all female workers from areas where they might come into contact with the chemical.". In the flames, a calf lay broadside, burning. The use of these cookies is strictly limited to measuring the site's audience. There also are related substances called precursors that transform into PFOA and PFOS in the body or the environment. . Tennant didnt live to witness the scope of what unfolded after he persuaded Bilott to file the lawsuit about his dead cows. This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. 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. The cattle farmer stood at the edge of a creek that cut through a sun-dappled hollow. I dont ever remember seeing that in there before., He cut out the heart and sliced it open. 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. . These emerging contaminants linger, breaking down only when incinerated at very high temperatures. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. The Devil We Know: Directed by Stephanie Soechtig, Jeremy Seifert. This cookie is managed by Amazon Web Services and is used for load balancing. apples, bread, green beans and ground beef. Did they think he would just sit by? 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. A videotape Tennant shot with a VHS camcorder shows emaciated cows with tumors on their hides.