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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 . 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. wilbur tennant farm location. In May 2015, a consortium of scientists across many disciplines released a document called the Madrid Statement. His pleas for help fell on deaf ears, according to the Huffington Post's article, "Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia." YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. Wilbur Tennant shot this video in the late 1990s on his property in West Virginia. 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. Flies. Whatever had killed this cow appeared to Earl to have eaten her from the inside out. Wilbur's brother, Jim, was also . And I burn them all. The smell was odd. The Devil We Know: Directed by Stephanie Soechtig, Jeremy Seifert. Seventy years later these chemicals are in our soil, our air, in wildlife. The True Story Behind Dark Waters Affects You - Refinery29 His name is Wilbur Tennant. In his research, Bilott had come across a DuPont letter that referred to a chemical known as . I dont ever remember seeing that in there before., He cut out the heart and sliced it open. 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 is a chemical used in the manufacturing process of Teflon. Excerpt from Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. But you just give me time. In the spring, he would run and catch the calves so his daughters could pet them. Forever chemicals found in drinking water throughout Illinois: Search the database >>>. Even down near the tips of it. Its dumping pits were unlined, designed for the disposal of nonhazardous wasteoffice paper and everyday trash. This is the hundred and seventh calf thats met this problem right here. 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. Jim Tennant and his wife, Della, sold DuPont a 66-acre tract of land that became part of the Dry Run Landfill. As luck would have it, the company bought 66 acres from one of their employees, Wilbur Tennant. . 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 . are linked to DuPont's landfilling of PFOA. Sue Bailey was pregnant when she worked in the Teflon division of the plant. This cookie is managed by Amazon Web Services and is used for load balancing. Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. The cattle farmer stood at the edge of a creek that cut through a sun-dappled hollow. Bilott is seeking class-action status in the case against several companies, including 3M and Chemours. And if it sounds familiar, it should. She had spent the summer in the hollow, drinking out of Dry Run until shed started to act strangely. They had seven cows then. 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. Dark Waters (2019 film) - Wikipedia The farm spread roughly 600 acres, and had a total of 200 cattle roaming around. The farmers name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. The JSESSIONID cookie is used by New Relic to store a session identifier so that New Relic can monitor session counts for an application. That calf had died miserable. riding horses, milking cows and watching Secretariat win the Triple Crown on TV. Bilott did marry a fellow lawyer, Sarah Barlage, who left her career defending corporations against workers compensation claims to raise their sons. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Published by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 'Dark Waters' is an upcoming American legal thriller helmed by Todd Haynes. When they bought half of the farm from Wilbur they began to use it for a landfill to store the toxins being . It stars Mark Ruffalo as Bilott, along with Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare . The problem, he thought, was not what they were eating but what they were drinking. 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. In the meantime, people are drinking these chemicals every day. Its surface was matte with a crusty film that wrinkled against the shore. We'll assume you're okay with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Not even buzzards and scavengers would eat them. 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. He especially enjoyed hunting, working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson Josh and . Wilbur Tennant shot this video in the late 1990s on his property in West Virginia. Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. Dark Waters tells a story that in many ways is still being written, and itwill likely take years for this latest lawsuit to be resolved. PDF Extraordinary Struggle of A Lawyer- Billion Dollar "P.f.o.a." Cases Wilbur Tennant and his family had recently sold part of their farmland to a company and had no idea what would end up coming of it. 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. DuPont and the family settled the lawsuit soon after Bilott shared that information with one of the companys lawyers, who had referred to PFOA in an email as the material 3M sells us that we poop into the river and into drinking water.. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. "If that's what it takes to get people the information they need and to protect people, we're willing to do it.". 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. He panned again: a bonfire on a grassy slope, a pyre of logs as fat as garbage cans. But the point I want to make, and make it real clear, he said, zooming in, thats the mouth of Dry Run.. He sliced open the chest cavity, pulled out a lung, and turned the camera back on. The West Virginia-based . This cookie is used for storing country code selected from country selector. He couldnt quite place it. In 1998, corporate lawyer Robert Bilott ( Mark Ruffalo) is approached by Wilbur Tennant ( Bill Camp) a farmer from his hometown of Parkersburg, West Virginia. C8 and other long-chain per-fluorinated chemicals are used in a myriad of household, industrial, and commercial products. "I've been dealing with this for . 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. 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. That looks a little bit like cancer to me.. His earlier efforts had all revealed unpleasant surprises: tumors, abnormal organs, unnatural smells. Patches of missing hair, discolorations in their . He focuses on the froth-covered creek before the tape cuts to a dissected calf with blackened teeth and oddly colored organs. This cookie is used to manage the interaction with the online bots. 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.. Joseph and Darlene Kiger in Park City, Utah, in 2018. He was 7 years old. 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. 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 . LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. 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. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. "Though PFOA was not classified by the government as a hazardous substance, 3M sent DuPont recommendations on how to dispose of it. It does not store any personal data. At least thats what his family had been told thirteen years before by the company that had bought their land. It wasnt his first. YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. Somebodys not doing their duty, he said to the camera, to anyone who would listen. As in the movie, he at first had a cozy relationship with DuPont, though some of the details of the relationship in the movie are invented. Wilbur Tennant is one farmer in a community who sees DuPont as something more than an employer. Wilbur Tennants 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 familys 600-some-acre property in the 1980s. . 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. Eight years later 3M paused one of its animal studies after every monkey fed PFOS died. DuPont detected PFOA in the drinking water of communities near the Teflon plant. Used to help protect the website against Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks. Bilott's connection to Parkersburg dated back to his childhood, when he spent summers there visiting his grandmother, and her friend is the one who suggested to Wilbur Tennant that he call Bilott, an environmental lawyer at Cincinnati firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister, for help. 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. Cookie used to remember the user's Disqus login credentials across websites that use Disqus. 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. Isnt that lovely?. He zoomed in. Two weeks after he filmed the foamy water, Earl aimed the camcorder at one of his cows. When their attorney, Robert Bilott of Cincinnati, asked the EPA to order DuPont to stop using C8, the company sought a restraining . His hand shook as he pressed the zoom button, zeroing in on a stagnant pool. oh, two-thirds bigger than it should be., The kidneys, too, looked abnormal. 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. "Mysterious wasting disease" and. Their innards smelled funny and were sometimes riddled with what looked to him like tumors. The other companies named in the lawsuit did not respond to Time's requests for comment. 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. 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. He was born at New England, a son of the late Blaine Tennant and Lydia (Wildman) Tennant. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. With no one from the government or even local veterinarians willing to do it, Earl decided to do an autopsy himself. All rights reserved. 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 knew his neighbors and his community was being poisoned, Bilott told the Post. In a statement to Time, DuPont said it does not produce PFAS but does use them and defended the company's environmental and safety record, noting it has "announced a series of commitments around our limited use of PFAS, including the [sic] eliminating the use of all PFAS-based firefighting foams from our facilities." He walked there every day to count heads and check fences. Records obtained by Bilott showed DuPont had determined in 1961 that PFOA is toxic in animals. Thats why they called it Dry Run. wilbur tennant farm location They're in virtually everything we use, including stain-resistant fabric and carpets, nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, and firefighting foam. Wilbur Tennant passed away on May 15, 2009 at the age of 67 in Washington, West Virginia. DuPont bought 66 acres of the Tennant's farm land from Wilbur Tennant's brother Jim and his wife Della [1]. Quite soon after DuPont establishes their landfill, weird things start happening to his cattle. (Ammonium perfluorooctanoate or C8) wastes near the farm. As a father, he had watched his little girls splash around in its shallow ripples. 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. These emerging contaminants linger, breaking down only when incinerated at very high temperatures. It wasnt just his cattle dying. Her white hide was crusted with diarrhea, and her hip bones tented her hide. DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. DuPont and 3M kept the U.S. EPA in the dark for years, company and government records show. "The innards was bright green.". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. 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. Its something I have never run into before., He reached back into the cow and pulled out a liver that looked about right. He had formerly worked for the Wood County Schools as a bus. DuPont's own instructions specified that it was not to be flushed into surface water or sewers," according to the New York Times Magazine. (Maddie McGarvey/for the Washington Post). By the 1980s, DuPont had allegedly begun dumping PFOA waste into the Dry Creek Landfill, near the Tennant property. 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. July 7, 1996 Washington, West Virginia. The primary coordinates for Tennants Farm Pond Dam places it within the WV 26184 ZIP Code delivery area. In another field, a grown cow lay dead. 1: The Farm. There is something wrong with this water, Tennant says on the videotape. A videotape Tennant shot with a VHS camcorder shows emaciated cows with tumors on their hides. . Black smoke curled into the daylight. The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare - Brutal Proof Rob Bilott vs. the (DuPont) World | by Ayu Larasati | Medium Despite internal debate, it declined to make the information public," the magazinenotes. Over the decades they steadily acquired land and cattle, until 200 cows roamed more than 600 hilly acres. Hard labor was his birthright. The Taft offices are in Cincinnati, Ohio. The sometimes contentious tenor of Bilotts relationship with Wilbur Tennant is also true to life. The cows grazed on a mixed pasture of white Dutch clover, bluegrass, fescue, red clover . 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 didnt believe it anymore. Where they should have been smooth, they looked ropy, covered with ridges. . This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. Parkersburg is also home to the Tennant family, who, for nearly a century, have worked land that eventually grew to 700-plus acres and raised more than 200 head of cattle. Behind him, white-faced Herefords grazed in . PDF The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's W orst Nightmare - News Services He had stopped feeding his family venison from the deer he shot on his land. It was different from the regular dead-cow smells he had dealt with all his life. As a man, he had walked its banks with his wife. A key component of Teflon was C8, also known as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). In the 1990s Wilbur began to notice weird deformities in his cows and some of them were even dying. By the late 1990s, West Virginia farmer Wilbur Tennant was at his wits end. DuPont did not tell this to the Tennants at the time." 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. Just months before Rob Bilott made partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister, he received a call on his direct line from a cattle farmer. 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. The stream looked like many other streams that flowed through his sprawling farm. Editors note: In 1999, Robert Bilott sued E.I. The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare DuPont de Nemours & Co., used to dump chemical waste from the company's . The farmer Wilbur Tennant had suspected that the chemical company DuPont was responsible for the death of many of his cows. If Wilbur Earl Tennants cows hadnt died from a mysterious wasting disease during the 1990s, the world might have never learned about the secret history of toxic forever chemicals. DuPont's Sinister Brainchild - The Origin* Initial data showed evidence that it did. 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. None of this information was shared with the public. 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 lawyer. "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. The Case Against DuPont - Type Investigations You notice them dark place there, all down through? death of 260 cattle in West Virginia - Fluoride Action Network The Kiger family, teacher Joseph Kiger and his wife, Darlene, really did receive a cagey and curiously worded letter from the local Lubeck water district in October 2000 notifying them that an unregulated chemical named PFOA was present in their drinking water at low concentrations. And, as the film intimates, this letter, delivered on the public utilitys letterhead, was first reviewed by DuPont and started the clock on the statute of limitations. Much of the biographical information about the Kiger family, including Darlenes first marriage to a DuPont engineer who came home sick and called it the Teflon flu, also checks out. A group of citizens in West Virginia challenges a powerful corporation to be more environmentally responsible. Bilott later determined it was one of the forever chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid, commonly referred to today as PFOA. DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. What's Fact and What's Fiction in Dark Waters - Slate Magazine Among the files, many mentions of the chemical PFOA, also known as C8, a slippery surfactant, that was first produced by DuPont in 1938, appeared. . The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. W. Earl Tennant Wilbur Earl Tennant, 67 of New England passed away suddenly at his residence May 15, 2009. . Human Needs Before Profits: Rob Bilott v. DuPont - Blogger "In 1991, DuPont scientists determined an internal safety limit for PFOA concentration in drinking water: one part per billion. VigLink sets this cookie to track the user behaviour and also limit the ads displayed, in order to ensure relevant advertising. (Maddie McGarvey/for the Washington Post) If Wilbur Earl Tennant's cows hadn't died from a mysterious wasting disease during the . It all started with Wilbur Tennant's dying cows. Behind him, white-faced Herefords grazed in rolling meadows. It smelled rotten. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. On August 31st of 2017, E. I. Dupont de Nemours Company and the Dow Chemical Company merged as part of a $130 billion merger. And it takes immense courage and conviction to do that. There also are related substances called precursors that transform into PFOA and PFOS in the body or the environment. About 600 are in use today, according to the EPA. du Pont de Nemours and Co, better known as DuPont, on behalf of a West Virginia farmer whose cows were dying. They concluded that 'the study was valid' and that 'the observed fetal eye defects were due to C8,' according to internal DuPont documents. See how thats all wallered down? In 1981 , 3M found that ingestion of . The Tennants had sold some of their property to DuPont years earlier. 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. 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." GRAPHIC CONTENT: An excerpt from Wilbur Earl Tennant's video showing the mysterious wasting disease affecting his cows in the 1990s. When the cattle on Wilbur Earl Tennant's farm began to mysteriously fall ill and die, he suspected it wasn't what the animals were eatingit was what they were drinking. 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 . In November 2019, the Washington Post hosted a podcast with Mark Ruffalo and Robert Bilott to discuss the film and the lawsuit. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right.