The substance is stable, persistent, and very difficult to break down. Invest in quality science journalism by making a donation to Science Friday. 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. He was speaking to the camcorder pressed to his eye. At fifty-four, Earl was an imposing figure, six feet tall, lean and oxshouldered, with sandpaper hands and a permanent squint. Its just like that other calf up yonder, he said, panning over the matted grass. "I've been dealing with this for . In October 2018, he filed a lawsuit on behalf of a firefighter, who used fire suppression foam and equipment containing PFAS for 40 years. Bilott soon discovered that Dry Run Creek, the offshoot of the Ohio River that Tennant's livestock drank from, was full of C8, an industry name for perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, one of the . Then one autumn day in 2000, local schoolteacher Joe Kiger . VigLink sets this cookie to show users relevant advertisements and also limit the number of adverts that are shown to them. Nothing jumped out in page after page he reviewed, Bilott recalled. As luck would have it, the company bought 66 acres from one of their employees, Wilbur Tennant. Thats whats so scary about these chemicals, said Jamie DeWitt, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at East Carolina University who studies PFAS. YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. He walked there every day to count heads and check fences. 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. Wilbur Tennant is on Facebook. 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. 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. It smelled rotten. The problem had to be Dry Run, he thought. 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.). The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". 3M and DuPont have argued in court and in public statements that neither chemical is harmful to people at typical levels of exposure. 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. 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. How accurately does Dark Waters depict the twists and turns of this maze? We'll assume you're okay with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. It stars Mark Ruffalo as Bilott, along with Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare . Now it was filled with specimens you might find in a pathology lab. Eight years later 3M paused one of its animal studies after every monkey fed PFOS died. They just turn their back and walk on. Patches of missing hair, discolorations in their . 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. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance. Wilbur Tennant shot this video in the late 1990s on his property in West Virginia. C8 is a "surfactant," a chemical compound that reduces surface tension. He requested all documents that DuPont had related to PFOA. DuPonts lawyers had a different perspective on the incident, however, writing in an email, It is a federal offense to threaten violence against an aircraft carrying passengers and Please be advised that the helicopter pilot has indicated that he will pursue todays incident with federal authorities.. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. None of this information was shared with the public. From playing with computers to building networks: How the space for Black Software was made. He panned again: a bonfire on a grassy slope, a pyre of logs as fat as garbage cans. 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. DuPont's scientists understood that the landfill drained into the Tennants' remaining property, and they tested the water in Dry Run Creek. And Im gonna cut her open and find out what caused her to die. In the meantime, people are drinking these chemicals every day. 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. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Its surface was matte with a crusty film that wrinkled against the shore. This cookie is used for load balancing purposes. 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. 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. 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. Foam began appearing in a creek that meandered past the landfill before spilling into the Tennants pasture, he later testified in a court filing. This is the hundred and seventh calf thats met this problem right here. LinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser ID. He owned 200 cows that grazed on 600 acres. Tennant didnt live to witness the scope of what unfolded after he persuaded Bilott to file the lawsuit about his dead cows. Just because there really is something in the water doesnt mean you cant also be paranoid. With no one from the government or even local veterinarians willing to do it, Earl decided to do an autopsy himself. Tennant and his brother Jim wanted to get to the bottom of it, so they dissected some carcasses. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Earl had come to believe that its water was now poisonedwith what, he did not know. He died of cancer in 2009; he was 67. See how thats all wallered down? Then, in 1998 Bilott received a phone call from Wilbur Tennant who lived on his farm in Parkersburg, West Virginia. But friends knew the grandson of one of their neighbors had become an environmental lawyer in Cincinnati. This cow died about twenty, thirty minutes ago, Earl said. He marked each one on a calendar, a simple slash mark for each grotesque death. Earl had sought help, but no one would step up. death of 260 cattle in West Virginia. The Teflon Toxin, Part 2: Wilbur Tennant vs. DuPont. Revelations by another chemical company gave Bilott leverage to go back into court and request more records from DuPont. Their innards smelled funny and were sometimes riddled with what looked to him like tumors. Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. They had seven cows then. The other companies named in the lawsuit did not respond to Time's requests for comment. DuPont settled the Tennant case for an undisclosed amount. a series of Camcorder videos showing "soapy froth" in a creek running through DuPont's landfill property and into Tennant's farm. 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. (Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call). The federal agency notes that it has made significant progress in addressing the public health concerns "from issuing groundwater cleanup guidance to proposing a positive regulatory determination for both PFOA and PFOS, EPA has made progress under every aspect of the Action Plan.". The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". And of course, he knew all about Dry Run Landfill, a DuPont waste site near his farm that largely served the company's chemical plant near Parkersburg. Created by Bluecadet. 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. Company officials told one of Tennants brothers in person and in writing they planned to turn it into a landfill for office garbage nothing hazardous. This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management. Quite soon after DuPont establishes their landfill, weird things start happening to his cattle. In November 2019, the Washington Post hosted a podcast with Mark Ruffalo and Robert Bilott to discuss the film and the lawsuit. 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 farmhouse stood at the foot of a sloping meadow that rose into a bald knob. Wilbur Earl Tennant. Wilbur Tennant's family farm was located next to a "non-hazardous" landfill operated by the chemical company. 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.. Anne Hathaway as Sarah Bilott and the real-life Sarah Bilott. He panned the camera a few degrees. He zoomed out and panned over to an industrial pipe spewing froth into the creek. 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. Bilott did marry a fellow lawyer, Sarah Barlage, who left her career defending corporations against workers compensation claims to raise their sons. This cookie is native to PHP applications. Now it looked like dirty dishwater. Tennant recounted to anyone who would listen that he'd lost about 100 calves and 50 cows over the years. The herd that had once been nearly three hundred head had dwindled to just about half that. Now, he was feeding them twice as much and watching them waste away. oh, two-thirds bigger than it should be., The kidneys, too, looked abnormal. Wilbur Earl Tennant was a cattle farmer in Parkersburg, Virginia, who was known to his family and friends as Earl. 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. . I fed her at least a gallon of grain a day. Around here, that economic engine was DuPont, known for innovations like nylon, Tyvek, and Teflon. The sometimes contentious tenor of Bilotts relationship with Wilbur Tennant is also true to life. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. . Ken Wamsley spent nearly 40 years working at DuPont Washington Works plant, and some of that time, he measured levels of the chemical C8 (PFOA). I dont recall him drinking, Deitzler says. His pleas for help fell on deaf ears, according to the Huffington Post's article, "Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia." Black smoke curled into the daylight. 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.. No one believed him when he told them about the things he saw happening to his land. The problem, he thought, was not what they were eating but what they were drinking. 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 . When he cut out the other lung, he noted dark purple splotches where they should have been fluffy and pink. It contained an extraordinarily high concentration of PFOA. Bilott's grandmother had lived close by, and as a child he had spent a summer on a neighbouring farm, where family members recalled that Bilott had grown up to become an environmental lawyer, and put his name forward to the Tennants. Per the article, "In March 1981, DuPont sent a pathologist and a birth defects expert to review the 3M data Bailey had read about in the locker room. 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). Nor was it on the list of substances regulated by the EPA. We lurched down a rutted dirt road past the old clapboard farmhouse where he grew up. 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. On August 31st of 2017, E. I. Dupont de Nemours Company and the Dow Chemical Company merged as part of a $130 billion merger. 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 Intercept notes that the legal process "uncovered hundreds of internal communications revealing that DuPont employees for many years suspected that C8 was harmful and yet continued to use it, putting the company's workers and the people who lived near its plants at risk.". . "If that's what it takes to get people the information they need and to protect people, we're willing to do it.". By the 1980s, DuPont had allegedly begun dumping PFOA waste into the Dry Creek Landfill, near the Tennant property. Bilott had now discovered the cause in the deaths of the cattle on Tennant's farm and had called DuPont regarding this information. Once this came to light, reports indicate, the Tennants settled their lawsuit against DuPont in August 2000, but the fight wasn't over. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. This time he is seeking to force 3M and DuPont to pay for medical monitoring of every American exposed to PFAS. R ob Bilott, a corporate lawyer-turned-environmental crusader, doesn't much care if he's made enemies over the years. SiteLock sets this cookie to provide cloud-based website security services. Initial data showed evidence that it did. Ill do something about it.. These cookies help provide anonymized information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. PFAS are ubiquitous. wilbur tennant farm location. He died of a heart attack in 2009 at age 67. They would nuzzle him as he scratched their heads. 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 the spring, he would run and catch the calves so his daughters could pet them. The Teflon Toxin, Part 2: Wilbur Tennant vs. DuPontNot Yet Rated. The farmers name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. You could poke it with a stick and leave a hole. But you just give me time. 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. In short, I was playing for the opposite team, Bilott recalled in his memoir about the lawsuit he ended up filing against DuPont and the explosive aftermath. Given the fact that the events depicted on the Tennant cattle farm in Parkersburg, West Virginia, are Dark Waters' most important evidence, the filmmakers should have treated them with the utmost authenticity - to their credit, they did for the most part.Wilbur Tennant's brother Jim really was a DuPont employee who got sick with a disease the doctors couldn't diagnose; and the chemical . DuPont responds with a study of the Tennant farm conducted with the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A) that . Join Facebook to connect with Wilbur Tennant and others you may know. 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 . LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. 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 . Her eyes were sunk deep in her head. Where they should have been smooth, they looked ropy, covered with ridges. At fifty-four, Earl was an . 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. . In another field, a grown cow lay dead. (Maddie McGarvey/for the Washington Post) If Wilbur Earl Tennant's cows hadn't died from a mysterious wasting disease during the . There also are related substances called precursors that transform into PFOA and PFOS in the body or the environment. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. 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. Tennants Farm Pond Dam is a cultural feature (dam) in Wood County. Photo illustration by Slate. And theyre going to find out one of these days that somebodys tired of it.. A group of citizens in West Virginia challenges a powerful corporation to be more environmentally responsible. But a single letter, sent by a DuPont scientist to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, began unraveling a more alarming story. It turned out 3M also made PFOA and sold it to DuPont, which used the chemical cousin of Scotchgard to keep Teflon from clumping during production. Other testing by 3M found the compounds in apples, bread, green beans and ground beef. When DuPont settled that lawsuit in 2004, the company agreed to finance a study of PFOAs health effects. In 1999, a farm farmily sued DuPont for the death of their cattle and the ill health of exposed family and farm workers. 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 . (He later would be played by actor Mark Ruffalo in the 2019 film Dark Waters.). A thicker foam gathered in eddies, trembling like egg whites whipped into stiff peaks so high they sometimes blew off on a breeze. 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. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. Yet to this day the companies deny responsibility, Bilott said in an interview. DuPont immediately removed all female workers from areas where they might come into contact with the chemical.". 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?" ''Rob's letter lifted the curtain on a . It is cut from the same cloth as movies like 'Erin Brockovich' and 'A Civil Action'. 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 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. Thank you for helping us continue making science fun for everyone. Nearly 70,000 people participated. Robert Bilott is a partner at Taft, Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, Ohio. DuPont named this sight Dry Run Landfill after the creek that ran onto the Tennant farm. The West Virginia-based . 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.
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