For example, the DuPont executive played by Victor Garber, Phil Donnelly, seems to be a composite, and the scene where he turns on Bilott, hissing at him, Fuck you, hick, appears to be invented. 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. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. 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. Quite soon after DuPont establishes their landfill, weird things start happening to his cattle. Just months before Rob Bilott made partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister, he received a call on his direct line from a cattle farmer. Edit your search or learn more. The films portrayal of the physical toll that the excruciating, decadeslong legal battle against DuPont seems to have had on Bilotts health is also accurate. 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. 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. His freezer had brimmed with venison, wild turkey, squirrel, and rabbit. It kicked and thumped and wallered around there like you wouldnt believe.. Their innards smelled funny and were sometimes riddled with what looked to him like tumors. On August 31st of 2017, E. I. Dupont de Nemours Company and the Dow Chemical Company merged as part of a $130 billion merger. Attorney Rob Bilott discusses the Fight Forever Chemicals campaign on Nov. 19, 2019. The pattern element in the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. He zoomed out and panned over to an industrial pipe spewing froth into the creek. But that's just the start. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Teflon came into prominence in the 1940s, and with it came DuPont's rise as a chemical giant. 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. wilbur tennant farm location . They had seven cows then. working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson . He was an excellent marksman, and his family had always had enough meat to eat. song that goes bum bum bum 2020. wilbur tennant farm locationconservation international ceo. Nor was it on the list of substances regulated by the EPA. In May 2015, a consortium of scientists across many disciplines released a document called the Madrid Statement. As Bilott details in Exposure, the April 23, 2001, incident was eventually confirmed between his legal team and DuPonts. The Taft offices are in Cincinnati, Ohio. He suspected one of his town's largest employers was up to no good, allegedly dumping chemicals and contaminating his farm's water supply, and the result was hundreds of sickened and dead cattle. "He was doing for the Tennants what he would have done for any of his corporate clients pulling permits, studying land deeds and requesting from DuPont all documentation related to Dry Run Landfill but he could find no evidence that explained what was happening to the cattle," the New York Times wrote. A videotape Tennant shot with a VHS camcorder shows emaciated cows with tumors on their hides. Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. DuPont and 3M kept the U.S. EPA in the dark for years, company and government records show. But the point I want to make, and make it real clear, he said, zooming in, thats the mouth of Dry Run.. 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. 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. She had a calf over there. Calf born dead. Earl loved his cows, and the cows loved Earl. Wilbur Tennant is one farmer in a community who sees DuPont as something more than an employer. As luck would have it, the company bought 66 acres from one of their employees, Wilbur Tennant. Tennant's farm is close to a newly DuPont-owned landfill. They are everywhere. . Bilott is currently suing several makers and users of these chemicals on behalf of all Americans with PFAS in their blood. Thats very unusual. From playing with computers to building networks: How the space for Black Software was made. VigLink sets this cookie to track the user behaviour and also limit the ads displayed, in order to ensure relevant advertising. He was born at New England, a son of the late Blaine Tennant and Lydia (Wildman) Tennant. Dry Run was less than a miles walk from the home place, across Lee Creek, through an open field, and along a pair of tire tracks. Tennant was a farmer who sold part of his land in Parkersburg, West Virginia, to DuPont, for Wilbur Tennant vs. DuPont on Vimeo 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 . It is a chemical used in the manufacturing process of Teflon. Hunting had been one of Earls greatest pleasures. A key component of Teflon was C8, also known as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). DuPont established a presence along the Ohio River in 1948 with the Washington Works plant near Parkersburg. 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. In the meantime, people are drinking these chemicals every day. In 1973 she [took] him to the cattle farm belonging to the Tennants' neighbors, the Grahams, with whom White was friendly. Dry spells shrank it to a necklace of pools that winked with silver minnows. 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. . Robert Bilott is a partner at Taft, Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, Ohio. Tennant had a problem. He especially enjoyed hunting, working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson Josh and . (Chicago Tribune Handout). See how thats all wallered down? Bilott, with begrudging support of his firm (Tim Robbins plays his boss), confirms Wilbur's worst fears: the local DuPont plant has been dumping toxic waste on land next to the Tennant farm. Her white hide was crusted with diarrhea, and her hip bones tented her hide. While the character of the hand-wringing Taft lawyer James Ross, portrayed by The Good Places William Jackson Harper, seems to have been invented, along with the scene where Ross suggests that Bilotts class-action suit might read to the public as nothing more than a shakedown of an iconic American company, Bilott did tell the New York Times that he perceived that there were some What the hell are you doing? responses within the firm. 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. 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?" apples, bread, green beans and ground beef. Up until about a decade ago, few in the public knew about C8, let alone its potential health effects, but DuPont allegedly knew its toxic effects for decades and purportedly failed to tell employees or the public, according to The Intercept. Wilbur Tennant showed Bilott alarming video footage in which his previously docile animals had turned . The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. 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. It stars Mark Ruffalo as Bilott, along with Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare . This cookie is used to manage the interaction with the online bots. No one believed him when he told them about the things he saw happening to his land. GRAPHIC CONTENT: An excerpt from Wilbur Earl Tennant's video showing the mysterious wasting disease affecting his cows in the 1990s. This cookie is managed by Amazon Web Services and is used for load balancing. Michael Hawthorne is a Pulitzer-finalist investigative reporter who focuses on the environment and public health for the Chicago Tribune. The farm spread roughly 600 acres, and had a total of 200 cattle roaming around. Dry Run used to flow gin clear. The olive green water had a greenish brown foam encrusting the grassy bank. The West Virginia-based . 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. 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 focuses on the froth-covered creek before the tape cuts to a dissected calf with blackened teeth and oddly colored organs. Nearly 70,000 people participated. At 72, Jim is so slight that he nearly . After contacting the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, he felt stonewalled. Photo illustration by Slate. DuPont's response was they would settle with the Tennant's however Bilott was . You could poke it with a stick and leave a hole. Tennant and his brother Jim wanted to get to the bottom of it, so they dissected some carcasses. "As soon as you cut the skin loose, you get some of the foulest smells you've ever smelled," Jim Tennant told the Huffington Post. Bilott found studies that potentially linked PFOA with a variety of cancers, birth defects, and illnesses. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. 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. On the other side of his property line, Dry Run Landfill was filling up the little valley that had once belonged to his family. DuPont also discovered that pollution containing PFOA vented from the Washington Works plant affected the surrounding area, allegedly contaminating the local water supply, according to the New York Times Magazine. It was to be incinerated or sent to chemical-waste facilities. This cookie is installed by Google Universal Analytics to restrain request rate and thus limit the collection of data on high traffic sites. Dark Waters is a 2019 American legal thriller film directed by Todd Haynes and written by Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan.The story dramatizes Robert Bilott's case against the chemical manufacturing corporation DuPont after they contaminated a town with unregulated chemicals. Thunderstorms occasionally swelled the creek so much that he couldnt wade across it. 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. Attached to it was a gallbladder that didnt. In the flames, a calf lay broadside, burning. Invest in quality science journalism by making a donation to Science Friday. This cookie is associated with Django web development platform for python. 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. 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. And in 2017, according to Reuters, DuPont and its spinoff, Chemours, agreed to pay more than $600 million to settle about 3,500 personal injury resulting from the alleged contamination of local water supplies in Parkersburg. Two weeks after he filmed the foamy water, Earl aimed the camcorder at one of his cows. Thats whats so scary about these chemicals, said Jamie DeWitt, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at East Carolina University who studies PFAS. DuPont responds with a study of the Tennant farm conducted with the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A) that . And Im gonna cut her open and find out what caused her to die. . In the 1980s, Jim Tennant and his wife, Della, got an offer from DuPont. Seventy years later these chemicals are in our soil, our air, in wildlife. 1: The Farm. 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. Thats the water right there, underneath that foam, the farmer said. The farmhouse stood at the foot of a sloping meadow that rose into a bald knob. During the course of the litigation, we have confirmed that the chemicals and pollutants released into the environment by DuPont may pose an imminent and substantial threat to health and the environment, Bilott wrote at the beginning of his March 6, 2001, letter. Tennant Farm, December 1999, from DuPont Cattle Team Report. Wilbur Earl Tennant, 67 of New England passed away suddenly at his residence May 15, 2009. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. They just turn their back and walk on. His cattle now drank from its pools. 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. 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. 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 . 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 . . It was contaminated with high levels of PFOA. 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. 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. "Though PFOA was not classified by the government as a hazardous substance, 3M sent DuPont recommendations on how to dispose of it. Wilbur Earl Tennant and his siblings took over the land when their father abandoned them in the 1950s, according to the Huffington Post. Wilbur Tennant shot this video on his property between 1995 and 1997. That day had never come, so he decided he would make them watch a video. A creek connects the landfill and the fields of Tennant's farm. 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. Thats the largest gall I ever saw in my life! After this sale, Tennant's cattle started to become sick and Tennant began to understand that . Bilott did marry a fellow lawyer, Sarah Barlage, who left her career defending corporations against workers compensation claims to raise their sons. All Public Member Trees results for Wilbur Tennant. It's the messy, real story behind Focus Features' Dark Waters movie, starring Mark Ruffalo as Robert Bilott, the corporate lawyer turned environmental activist who led an epic legal fight against chemical titan DuPont. In 2005, DuPont agreed to phase out its use of C8 (PFOA) by 2015, according to The Intercept. Wilbur Tennant passed away on May 15, 2009 at the age of 67 in Washington, West Virginia. He owned 200 cows that grazed on 600 acres. The farm would have stretched even longer if one of Wilbur Tennant's brothers, Jim, did not sell 66 acres to the DuPont company in the early 1980's for a landfill they were going to create for their factory. The carcasses lay where they fell. The pipe flowed out of a collection pond at the low end of a landfill. June 14, 2022; salem witch trials podcast lore 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 . Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category . The flies hummed as loud as bees. 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. He toldThe Intercept in 2015 that it bubbled up out of glass containers and "was everywhere." These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. By that point, 153 animals died had died grisly deaths on his property . When they bought half of the farm from Wilbur they began to use it for a landfill to store the toxins being . May 15, 2009; Location: Washington, West Virginia; Tribute & Message From The Family. 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. Did they think he would just sit by? 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. DuPont bought C8 from 3M and used it to prevent Teflon from clumping during the manufacturing process. Bubbles formed as it tumbled over stones in a sudsy film. In 1999, a farm farmily sued DuPont for the death of their cattle and the ill health of exposed family and farm workers. In the spring, he would run and catch the calves so his daughters could pet them. How would you like for your livestock to have to drink something like that? he asked his imagined audience. Tennant recounted to anyone who would listen that he'd lost about 100 calves and 50 cows over the years. He was speaking to the camcorder pressed to his eye. ''Rob's letter lifted the curtain on a . Initial data showed evidence that it did. 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. Todd Haynes new film Dark Waters wades into some of the most complicated topics in public health, chemistry, and the law to dramatize the story of environmental attorney Robert Bilott and his nearly two decades of civil actions against DuPont. 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. DuPont detected PFOA in the drinking water of communities near the Teflon plant. But what about the alarming moment when a fire breaks out at the home of Joseph Kigers father, who shares his name? 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.