Wilbur Tennant, played by Bill Camp in the film, showed Bilott videos and pictures he had taken of his cows foaming at the mouth and staggering in ways they hadn't before, with lesions covering . a series of Camcorder videos showing "soapy froth" in a creek running through DuPont's landfill property and into Tennant's farm. May 15, 2009; Location: Washington, West Virginia; Tribute & Message From The Family. Once this came to light, reports indicate, the Tennants settled their lawsuit against DuPont in August 2000, but the fight wasn't over. Anne Hathaway as Sarah Bilott and the real-life Sarah Bilott. Ill do something about it.. As a man, he had walked its banks with his wife. The farmers name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. Patches of missing hair, discolorations in their . These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. Joseph and Darlene Kiger in Park City, Utah, in 2018. 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. LinkedIn sets this cookie to remember a user's language setting. Calf born dead. Earl loved his cows, and the cows loved Earl. He panned again: a bonfire on a grassy slope, a pyre of logs as fat as garbage cans. This video contains graphic imagery. The problem had to be Dry Run, he thought. The cows grazed on a mixed pasture of white Dutch clover, bluegrass, fescue, red clover . 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 farmer Wilbur Tennant had suspected that the chemical company DuPont was responsible for the death of many of his cows. One person can't always cause a change, but one person can set off a chain of reactions to cause change. wilbur tennant farm location . PFAS are ubiquitous. The suit alleges negligence claiming the chemicals contaminated the state's natural resources, according to New Hampshire Public Radio. A key component of Teflon was C8, also known as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). The carcass was starting to smell. 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. That looks a little bit like cancer to me.. Ill do something about it.. 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. A few years after the sale, Tennant suspected DuPont had filled the landfill with more than just garbage. Lawyers in Parkersburg, West Virginia, turned him down when he urged them to sue DuPont, then one of areas biggest employers. These "forever chemicals" are an emerging global health and environmental issue. Earl had come to believe that its water was now poisonedwith what, he did not know. Earl pulled on white gloves and pried open the cows mouth, probing her gums and teeth. Wilbur Tennant shot this video in the late 1990s on his property in West Virginia. Photo illustration by Slate. However, the company didn't tell employees or regulators and ended the study, the Huffington Post reports. Somebodys not doing their duty, he said to the camera, to anyone who would listen. DuPont settled the Tennant case for an undisclosed amount. PFOA (C8) and PFOS were the long-chain, more commonly used substances in a larger group of more than 4,000 man-made chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). He made for an imposing figure at six feet tall, lean and broad shouldered, his . 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. 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. The unlikely hero was an Ohio-based corporate defense lawyer paid to protect chemical companies, just like the one the farmer suspected of foul play. 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. Wilbur Tennant had become desperate. The suit, rather than seeking compensation, requests that the companies fund independent, scientific studies on the health effects of PFAS, according to Time Magazine. The goal of the merger was to combine two businesses that dabbled in . Dry Run used to flow gin clear. 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. He didnt believe it anymore. 30 Broad Street, Suite 801 Tennant wants to sue chemical giant . 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. 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 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. The carcasses lay where they fell. DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. At fifty-four, Earl was an . It dont do you any good to go to the DNR about it. Shes poor as a whippoorwill. But you just give me time. A farmer's cows suddenly start dying off. DuPont determined that PFOA passed from pregnant employees to their fetuses. Forever chemicals found in drinking water throughout Illinois: Search the database >>>. The spleen was thinner and whiter than any spleen he had come cross. Anyone could see that something was terribly wrong, not only with the landfill itself but with the agencies responsible for monitoring it. 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. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. But a single letter, sent by a DuPont scientist to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, began unraveling a more alarming story. Sometimes it ran so dry hed find them glittering dead in the mud. 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. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. 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 . 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. And I burn them all. His cattle were dying inexplicably, and in droves. At fifty-four, Earl was an imposing figure, six feet tall, lean and oxshouldered, with sandpaper hands and a permanent squint. 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. Cookie used to remember the user's Disqus login credentials across websites that use Disqus. It was different from the regular dead-cow smells he had dealt with all his life. You could poke it with a stick and leave a hole. LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. He focuses on the froth-covered creek before the tape cuts to a dissected calf with blackened teeth and oddly colored organs. The underdog was a farmer whose family worked the land for generations, building it from a small operation to a thriving livelihood. These cookies help provide anonymized information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. And after Bilott watched and listened, he took action. Tennant recounted to anyone who would listen that he'd lost about 100 calves and 50 cows over the years. Bilott is seeking class-action status in the case against several companies, including 3M and Chemours. This cookie is used for storing country code selected from country selector. I dont recall him drinking, Deitzler says. In October 2018, he filed a lawsuit on behalf of a firefighter, who used fire suppression foam and equipment containing PFAS for 40 years. . ATSDR/CDC also notes that more studies need to be done in the area of health effects, particularly on shorter-chain substances. He sliced open the chest cavity, pulled out a lung, and turned the camera back on. Back in the '90s, Tennant noticed something strange was happening to his cows. oh, two-thirds bigger than it should be., The kidneys, too, looked abnormal. . 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. 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. The farmhouse stood at the foot of a sloping meadow that rose into a bald knob. Excerpt from Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. Wilbur Earl Tennant, 67 of New England passed away suddenly at his residence May 15, 2009. 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.. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. (He later would be played by actor Mark Ruffalo in the 2019 film Dark Waters.). DuPont named this sight Dry Run Landfill after the creek that ran onto the Tennant farm. It is a chemical used in the manufacturing process of Teflon. Invest in quality science journalism by making a donation to Science Friday. 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. They had seven cows then. 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. "Mysterious wasting disease" and. 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. 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 . This cookie is native to PHP applications. Copyright 2019 by Robert Bilott. Wilbur Tennant showed Bilott alarming video footage in which his previously docile animals had turned . 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. (Chicago Tribune Handout). Its something I have never run into before., He reached back into the cow and pulled out a liver that looked about right. YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. 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). 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 . Robert Bilott isn't done. LinkedIn sets the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection. Join Facebook to connect with Wilbur Tennant and others you may know. Bilotts law firm, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, typically represents corporate clients like DuPont in environmental cases, not people like Tennant. Tennant didnt live to witness the scope of what unfolded after he persuaded Bilott to file the lawsuit about his dead cows. Two weeks after he filmed the foamy water, Earl aimed the camcorder at one of his cows. Jim still calls it "the home place," although its windows are now boarded up and the outhouse is crumbling into the field. "I've been dealing with this for . Photos by Focus Features and Mike Coppola/Getty Images. 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. Despite internal debate, it declined to make the information public," the magazinenotes. 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. 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. Cows that drank from the creek had been healthy. The calf was engulfed in a black, humming mist. In the flames, a calf lay broadside, burning. There is something wrong with this water, Tennant says on the videotape. And if it sounds familiar, it should. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. But what about the alarming moment when a fire breaks out at the home of Joseph Kigers father, who shares his name? New York, NY 10004. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. PFOA and PFOS are among more than 9,000 versions of synthetic chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS. I fed her at least a gallon of grain a day. As Bilott details in Exposure, the April 23, 2001, incident was eventually confirmed between his legal team and DuPonts.