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. However, the company didn't tell employees or regulators and ended the study, the Huffington Post reports. In his research, Bilott had come across a DuPont letter that referred to a chemical known as . The primary coordinates for Tennants Farm Pond Dam places it within the WV 26184 ZIP Code delivery area. Wamsley suffered from ulcerative colitis, a condition that can lead to rectal cancer, which, in his case it, did. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. Photo illustration by Slate. 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. 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. But the point I want to make, and make it real clear, he said, zooming in, thats the mouth of Dry Run.. Its dumping pits were unlined, designed for the disposal of nonhazardous wasteoffice paper and everyday trash. At 72, Jim is so slight that he nearly . 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. His mothers grandfather had bought this land, and it was the only home he had ever known. a series of Camcorder videos showing "soapy froth" in a creek running through DuPont's landfill property and into Tennant's farm. DuPont immediately removed all female workers from areas where they might come into contact with the chemical.". In May 2015, a consortium of scientists across many disciplines released a document called the Madrid Statement. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". Hunting had been one of Earls greatest pleasures. Azure sets this cookie for routing production traffic by specifying the production slot. The Tennants were initially reluctant, especially because of its intended use, but DuPont promised it would house only nonhazardous waste, like scrap metal and ash, according to the Huffington Post. As luck would have it, the company bought 66 acres from one of their employees, Wilbur Tennant. Alternatives for PFOA and PFOS promoted as safe by industry are just as dangerous, if not more so, scientists are finding. On August 31st of 2017, E. I. Dupont de Nemours Company and the Dow Chemical Company merged as part of a $130 billion merger. It wasnt his first. In October 2018, he filed a lawsuit on behalf of a firefighter, who used fire suppression foam and equipment containing PFAS for 40 years. Tennant wants to sue chemical giant . DuPont bought 66 acres of the Tennant's farm land from Wilbur Tennant's brother Jim and his wife Della [1]. Thats the water right there, underneath that foam, the farmer said. 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 . 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. He didnt believe it anymore. He knew the folks at the DNR, because they gave him a special permit to hunt on his land out of season. At the end of the movie, I had a revelation. Dont understand that at all. As a father, he had watched his little girls splash around in its shallow ripples. 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). working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson . 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. While DuPont did also conduct walk-throughs and physical searches of the Tennants belongings, deeply alienating some of the familys renters, the movie depicts some of Tennants evidence going mysteriously missing. 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 . 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. 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. Neither Tennant nor Bilott would accept this as the end of the case. Listen to an interview with Bilott about the chemical lawsuits on Science Friday. The TiPMix cookie is set by Azure to determine which web server the users must be directed to. He had carried a rifle as he went about the farm, always ready to shoot dinner. Wilbur Earl Tennant. Excerpt from Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. Tennant and his brother Jim wanted to get to the bottom of it, so they dissected some carcasses. Attorney Rob Bilott discusses the Fight Forever Chemicals campaign on Nov. 19, 2019. . Jim still calls it "the home place," although its windows are now boarded up and the outhouse is crumbling into the field. When he cut out the other lung, he noted dark purple splotches where they should have been fluffy and pink. 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. 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. The tongue looked normal, but some of the teeth were coal black, interspersed with the white ones like piano keys. "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. Her eyes were sunk deep in her head. Turns out his grandmother lived in the same town as the farmer and that's the connection that brought the underdog and the hero together. Birds sang through the white-hot humidity as he panned the camcorder across the creek. In the 1990s Wilbur began to notice weird deformities in his cows and some of them were even dying. Attorney Rob Bilott discusses the Fight Forever Chemicals campaign on Nov. 19, 2019. 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. 'Dark Waters' is an upcoming American legal thriller helmed by Todd Haynes. 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. They just turn their back and walk on. Quite soon after DuPont establishes their landfill, weird things start happening to his cattle. One person can't always cause a change, but one person can set off a chain of reactions to cause change. Wilbur Earl Tennant, 67 of New England passed away suddenly at his residence May 15, 2009. It looked, at most, a few days old. On paper, Rob Bilott didnt appear to be one of those crusading lawyers in legal thrillers. 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. May 15, 2009; Location: Washington, West Virginia; Tribute & Message From The Family. 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. When they bought half of the farm from Wilbur they began to use it for a landfill to store the toxins being . Used by Yahoo to provide ads, content or analytics. "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. (Ammonium perfluorooctanoate or C8) wastes near the farm. 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 . DuPont established a presence along the Ohio River in 1948 with the Washington Works plant near Parkersburg. In 1981 , 3M found that ingestion of . At fifty-four, Earl was an . The state vet wouldnt even come out to the farm. 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 . 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. One tooth had an abscess so large he reckoned he could stick an ice pick clear under it. They are everywhere. In the meantime, people are drinking these chemicals every day. C8 is a "surfactant," a chemical compound that reduces surface tension. 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. 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. Bryan Schutmaat for The New York Times. Initial data showed evidence that it did. 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." Bilott later determined it was one of the forever chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid, commonly referred to today as PFOA. Behind him, white-faced Herefords grazed in rolling meadows. Edit your search or learn more. Both companies denied any wrongdoing. This cookie is used for storing country code selected from country selector. The Devil We Know: Directed by Stephanie Soechtig, Jeremy Seifert. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Theres been fifty-six cows thats been burnt just like this.. Her white hide was crusted with diarrhea, and her hip bones tented her hide. 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. 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. Tennant Farm, December 1999, from DuPont Cattle Team Report. And, based on Centers for Disease Control data, PFAS chemicals were found the blood of 98 percent of people studied. Two weeks after he filmed the foamy water, Earl aimed the camcorder at one of his cows. It begs the question: How many cancers and other health effects are we willing to accept?, Read the investigation: Tribune finds more than 8 million Illinoisans get drinking water from a utility where forever chemicals have been detected >>>. Bilott created a timeline that showed what DuPont and 3M knew about the chemicals. Thank you for helping us continue making science fun for everyone. The farm spread roughly 600 acres, and had a total of 200 cattle roaming around. Wilbur Tennant's 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 family's 600-some . In less than two years he had lost at least one hundred calves and more than fifty cows. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. 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). 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. The sp_t cookie 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. The farmer's name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. Eight years later 3M paused one of its animal studies after every monkey fed PFOS died. According to the book, DuPont had commissioned a photographer to take aerial photos of the property as part of its defense. PFAS are ubiquitous. That calf had died miserable. And the man who started it all, Wilbur Tennant, won't see that resolution. 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. A downstate Illinois native, Hawthorne joined the Tribune in 2004 after covering the environment and state government in Ohio, Illinois and Florida. Sometimes the cattle watered at a spring-fed bathtub trough at the farthest end of the field, but mostly they drank from Dry Run. apples, bread, green beans and ground beef. He sliced open the chest cavity, pulled out a lung, and turned the camera back on. Around here, that economic engine was DuPont, known for innovations like nylon, Tyvek, and Teflon.
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