Dont understand that at all. As luck would have it, the company bought 66 acres from one of their employees, Wilbur Tennant. Used to help protect the website against Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. Wilbur Tennant had become desperate. She had spent the summer in the hollow, drinking out of Dry Run until shed started to act strangely. Tennant and his brother Jim wanted to get to the bottom of it, so they dissected some carcasses. After this sale, Tennant's cattle started to become sick and Tennant began to understand that . On the other side of his property line, Dry Run Landfill was filling up the little valley that had once belonged to his family. LinkedIn sets this cookie to remember a user's language setting. DuPont's response was they would settle with the Tennant's however Bilott was . 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. 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. A creek connects the landfill and the fields of Tennant's farm. Thats the water right there, underneath that foam, the farmer said. 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.). DuPont initially refused, but a court order ultimately forced them to turn over what amounted to more than 100,000 pages, some dating back 50 years. Sometimes the cattle watered at a spring-fed bathtub trough at the farthest end of the field, but mostly they drank from Dry Run. 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. The suit, rather than seeking compensation, requests that the companies fund independent, scientific studies on the health effects of PFAS, according to Time Magazine. But the point I want to make, and make it real clear, he said, zooming in, thats the mouth of Dry Run.. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". AWSALB is an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target. The smell was odd. . (Chicago Tribune Handout). At the end of the movie, I had a revelation. People who didn't know him very well called him Wilbur, but friends and family called him Earl. 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. He died of . All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. 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." DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Home. 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. Thats very unusual. Copyright 2019 by Robert Bilott. This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. 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.. Forever chemicals found in drinking water throughout Illinois: Search the database >>>. Standing walleyed in an open field was a polled Hereford red with a white face and floppy ears. Cookie used to remember the user's Disqus login credentials across websites that use Disqus. 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. 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 . wilbur tennant farm location. Washington, West Virginia. In the flames, a calf lay broadside, burning. The Teflon Toxin, Part 2: Wilbur Tennant vs. DuPont. His cattle were dying inexplicably, and in droves. Used by Yahoo to provide ads, content or analytics. 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 the meantime, people are drinking these chemicals every day. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". emily in paris savoir office. 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. Bilott found studies that potentially linked PFOA with a variety of cancers, birth defects, and illnesses. When the cattle on Wilbur Earl Tennants farm began to mysteriously fall ill and die, he suspected it wasnt what the animals were eatingit was what they were drinking. They are everywhere. 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. He died of a heart attack in 2009 at age 67. Initial data showed evidence that it did. Teflon came into prominence in the 1940s, and with it came DuPont's rise as a chemical giant. "Hold on to something," Jim Tennant warned as he fired up his tractor. 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. 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. DuPont established a presence along the Ohio River in 1948 with the Washington Works plant near Parkersburg. With no one from the government or even local veterinarians willing to do it, Earl decided to do an autopsy himself. I dont understand them great big dark red places across there. LinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser ID. In the 1990s Wilbur began to notice weird deformities in his cows and some of them were even dying. These "forever chemicals" are an emerging global health and environmental issue. Like the movie, Richs article portrays Bilott as an unassuming and understated man driven by an innate sense of decency. Earl had sought help, but no one would step up. 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. 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. 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 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. In the 1980s, Jim Tennant and his wife, Della, got an offer from DuPont. That things about . Thunderstorms occasionally swelled the creek so much that he couldnt wade across it. He died of cancer in 2009. And I burn them all. Location of conflict: Little Hocking, City of Belpre, Tuppers Plains, Village of Pomeroy, Lubeck Public Service District, and Mason County Public Service District: . This website uses cookies to improve your experience. It is based on a shocking true story, where a series . He wasnt an expert, but the disease seemed clear enough that he bagged the physical evidence and left it in his freezer for the day he could get someone with credentials interested enough to take a look. Black smoke curled into the daylight. On August 31st of 2017, E. I. Dupont de Nemours Company and the Dow Chemical Company merged as part of a $130 billion merger. Bilott did marry a fellow lawyer, Sarah Barlage, who left her career defending corporations against workers compensation claims to raise their sons. They just turn their back and walk on, he told the camera. 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.". Still, in other scenes, such as when Bilott falsely suspects his car might be rigged with an explosive, its made clear that the events of the film are leading some of its characters to fear things that arent really there. In the spring, he would run and catch the calves so his daughters could pet them. Whatever had killed this cow appeared to Earl to have eaten her from the inside out. . Its head was tipped back at an awkward angle. By the late 1990s, West Virginia farmer Wilbur Tennant was at his wits end. . Tennants Farm Pond Dam is a cultural feature (dam) in Wood County. The Devil We Know: Directed by Stephanie Soechtig, Jeremy Seifert. DuPont and 3M kept the U.S. EPA in the dark for years, company and government records show. Listen to an interview with Bilott about the chemical lawsuits on Science Friday. Quite soon after DuPont establishes their landfill, weird things start happening to his cattle. . 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 had a problem. It flowed through a corner of the three-hundred-acre farm, in a place Earl called the holler. A small valley cut between hillsides, the holler was where he moved the herd to graze throughout the summer. However, the company didn't tell employees or regulators and ended the study, the Huffington Post reports. 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. Robert Bilott isn't done. 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. Where they should have been smooth, they looked ropy, covered with ridges. Dry spells shrank it to a necklace of pools that winked with silver minnows. 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. And if it weren't for one West Virginia farmer, Wilbur Tennant, we still might not know much about them. Earl retired from the WV Department of Highways as an equipment operator. He zoomed in. Something is the matter right there. 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 suit alleges negligence claiming the chemicals contaminated the state's natural resources, according to New Hampshire Public Radio. ATSDR/CDC also notes that more studies need to be done in the area of health effects, particularly on shorter-chain substances. 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. She had a calf over there. 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. 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. All rights reserved. It kicked and thumped and wallered around there like you wouldnt believe.. In April 2000, after 3M conducted tests and studies on a similar, sister chemical to C8 (PFOA) called PFOS, the company notified the Environmental Protection Agency it found that "even modest exposure could have devastating health effects" and started to phase out PFOS use, as well as PFOA, according to the Huffington Post. Bilott has spent more than twenty years litigating hazardous dumping of the chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). 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. 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 . The tongue looked normal, but some of the teeth were coal black, interspersed with the white ones like piano keys. 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. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The visit to the Grahams' farm was one of his happiest childhood memories. It was different from the regular dead-cow smells he had dealt with all his life. Wilbur Earl Tennant and his siblings took over the land when their father abandoned them in the 1950s, according to the Huffington Post. Dry Run used to flow gin clear. 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. working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson . No one believed him when he told them about the things he saw happening to his land. VigLink sets this cookie to show users relevant advertisements and also limit the number of adverts that are shown to them. SiteLock sets this cookie to provide cloud-based website security services. 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. There is something wrong with this water, Tennant says on the videotape. The calf was engulfed in a black, humming mist.