(Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call). 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. 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. It had paid for the 150 acres of land his great-grandfather had bought and for the two-story, four-room farmhouse pieced together from trees felled in the woods, dragged across fields, and raised by hand. 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. 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. 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). The farmers name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. A farmer's cows suddenly start dying off. Mr. Tennant believed early on that something coming out of the plant and landfill was poisoning the water and the animals on his farm. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". 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. Listen to an interview with Bilott about the chemical lawsuits on Science Friday. He owned 200 cows that grazed on 600 acres. Something is the matter right there. When he noticed his cows were mysteriously dying, he filmed what was happening on the farm, and the toxic legacy of C8 - DuPont's Teflon chemical - was discovered. Over the course of that lawsuit, Bilott discovered that DuPont had been using a chemical called PFOA in the production of Teflon for decades, while quietly studying its effects on lab animals and factory workers. The Teflon Toxin, Part 2: Wilbur Tennant vs. DuPontNot Yet Rated. The chemical companies are appealing the decision. The underdog was a farmer whose family worked the land for generations, building it from a small operation to a thriving livelihood. Wilbur Tennant shot this video in the late 1990s on his property in West Virginia. song that goes bum bum bum 2020. wilbur tennant farm locationconservation international ceo. Wilbur Tennant's family farm was located next to a "non-hazardous" landfill operated by the chemical company. 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. 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. It was contaminated with high levels of PFOA. As in the movie, these events really did lead to a large class-action suit that triggered a massive epidemiological study that, after a yearslong wait, showed there really was a probable link between PFOA and certain conditions, including high cholesterol, kidney cancer, and testicular cancer, though the movie depicts one scientist going so far as to tell Bilott that the results are irrefutable. (DuPont has continued to deny that it did anything wrong.). I fed her at least a gallon of grain a day. Tennant had a problem. Seventy years later these chemicals are in our soil, our air, in wildlife. Her calf, black and white, lay dead on its side in a circle of matted grass. His hand shook as he pressed the zoom button, zeroing in on a stagnant pool. 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. Jim Tennant and his wife, Della, sold DuPont a 66-acre tract of land that became part of the Dry Run Landfill. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. The JSESSIONID cookie is used by New Relic to store a session identifier so that New Relic can monitor session counts for an application. DuPont determined that PFOA passed from pregnant employees to their fetuses. . They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. PFAS are ubiquitous. Wilbur Tennant is one farmer in a community who sees DuPont as something more than an employer. The company told the family that they wanted to use the land to . It does not store any personal data. The same year, DuPont found that water in one local district contained PFOA levels at three times that figure. He sliced open the chest cavity, pulled out a lung, and turned the camera back on. DuPont responds with a study of the Tennant farm conducted with the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A) that . C8 is a "surfactant," a chemical compound that reduces surface tension. Nor was it on the list of substances regulated by the EPA. Did they think he would just sit by? That things about . Eight years later 3M paused one of its animal studies after every monkey fed PFOS died. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Revelations by another chemical company gave Bilott leverage to go back into court and request more records from DuPont. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. 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. . And it takes immense courage and conviction to do that. This cookie is used to detect and defend when a client attempt to replay a cookie.This cookie manages the interaction with online bots and takes the appropriate actions. As a father, he had watched his little girls splash around in its shallow ripples. 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. The flies hummed as loud as bees. The state vet wouldnt even come out to the farm. wilbur tennant farm location . 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. He requested all documents that DuPont had related to PFOA. And I burn them all. Forever chemicals found in drinking water throughout Illinois: Search the database >>>. LinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser ID. I dont recall him drinking, Deitzler says. Tennant stated that . The use of these cookies is strictly limited to measuring the site's audience. Bilotts law firm, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, typically represents corporate clients like DuPont in environmental cases, not people like Tennant. The herd that had once been nearly three hundred head had dwindled to just about half that. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. DuPont established a presence along the Ohio River in 1948 with the Washington Works plant near Parkersburg. Wilbur Tennant shot this video on his property between 1995 and 1997. 1: The Farm. The cattle farmer stood at the edge of a creek that cut through a sun-dappled hollow. (Maddie McGarvey/for the Washington Post). All rights reserved. Calf born dead. Earl loved his cows, and the cows loved Earl. Its dumping pits were unlined, designed for the disposal of nonhazardous wasteoffice paper and everyday trash. 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. In another field, a grown cow lay dead. The same year, the EPA fined DuPont more than $10 million for "failing to report 'substantial risk of injury to human health' from C8 (PFOA)," according to The Intercept. Other testing by 3M found the compounds in apples, bread, green beans and ground beef. The olive green water had a greenish brown foam encrusting the grassy bank. Bilott did marry a fellow lawyer, Sarah Barlage, who left her career defending corporations against workers compensation claims to raise their sons. Bilott helped companies comply with new environmental regulations established by the Superfund legislation and became an expert at the chemistry of pollutants, according to the New York Times Magazine. Thats whats so scary about these chemicals, said Jamie DeWitt, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at East Carolina University who studies PFAS. The farmer's name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. It kicked and thumped and wallered around there like you wouldnt believe.. Bilott created a timeline that showed what DuPont and 3M knew about the chemicals. There is something wrong with this water, Tennant says on the videotape. 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. 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. SiteLock sets this cookie to provide cloud-based website security services. 'Dark Waters' is slated to release on November 22, 2019, and has Mark Ruffalo playing the role of a tenacious attorney, who takes the fight to a big chemical company. Science Friday is produced by the Science Friday Initiative, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. DuPont did not tell this to the Tennants at the time." "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. They just turn their back and walk on, he told the camera. On the other line was Wilbur Tennant (played by Bill Camp), a cattle farmer from Parkersburg, W.V. So, the couple sold about 60 acres to DuPont. (Ammonium perfluorooctanoate or C8) wastes near the farm. 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.. 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. Where they should have been smooth, they looked ropy, covered with ridges. Bilott later determined it was one of the forever chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid, commonly referred to today as PFOA. The suit, rather than seeking compensation, requests that the companies fund independent, scientific studies on the health effects of PFAS, according to Time Magazine. 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. 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. Two of seven babies born to Teflon plant employees in 1981 had facial deformities similar to what 3M had found in newborn rats. a series of Camcorder videos showing "soapy froth" in a creek running through DuPont's landfill property and into Tennant's farm. . Thats the largest gall I ever saw in my life! Dont understand that at all. wilbur tennant farm location. 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. He was born at New England, a son of the late Blaine Tennant and Lydia (Wildman) Tennant. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". "Though PFOA was not classified by the government as a hazardous substance, 3M sent DuPont recommendations on how to dispose of it. 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 . Once this came to light, reports indicate, the Tennants settled their lawsuit against DuPont in August 2000, but the fight wasn't over. Not even buzzards and scavengers would eat them. 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. Thunderstorms occasionally swelled the creek so much that he couldnt wade across it. His earlier efforts had all revealed unpleasant surprises: tumors, abnormal organs, unnatural smells. In 1970, a company that purchased 3Ms PFOS-based firefighting foam abruptly halted a demonstration after it killed fish in a nearby stream. Similarly, DuPonts presence in the Ohio and West Virginia Chemical Valley regions really did resemble the company town vibe portrayed in Dark Waters, with citizens frequently too enthralled by the multinationals economic benefits to question its impact on their health and safety. Joseph and Darlene Kiger in Park City, Utah, in 2018. They are everywhere. In 2005, DuPont agreed to phase out its use of C8 (PFOA) by 2015, according to The Intercept. Anne Hathaway as Sarah Bilott and the real-life Sarah Bilott. Excerpt from Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. As in the movie, he at first had a cozy relationship with DuPont, though some of the details of the relationship in the movie are invented. . 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. As a man, he had walked its banks with his wife. Edit your search or learn more. As unbelievable as it may sound, DuPont really did, in the 1960s, offer some of its staff Teflon-laced cigarettes as a human experiment into the potential side effects of the PFOA-produced nonstick material, as the movie recounts. 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. That day had never come, so he decided he would make them watch a video. DuPont's scientists understood that the landfill drained into the Tennants' remaining property, and they tested the water in Dry Run Creek. The muscle looked fine, but a thin, yellow liquid gathered in the cavity where it once beat. And if it sounds familiar, it should. It all started with Wilbur Tennant's dying cows. With Sue Bailey, Bucky Bailey, Ken Wamsley, Wilbur Tennant. But friends knew the grandson of one of their neighbors had become an environmental lawyer in Cincinnati. In November 2019, the Washington Post hosted a podcast with Mark Ruffalo and Robert Bilott to discuss the film and the lawsuit. Tennant Farm, December 1999, from DuPont Cattle Team Report. Now, he was feeding them twice as much and watching them waste away. Deitzler suggests it would have been a historic first for no partners at a firm of Tafts size and corporate client base to express qualms about a class-action suit of this kind. He panned again: a bonfire on a grassy slope, a pyre of logs as fat as garbage cans. 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. . are linked to DuPont's landfilling of PFOA. 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 . Wamsley suffered from ulcerative colitis, a condition that can lead to rectal cancer, which, in his case it, did. As a boy, he had cooled his bare feet in this creek. This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. See how thats all wallered down? He was 7 years old. 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. du Pont de Nemours and Co, better known as DuPont, on behalf of a West Virginia farmer whose cows were dying. Hunting had been one of Earls greatest pleasures. Robert Bilott isn't done. It was really his dedication to bringing that out that really inspired me to try to find a way to address the bigger problem., Amazingly, the Pakula-esque paranoid thriller scene, in which Wilbur Tennant spots a low-level helicopter hovering ominously over his property, uses the scope of his hunting rifle to better examine the vehicle, and scares it off in the process, did in fact occur. 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. A variation of the _gat cookie set by Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to allow website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. Tennant wants to sue chemical giant . 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 . All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. This time he is seeking to force 3M and DuPont to pay for medical monitoring of every American exposed to PFAS. 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. Her son, Bucky, was born in 1981 with nose and eye deformities. Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category . This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. This cookie is used to manage the interaction with the online bots. And Im gonna cut her open and find out what caused her to die. She had a calf over there. Anyone could see that something was terribly wrong, not only with the landfill itself but with the agencies responsible for monitoring it. He was certain that DuPont was fouling the waters that his cattle drank, and he'd already lost more than half of his herd to bizarre illnesses. 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). He marked each one on a calendar, a simple slash mark for each grotesque death. Bilott had now discovered the cause in the deaths of the cattle on Tennant's farm and had called DuPont regarding this information. Two weeks after he filmed the foamy water, Earl aimed the camcorder at one of his cows. 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 . But his first big meeting is interrupted by Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp, outstanding), a cattle farmer from Parkersburg, W.Va., the rural town where Bilott's grandmother lives and where he used to . 'Dark Waters' is an upcoming American legal thriller helmed by Todd Haynes. 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.. 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. The smell was odd. The pipe flowed out of a collection pond at the low end of a landfill. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. 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. . 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?" 3M and DuPont have argued in court and in public statements that neither chemical is harmful to people at typical levels of exposure. They're in virtually everything we use, including stain-resistant fabric and carpets, nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, and firefighting foam. But what about the alarming moment when a fire breaks out at the home of Joseph Kigers father, who shares his name? The West Virginia-based . LOCATION. 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. Wilbur Earl Tennant. By the 1980s, DuPont had allegedly begun dumping PFOA waste into the Dry Creek Landfill, near the Tennant property. In time, the connection between the Tennants and DuPont would run as deep as the Ohio River. . And after Bilott watched and listened, he took action. It contained an extraordinarily high concentration of PFOA. Hard labor was his birthright. We lurched down a rutted dirt road past the old clapboard farmhouse where he grew up. When he cut out the other lung, he noted dark purple splotches where they should have been fluffy and pink. Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. His mothers grandfather had bought this land, and it was the only home he had ever known. Thats where theyre supposed to come down here and pull water samples, to see whats in that water. He pointed the camera at a stagnant pool of water flanked by knee-high grass. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Join Facebook to connect with Wilbur Tennant and others you may know. I dont ever remember seeing that in there before., He cut out the heart and sliced it open. Both companies denied any wrongdoing. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. Bilott is seeking class-action status in the case against several companies, including 3M and Chemours. When they bought half of the farm from Wilbur they began to use it for a landfill to store the toxins being . He died of cancer in 2009; he was 67. 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. Did they think he would just sit by? The test_cookie is set by doubleclick.net and is used to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. Its head was tipped back at an awkward angle. He died of cancer in 2009. Attorney Rob Bilott discusses the Fight Forever Chemicals campaign on Nov. 19, 2019. Records obtained by Bilott showed DuPont had determined in 1961 that PFOA is toxic in animals. The problem, he thought, was not what they were eating but what they were drinking. By that point, 153 animals died had died grisly deaths on his property . Tennant told him that DuPont had bought land from his family that was adjacent to his farm, for what the company had assured him would be a non-hazardous landfill, according to a letter Bilott later filed with the Environmental Protection Agency. Birds sang through the white-hot humidity as he panned the camcorder across the creek. Wilbur Earl Tennant and his siblings took over the land when their father abandoned them in the 1950s, according to the Huffington Post. 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. LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. From playing with computers to building networks: How the space for Black Software was made. His name is Wilbur Tennant. apples, bread, green beans and ground beef. (Chicago Tribune Handout). Copyright 2019 by Robert Bilott. He died of . 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. 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. . We'll assume you're okay with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. This cookie is managed by Amazon Web Services and is used for load balancing. Behind him, white-faced Herefords grazed in . The Taft offices are in Cincinnati, Ohio. As one of Bilotts colleagues told the New York Times, To say that Rob Bilott is understated is an understatement. Its also true that Bilott did not have the same Ivy League pedigree of many of his colleagues at Taft, having been raised on Air Force bases across the continental United States and West Germany, and it was through these working-class connections that he was introduced to the Tennant family farm case. The sometimes contentious tenor of Bilotts relationship with Wilbur Tennant is also true to life. Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. . His freezer had brimmed with venison, wild turkey, squirrel, and rabbit. 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.". Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. 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. Its surface was matte with a crusty film that wrinkled against the shore. They concluded that 'the study was valid' and that 'the observed fetal eye defects were due to C8,' according to internal DuPont documents. Foam began appearing in a creek that meandered past the landfill before spilling into the Tennants pasture, he later testified in a court filing. DuPont bought 66 acres of the Tennant's farm land from Wilbur Tennant's brother Jim and his wife Della [1].

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