After contacting the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, he felt stonewalled. . In October 2018, he filed a lawsuit on behalf of a firefighter, who used fire suppression foam and equipment containing PFAS for 40 years. Born: March 6, 1942 . Tennant was a farmer who sold part of his land in Parkersburg, West Virginia, to DuPont, for Wilbur Tennant vs. DuPont on Vimeo 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. No one would help him. Then he wrote a 19-page letter, attached some of the industry documents and mailed the package to officials at the EPA and the Department of Justice. 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. . just a dukes mix of everything. Until lately, the cattle always fattened up nicely on that, plus the corn he grew to finish them and a grain mix he bought from the feed store. Her son, Bucky, was born in 1981 with nose and eye deformities. There is something wrong with this water, Tennant says on the videotape. 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. Wilbur Tennant is one farmer in a community who sees DuPont as something more than an employer. In 1999, a farm farmily sued DuPont for the death of their cattle and the ill health of exposed family and farm workers. Seventy years later these chemicals are in our soil, our air, in wildlife. But a single letter, sent by a DuPont scientist to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, began unraveling a more alarming story. At 72, Jim is so slight that he nearly . He panned the camera a few degrees. 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. It looked, at most, a few days old. apples, bread, green beans and ground beef. . The use of these cookies is strictly limited to measuring the site's audience. Over the decades they steadily acquired land and cattle, until 200 cows roamed more than 600 hilly acres. Ill do something about it.. LinkedIn sets this cookie to remember a user's language setting. The Kiger family, teacher Joseph Kiger and his wife, Darlene, really did receive a cagey and curiously worded letter from the local Lubeck water district in October 2000 notifying them that an unregulated chemical named PFOA was present in their drinking water at low concentrations. And, as the film intimates, this letter, delivered on the public utilitys letterhead, was first reviewed by DuPont and started the clock on the statute of limitations. Much of the biographical information about the Kiger family, including Darlenes first marriage to a DuPont engineer who came home sick and called it the Teflon flu, also checks out. 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 . Calf born dead. Earl loved his cows, and the cows loved Earl. The farmers name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. By the 1980s, DuPont had allegedly begun dumping PFOA waste into the Dry Creek Landfill, near the Tennant property. 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. Isnt that lovely?. The state vet wouldnt even come out to the farm. Did they think he would just sit by? 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. Sometimes it ran so dry hed find them glittering dead in the mud. Black smoke curled into the daylight. This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management. DuPont appeared to be concerned enough about PFOA that the company tested employees at the Teflon plant and found the chemical in their blood, the letter to the EPA revealed. He walked there every day to count heads and check fences. 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. Google DoubleClick IDE cookies are used to store information about how the user uses the website to present them with relevant ads and according to the user profile. The Messed Up True Story Behind Dark Waters, Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia. YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. The campaign coincided with the release of the film "Dark Waters" starring Mark Ruffalo inspired by the true story of Bilott, who discovered a community had been dangerously exposed for decades to deadly chemicals. PFAS are ubiquitous. None of this information was shared with the public. The olive green water had a greenish brown foam encrusting the grassy bank. June 14, 2022. The document, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, called on global scientists, manufacturers, and retailers to work together to limit the use of PFASs and develop safer alternatives. 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 . GRAPHIC CONTENT: An excerpt from Wilbur Earl Tennant's video showing the mysterious wasting disease affecting his cows in the 1990s. DuPont bought 66 acres of the Tennant's farm land from Wilbur Tennant's brother Jim and his wife Della [1]. 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.. Bilott had now discovered the cause in the deaths of the cattle on Tennant's farm and had called DuPont regarding this information. In the 1990s Wilbur began to notice weird deformities in his cows and some of them were even dying. Issued by Microsoft's ASP.NET Application, this cookie stores session data during a user's website visit. Tennants Farm Pond Dam is a cultural feature (dam) in Wood County. 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. At least thats what his family had been told thirteen years before by the company that had bought their land. C8 is a "surfactant," a chemical compound that reduces surface tension. The federal agency notes that it has made significant progress in addressing the public health concerns "from issuing groundwater cleanup guidance to proposing a positive regulatory determination for both PFOA and PFOS, EPA has made progress under every aspect of the Action Plan.". They would nuzzle him as he scratched their heads. But you just give me time. In 2005, the company agreed to fund studies on the health effects of C8. The suit, rather than seeking compensation, requests that the companies fund independent, scientific studies on the health effects of PFAS, according to Time Magazine. Next door to Tennant's farm was a landfill owned by E.I. Their innards smelled funny and were sometimes riddled with what looked to him like tumors. 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.). Something was killing cattle on his West Virginia farm, but no one wanted to help him prove that frothy, green-colored water coming from a neighboring property . Behind him, white-faced Herefords grazed in rolling meadows. In 2000, Bilott found notations on an internal DuPont document that referred to a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), also known as C8, in Dry Run Creek. He died of . 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. Just months before Rob Bilott made partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister, he received a call on his direct line from a cattle farmer. DuPont's scientists understood that the landfill drained into the Tennants' remaining property, and they tested the water in Dry Run Creek. Editors note: In 1999, Robert Bilott sued E.I. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Published by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Wilbur Earl Tennant was a cattle farmer in Parkersburg, Virginia, who was known to his family and friends as Earl. 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. The suit alleges negligence claiming the chemicals contaminated the state's natural resources, according to New Hampshire Public Radio. Its surface was matte with a crusty film that wrinkled against the shore. Excerpt from Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. Location of conflict: Little Hocking, City of Belpre, Tuppers Plains, Village of Pomeroy, Lubeck Public Service District, and Mason County Public Service District: . VigLink sets this cookie to track the user behaviour and also limit the ads displayed, in order to ensure relevant advertising. Dry Run used to flow gin clear. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. . "If that's what it takes to get people the information they need and to protect people, we're willing to do it.". Tennant Farm, December 1999, from DuPont Cattle Team Report. Two of seven babies born to Teflon plant employees in 1981 had facial deformities similar to what 3M had found in newborn rats. That day had never come, so he decided he would make them watch a video. A load balancing cookie set to ensure requests by a client are sent to the same origin server. Wilbur's brother, Jim, was also . PFOA and PFOS are among more than 9,000 versions of synthetic chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. Joseph and Darlene Kiger in Park City, Utah, in 2018. Sure, bitters make cocktails taste great. Thing was, time was running out. Wilbur Tennant had become desperate. He couldnt quite place it. The company told the family that they wanted to use the land to . There also are related substances called precursors that transform into PFOA and PFOS in the body or the environment. 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. 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 carcass was starting to smell. The muscle looked fine, but a thin, yellow liquid gathered in the cavity where it once beat. He especially enjoyed hunting, working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson Josh and . 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. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Even though he sold them to be finished and slaughtered for beef, he didnt have the heart to kill one himself, unless it had a broken leg and he needed to end its suffering. But friends knew the grandson of one of their neighbors had become an environmental lawyer in Cincinnati. 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. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. PFOA is part of a larger class of PFAS chemicals. GRAPHIC CONTENT: An excerpt from Wilbur Earl Tennant's video showing the mysterious wasting disease affecting his cows in the 1990s. 3M and DuPont have argued in court and in public statements that neither chemical is harmful to people at typical levels of exposure. He made for an imposing figure at six feet tall, lean and broad shouldered, his . 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 . Shes poor as a whippoorwill. Bilott found studies that potentially linked PFOA with a variety of cancers, birth defects, and illnesses. Its head was tipped back at an awkward angle. 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.. 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. It wasnt just his cattle dying. Predictably, his complaints to government went ignored.