The underdog was a farmer whose family worked the land for generations, building it from a small operation to a thriving livelihood. 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. Thats the largest gall I ever saw in my life! So, the couple sold about 60 acres to DuPont. It kicked and thumped and wallered around there like you wouldnt believe.. 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 >>>. "In 1991, DuPont scientists determined an internal safety limit for PFOA concentration in drinking water: one part per billion. 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. This cookie is associated with Django web development platform for python. LinkedIn sets the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection. He knew his neighbors and his community was being poisoned, Bilott told the Post. He was 7 years old. And it takes immense courage and conviction to do that. There is about a teacup or so full of itits a real dark yeller. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. In less than two years he had lost at least one hundred calves and more than fifty cows. But you just give me time. The TiPMix cookie is set by Azure to determine which web server the users must be directed to. The cattle farmer stood at the edge of a creek that cut through a sun-dappled hollow. 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. We consulted a variety of sources, including Nathaniel Richs 2016 New York Times Magazine feature The Lawyer Who Became DuPonts Worst Nightmare (upon which the movie is based), Bilotts own book, other longform articles, and attorney Harry Deitzler (the personal-injury lawyer played in the movie by Bill Pullman), to help sort out whats true and whats embellished. As company scientists noted in internal documents, Nine out of ten people in the highest-dosed group were noticeably ill for an average of nine hours with flu-like symptoms that included chills, backache, fever, and coughing.. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. DuPont did not tell this to the Tennants at the time." The C8 Science Study (named for DuPonts internal code for PFOA) found a probable link between the chemical and certain diseases in humans, some of which 3M and DuPont had found in animals years, if not decades, earlier. Wilbur Earl Tennant was a cattle farmer in Parkersburg, Virginia, who was known to his family and friends as Earl. By the late 1990s, West Virginia farmer Wilbur Tennant was at his wits end. It is based on a shocking true story, where a series . I dont recall him drinking, Deitzler says. These cookies help provide anonymized information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. In 2005, DuPont agreed to phase out its use of C8 (PFOA) by 2015, according to The Intercept. Did they think no one would notice? People who didnt know him very well called him Wilbur, but friends and family called him Earl. He couldnt quite place it. DuPont later paid more than $750 million to settle lawsuits filed by Teflon plant neighbors with PFOA-linked diseases, including testicular and kidney cancer, high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease and pregnancy-induced hypertension. Thats the water right there, underneath that foam, the farmer said. 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. The June 23, 2000, letter listed something in the landfill that didnt appear in the other documents or in Tafts chemical dictionaries. Wilbur Tennant and his wife, Sandra, won a legal settlement from DuPont two years ago after they accused the company of sickening their family and killing their cattle by dumping C8 into a landfill near their farm. DuPont de Nemours & Co., used to dump chemical waste from the company's . 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. In 1981 , 3M found that ingestion of . This cookie is set by Facebook to display advertisements when either on Facebook or on a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising, after visiting the website. He made for an imposing figure at six feet tall, lean and broad shouldered, his . ''Rob's letter lifted the curtain on a . She had a calf over there. Attorney Rob Bilott discusses the Fight Forever Chemicals campaign on Nov. 19, 2019. In 1970, a company that purchased 3Ms PFOS-based firefighting foam abruptly halted a demonstration after it killed fish in a nearby stream. Despite internal debate, it declined to make the information public," the magazinenotes. Washington, West Virginia. Tennant stated that . How would you like for your livestock to have to drink something like that? he asked his imagined audience. Deer, birds, fish and other wildlife were turning up dead in and around Dry Run. It contained an extraordinarily high concentration of PFOA. Both companies denied any wrongdoing. Bilott did marry a fellow lawyer, Sarah Barlage, who left her career defending corporations against workers compensation claims to raise their sons. Edit your search or learn more. The muscle looked fine, but a thin, yellow liquid gathered in the cavity where it once beat. And if it weren't for one West Virginia farmer, Wilbur Tennant, we still might not know much about them. These cookies do not allow the tracking of navigation on other websites and the data collected is not combined or shared with third parties. Somebodys not doing their duty, he said to the camera, to anyone who would listen. The farmhouse stood at the foot of a sloping meadow that rose into a bald knob. 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. Photos by Focus Features and Mike Coppola/Getty Images. His cattle now drank from its pools. By that point, 153 animals died had died grisly deaths on his property . Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better experience for the visitors. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. In October 2018, he filed a lawsuit on behalf of a firefighter, who used fire suppression foam and equipment containing PFAS for 40 years. Location of conflict: Little Hocking, City of Belpre, Tuppers Plains, Village of Pomeroy, Lubeck Public Service District, and Mason County Public Service District: . 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 . 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. 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 . Wilbur Earl Tennant, 67 of New England passed away suddenly at his residence May 15, 2009. He died of cancer in 2009; he was 67. 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. Sure, bitters make cocktails taste great. Similarly, Bilotts boss, Tom Terp (Tim Robbins), is not on the record as ever having threatened to cut Bilotts balls off and feed them to DuPont himself if his subordinate were to ever again unilaterally send internal documents found via discovery to a federal regulatory agency or speak on his findings to Congress. 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. It smelled rotten. Bilott is back in court again. 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. His name is Wilbur Tennant. 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 the camera a few degrees. Wamsley suffered from ulcerative colitis, a condition that can lead to rectal cancer, which, in his case 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." The visit to the Grahams' farm was one of his happiest childhood memories. 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. Tennant didnt live to witness the scope of what unfolded after he persuaded Bilott to file the lawsuit about his dead cows. 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. Wilbur Tennant shot this video in the late 1990s on his property in West Virginia. That's just some of the video footage Wilbur showed lawyer Robert Bilott, according to an excerpt from Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. Tennant had a problem. But what about the alarming moment when a fire breaks out at the home of Joseph Kigers father, who shares his name? The company turned this land into the unlined Dry Run Landfill. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson . Wilbur Tennant passed away on May 15, 2009 at the age of 67 in Washington, West Virginia. It was to be incinerated or sent to chemical-waste facilities. Wilbur Tennant is one farmer in a community who sees DuPont as something more than an employer. 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. Robert Bilott isn't done. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". On paper, Rob Bilott didnt appear to be one of those crusading lawyers in legal thrillers. Born: March 6, 1942 . Thats very unusual. This cookie is used for load balancing purposes. GRAPHIC CONTENT: An excerpt from Wilbur Earl Tennant's video showing the mysterious wasting disease affecting his cows in the 1990s.