All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. In the meantime, people are drinking these chemicals every day. Location of conflict: Little Hocking, City of Belpre, Tuppers Plains, Village of Pomeroy, Lubeck Public Service District, and Mason County Public Service District: . They are everywhere. 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. (Maddie McGarvey/for the Washington Post). Deer, birds, fish and other wildlife were turning up dead in and around Dry Run. DuPont established a presence along the Ohio River in 1948 with the Washington Works plant near Parkersburg. R ob Bilott, a corporate lawyer-turned-environmental crusader, doesn't much care if he's made enemies over the years. With Sue Bailey, Bucky Bailey, Ken Wamsley, Wilbur Tennant. 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. Thats very unusual. "Though PFOA was not classified by the government as a hazardous substance, 3M sent DuPont recommendations on how to dispose of it. "In 1991, DuPont scientists determined an internal safety limit for PFOA concentration in drinking water: one part per billion. Eight years later 3M paused one of its animal studies after every monkey fed PFOS died. But friends knew the grandson of one of their neighbors had become an environmental lawyer in Cincinnati. Sometimes it ran so dry hed find them glittering dead in the mud. From playing with computers to building networks: How the space for Black Software was made. 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. About 600 are in use today, according to the EPA. Tennant's farm is close to a newly DuPont-owned landfill. Robert Bilott isn't done. Now, he was feeding them twice as much and watching them waste away. Wilbur Earl Tennant. 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. June 14, 2022. Home. DuPont did not tell this to the Tennants at the time." 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 pipe flowed out of a collection pond at the low end of a landfill. 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. In his memoir, Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont, published earlier this year, Bilott says that doctors could only really diagnose the issue as unusual brain activity after an MRI similar to the one he undergoes in the film. working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson . Two of seven babies born to Teflon plant employees in 1981 had facial deformities similar to what 3M had found in newborn rats. 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 . This cookie is managed by Amazon Web Services and is used for load balancing. 3M and DuPont have argued in court and in public statements that neither chemical is harmful to people at typical levels of exposure. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. 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. Over the decades they steadily acquired land and cattle, until 200 cows roamed more than 600 hilly acres. The olive green water had a greenish brown foam encrusting the grassy bank. 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.. Whatever had killed this cow appeared to Earl to have eaten her from the inside out. 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. The other companies named in the lawsuit did not respond to Time's requests for comment. The underdog was a farmer whose family worked the land for generations, building it from a small operation to a thriving livelihood. July 7, 1996 Washington, West Virginia. 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). A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface. Wilbur Tennant's family farm was located next to a "non-hazardous" landfill operated by the chemical company. Tennant and his brother Jim wanted to get to the bottom of it, so they dissected some carcasses. Next door to Tennant's farm was a landfill owned by E.I. Created by Bluecadet. NID cookie, set by Google, is used for advertising purposes; to limit the number of times the user sees an ad, to mute unwanted ads, and to measure the effectiveness of ads. None of this information was shared with the public. May 15, 2009; Location: Washington, West Virginia; Tribute & Message From The Family. It is cut from the same cloth as movies like 'Erin Brockovich' and 'A Civil Action'. Did they think he would just sit by? The farmhouse stood at the foot of a sloping meadow that rose into a bald knob. After this sale, Tennant's cattle started to become sick and Tennant began to understand that . 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.. 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. During the course of the litigation, we have confirmed that the chemicals and pollutants released into the environment by DuPont may pose an imminent and substantial threat to health and the environment, Bilott wrote at the beginning of his March 6, 2001, letter. DuPont's own instructions specified that it was not to be flushed into surface water or sewers," according to the New York Times Magazine. People who didn't know him very well called him Wilbur, but friends and family called him Earl. In another field, a grown cow lay dead. Somebodys not doing their duty, he said to the camera, to anyone who would listen. Bilott's grandmother had lived close by, and as a child he had spent a summer on a neighbouring farm, where family members recalled that Bilott had grown up to become an environmental lawyer, and put his name forward to the Tennants. The carcass was starting to smell. 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. Tennants Farm Pond Dam, Wood County, West Virginia. It wasnt his first. DuPont's response was they would settle with the Tennant's however Bilott was . It dont do you any good to go to the DNR about it. The suit alleges negligence claiming the chemicals contaminated the state's natural resources, according to New Hampshire Public Radio. 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. Tennant Farm, December 1999, from DuPont Cattle Team Report. 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. The pattern element in the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. Both companies denied any wrongdoing. 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. I noticed that in at least one of the scenes where I was portrayed. You notice them dark place there, all down through? He had stopped feeding his family venison from the deer he shot on his land. He knew the folks at the DNR, because they gave him a special permit to hunt on his land out of season. Washington, West Virginia. AWSALB is an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Wilbur Earl Tennant and his siblings took over the land when their father abandoned them in the 1950s, according to the Huffington Post. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. song that goes bum bum bum 2020. wilbur tennant farm locationconservation international ceo. 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. All rights reserved. The Tennants had sold some of their property to DuPont years earlier. wilbur tennant farm location. The TiPMix cookie is set by Azure to determine which web server the users must be directed to. 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. DuPont's Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. 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. Ill do something about it.. LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. The farmers name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. Sometimes the cattle watered at a spring-fed bathtub trough at the farthest end of the field, but mostly they drank from Dry Run. Its head was tipped back at an awkward angle. 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. A videotape Tennant shot with a VHS camcorder shows emaciated cows with tumors on their hides. Revelations by another chemical company gave Bilott leverage to go back into court and request more records from DuPont. DuPont's scientists understood that the landfill drained into the Tennants' remaining property, and they tested the water in Dry Run Creek. 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. 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. The first thing Im gonna do is cut this head open, check these teeth.. Not even buzzards and scavengers would eat them. He died of . 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 . It wasnt just his cattle dying. The cattle farmer stood at the edge of a creek that cut through a sun-dappled hollow. 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. 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. He was 7 years old. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance. 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. Tennant had a problem. Dark Waters'messed up true story reveals an emerging public health and environmental threat, the pervasiveness of "forever chemicals," and an alleged corporate cover-up. '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. By the 1980s, DuPont had allegedly begun dumping PFOA waste into the Dry Creek Landfill, near the Tennant property. He had formerly worked for the Wood County Schools as a bus. "I've been dealing with this for . Patches of missing hair, discolorations in their . PFOA is part of a larger class of PFAS chemicals. Calf born dead. Earl loved his cows, and the cows loved Earl. "As soon as you cut the skin loose, you get some of the foulest smells you've ever smelled," Jim Tennant told the Huffington Post. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. "We have always and will continue to work with those in the scientific, not-for-profit and policy communities who demonstrate a serious and sincere desire to improve our health, our communities, and our planet.". 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. In a statement to Time, DuPont said it does not produce PFAS but does use them and defended the company's environmental and safety record, noting it has "announced a series of commitments around our limited use of PFAS, including the [sic] eliminating the use of all PFAS-based firefighting foams from our facilities." Quite soon after DuPont establishes their landfill, weird things start happening to his cattle. The farm spread roughly 600 acres, and had a total of 200 cattle roaming around. Where they should have been smooth, they looked ropy, covered with ridges. Bryan Schutmaat for The New York Times. The same year, DuPont found that water in one local district contained PFOA levels at three times that figure. I dont understand them great big dark red places across there. Now it was filled with specimens you might find in a pathology lab. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. 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. 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. 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. C8 and other long-chain per-fluorinated chemicals are used in a myriad of household, industrial, and commercial products. SiteLock sets this cookie to provide cloud-based website security services. Hard labor was his birthright. Joseph and Darlene Kiger in Park City, Utah, in 2018. His name is Wilbur Tennant. Flies. Used to help protect the website against Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks. This cookie is associated with Django web development platform for python. It looked, at most, a few days old. Her son, Bucky, was born in 1981 with nose and eye deformities. It is a chemical used in the manufacturing process of Teflon. She had a calf over there. Wilbur Tennant showed Bilott alarming video footage in which his previously docile animals had turned . Her eyes were sunk deep in her head. That day had never come, so he decided he would make them watch a video. Join Facebook to connect with Wilbur Tennant and others you may know. Wilbur Tennant had become desperate. Excerpt from Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. Did they think he would just sit by? 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. Yes, DuPont is still in business, although it has struggled slightly to survive independently from time to time due to its poor public reputation. . 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. 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. Tennant recounted to anyone who would listen that he'd lost about 100 calves and 50 cows over the years. Earl pulled on white gloves and pried open the cows mouth, probing her gums and teeth. Photo illustration by Slate. This video contains graphic imagery. Wilbur Tennant is on Facebook. Behind him, white-faced Herefords grazed in rolling meadows. (Chicago Tribune Handout). 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 . 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. Nor was it on the list of substances regulated by the EPA. New York, NY 10004. Editors note: In 1999, Robert Bilott sued E.I. oh, two-thirds bigger than it should be., The kidneys, too, looked abnormal. 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." wilbur tennant farm location. 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. Robert Bilott is a partner at Taft, Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, Ohio. But you just give me time. Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyers Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont. The Taft offices are in Cincinnati, Ohio. 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. The visit to the Grahams' farm was one of his happiest childhood memories. As a linchpin bolstering Dark Waters case as a message movie, the events depicted on the Tennant cattle farm in Parkersburg, West Virginia, really ought to be accurate, and for the most part, they are. This cookie is native to PHP applications. Nearly 70,000 people participated. How would you like for your livestock to have to drink something like that? he asked his imagined audience. DuPont immediately removed all female workers from areas where they might come into contact with the chemical.". Then one autumn day in 2000, local schoolteacher Joe Kiger . Wilbur Earl Tennant and his siblings took over the land when their father abandoned them in the 1950s, according to the Huffington Post. The EPA on its own only recently started to take steps to study, monitor, and regulate the use of PFAS and released an update to its action plan programin February 2020. In October 2018, he filed a lawsuit on behalf of a firefighter, who used fire suppression foam and equipment containing PFAS for 40 years. YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. DuPont de Nemours & Co., used to dump chemical waste from the company's .