We lurched down a rutted dirt road past the old clapboard farmhouse where he grew up. He died of cancer in 2009. 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 farmers name was Wilbur Earl Tennant. 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. But what about the alarming moment when a fire breaks out at the home of Joseph Kigers father, who shares his name? No one would help him. . 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. Despite internal debate, it declined to make the information public," the magazinenotes. Behind him, white-faced Herefords grazed in rolling meadows. Today, that site is home to Chemours Washington Works, a spinoff of DuPont that employs more than 600 people and produces a variety of products used in construction, aerospace, and household goods. 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). His name is Wilbur Tennant. Dry Run used to flow gin clear. The Messed Up True Story Behind Dark Waters, Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia. Revelations by another chemical company gave Bilott leverage to go back into court and request more records from DuPont. Attached to it was a gallbladder that didnt. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. These emerging contaminants linger, breaking down only when incinerated at very high temperatures. It stars Mark Ruffalo as Bilott, along with Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare . The substance is stable, persistent, and very difficult to break down. They just turn their back and walk on, he told the camera. He was born at New England, a son of the late Blaine Tennant and Lydia (Wildman) Tennant. And if it sounds familiar, it should. Then, in 1998 Bilott received a phone call from Wilbur Tennant who lived on his farm in Parkersburg, West Virginia. And it takes immense courage and conviction to do that. Bill Pullman was portraying me, and hes taller and younger, and everyone appeared to be drinking. PFOA and PFOS are among more than 9,000 versions of synthetic chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS. He focuses on the froth-covered creek before the tape cuts to a dissected calf with blackened teeth and oddly colored organs. During manufacturing processes, PFAS chemicals are released into the air, soil, and water around industrial facilities, the EPA reports. 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. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. C8 and other long-chain per-fluorinated chemicals are used in a myriad of household, industrial, and commercial products. (He later would be played by actor Mark Ruffalo in the 2019 film Dark Waters.). It was different from the regular dead-cow smells he had dealt with all his life. W. Earl Tennant Wilbur Earl Tennant, 67 of New England passed away suddenly at his residence May 15, 2009. . ''Rob's letter lifted the curtain on a . 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. "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. July 7, 1996 Washington, West Virginia. Tennants Farm Pond Dam is a cultural feature (dam) in Wood County. Tennant Farm, December 1999, from DuPont Cattle Team Report. It all started with Wilbur Tennant's dying cows. 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. Earl had come to believe that its water was now poisonedwith what, he did not know. Call him, they suggested. Her calf, black and white, lay dead on its side in a circle of matted grass. 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. 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. But you just give me time. Whatever had killed this cow appeared to Earl to have eaten her from the inside out. A farmer's cows suddenly start dying off. 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. Tennant was a farmer who sold part of his land in Parkersburg, West Virginia, to DuPont, for Wilbur Tennant vs. DuPont on Vimeo According to the book, DuPont had commissioned a photographer to take aerial photos of the property as part of its defense. 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. Nor was it on the list of substances regulated by the EPA. He made for an imposing figure at six feet tall, lean and broad shouldered, his . A thicker foam gathered in eddies, trembling like egg whites whipped into stiff peaks so high they sometimes blew off on a breeze. . 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. 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. One tooth had an abscess so large he reckoned he could stick an ice pick clear under it. 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. 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. . There also are related substances called precursors that transform into PFOA and PFOS in the body or the environment. . When the Grahams heard in 1998 that Wilbur Tennant was looking for legal help, they remembered Bilott, White's grandson, who had grown up to become an environmental . 'Dark Waters' is an upcoming American legal thriller helmed by Todd Haynes. DuPont's statement said the film "depict[s] wholly imagined events," calling implications of a cover up "inaccurate," and claimed that it "grossly misrepresents" what happened. Much like many river cities, Parkersburg's history speaks of a working class, industrial heritage, which saw companies set up shop on the shores of the Ohio River, bringing jobs and economic stability. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. "I've been dealing with this for . 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). It looked, at most, a few days old. 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 Teflon Toxin, Part 2: Wilbur Tennant vs. DuPontNot Yet Rated. 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. At fifty-four, Earl was an imposing figure, six feet tall, lean and oxshouldered, with sandpaper hands and a permanent squint. 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. Copyright 2019 by Robert Bilott. People who didnt know him very well called him Wilbur, but friends and family called him Earl. They're in virtually everything we use, including stain-resistant fabric and carpets, nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, and firefighting foam. The farmhouse stood at the foot of a sloping meadow that rose into a bald knob. Bilott has spent more than twenty years litigating hazardous dumping of the chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). And if it weren't for one West Virginia farmer, Wilbur Tennant, we still might not know much about them. Wilbur Tennant's family farm was located next to a "non-hazardous" landfill operated by the chemical company. Some of the more surprising moments in the film were in fact real and confirmed by Bilott in his memoir about the case, like when the farmer Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp), who brought the case to . 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.. The herd that had once been nearly three hundred head had dwindled to just about half that. However, the company didn't tell employees or regulators and ended the study, the Huffington Post reports. Bilott had now discovered the cause in the deaths of the cattle on Tennant's farm and had called DuPont regarding this information. At least thats what his family had been told thirteen years before by the company that had bought their land. If Wilbur Earl Tennants cows hadnt died from a mysterious wasting disease during the 1990s, the world might have never learned about the secret history of toxic forever chemicals. Wilbur Tennant is one farmer in a community who sees DuPont as something more than an employer. ATSDR/CDC also notes that more studies need to be done in the area of health effects, particularly on shorter-chain substances. Mr. Tennant believed early on that something coming out of the plant and landfill was poisoning the water and the animals on his farm. Dark Waters tells a story that in many ways is still being written, and itwill likely take years for this latest lawsuit to be resolved. 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. 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 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. (Maddie McGarvey/for the Washington Post). DuPont's scientists understood that the landfill drained into the Tennants' remaining property, and they tested the water in Dry Run Creek. 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 Tennant explained that he and his four siblings had run the cattle farm since their father abandoned them as children. The pipe flowed out of a collection pond at the low end of a landfill. 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. He was 7 years old. In 1973 she [took] him to the cattle farm belonging to the Tennants' neighbors, the Grahams, with whom White was friendly. working in the garden and around the farm with his grandson . Tennant and his brother Jim wanted to get to the bottom of it, so they dissected some carcasses. In 1998, corporate lawyer Robert Bilott ( Mark Ruffalo) is approached by Wilbur Tennant ( Bill Camp) a farmer from his hometown of Parkersburg, West Virginia. The cows grazed on a mixed pasture of white Dutch clover, bluegrass, fescue, red clover . For decades it had been the backbone of 3Ms Scotchgard brand of stain-resistant products. song that goes bum bum bum 2020. wilbur tennant farm locationconservation international ceo. 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. From playing with computers to building networks: How the space for Black Software was made. And Im gonna cut her open and find out what caused her to die. In another field, a grown cow lay dead. He had formerly worked for the Wood County Schools as a bus. In November 2019, the Washington Post hosted a podcast with Mark Ruffalo and Robert Bilott to discuss the film and the lawsuit. People who didn't know him very well called him Wilbur, but friends and family called him Earl. Its something I have never run into before., He reached back into the cow and pulled out a liver that looked about right. On the other side of his property line, Dry Run Landfill was filling up the little valley that had once belonged to his family. It is based on a shocking true story, where a series . The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. This cookie is installed by Google Universal Analytics to restrain request rate and thus limit the collection of data on high traffic sites. wilbur tennant farm location . These cookies help provide anonymized information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. The cattle farmer stood at the edge of a creek that cut through a sun-dappled hollow. 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. Photo illustration by Slate. He had carried a rifle as he went about the farm, always ready to shoot dinner. Once this came to light, reports indicate, the Tennants settled their lawsuit against DuPont in August 2000, but the fight wasn't over. And, like many Grisham novels, it's a tale worthy of the big screen. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. The first thing Im gonna do is cut this head open, check these teeth.. He was speaking to the camcorder pressed to his eye. Then one autumn day in 2000, local schoolteacher Joe Kiger . His cattle now drank from its pools. Wilbur Earl Tennant was a cattle farmer in Parkersburg, Virginia, who was known to his family and friends as Earl. Foam began appearing in a creek that meandered past the landfill before spilling into the Tennants pasture, he later testified in a court filing. Bubbles formed as it tumbled over stones in a sudsy film. "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. DuPont determined that PFOA passed from pregnant employees to their fetuses. This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. In 2005, the company agreed to fund studies on the health effects of C8. I could find no record of any such incident taking place. The cookie does not store any personally identifiable data. 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.). 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. The state vet wouldnt even come out to the farm. Eight years later 3M paused one of its animal studies after every monkey fed PFOS died. 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 . 30 Broad Street, Suite 801 Lawyers in Parkersburg, West Virginia, turned him down when he urged them to sue DuPont, then one of areas biggest employers. The problem had to be Dry Run, he thought. But two years before 3M announced its phaseout in 2000, the company informed EPA officials for the first time that PFOA and PFOS accumulate in human blood, take years to leave the body and dont break down in the environment. 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." How would you like for your livestock to have to drink something like that? he asked his imagined audience. Recently, the cows had started charging, trying to kick him and butt him with their heads, as this one had before she died. 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. Jim still calls it "the home place," although its windows are now boarded up and the outhouse is crumbling into the field. DuPont de Nemours & Co., used to dump chemical waste from the company's . Wilbur Earl Tennant and his siblings took over the land when their father abandoned them in the 1950s, according to the Huffington Post. 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. He sliced open the chest cavity, pulled out a lung, and turned the camera back on. . 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.. 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. Edit your search or learn more. 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 1970, a company that purchased 3Ms PFOS-based firefighting foam abruptly halted a demonstration after it killed fish in a nearby stream. Anne Hathaway as Sarah Bilott and the real-life Sarah Bilott. I dont ever remember seeing that in there before., He cut out the heart and sliced it open. He zoomed out and panned over to an industrial pipe spewing froth into the creek. "In 1991, DuPont scientists determined an internal safety limit for PFOA concentration in drinking water: one part per billion. Sometimes the cattle watered at a spring-fed bathtub trough at the farthest end of the field, but mostly they drank from Dry Run. Cookie used to remember the user's Disqus login credentials across websites that use Disqus. In the meantime, people are drinking these chemicals every day. A load balancing cookie set to ensure requests by a client are sent to the same origin server. But now it seemed they were ignoring him. Initial data showed evidence that it did. He panned again: a bonfire on a grassy slope, a pyre of logs as fat as garbage cans. Its just like that other calf up yonder, he said, panning over the matted grass. That calf had died miserable. Thats whats so scary about these chemicals, said Jamie DeWitt, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at East Carolina University who studies PFAS. Bilott later determined it was one of the forever chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid, commonly referred to today as PFOA. '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. "PFASs are extremely persistent in the environment primarily because the chemical bond between the carbon and fluorine atoms is extremely strong and stable," according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The olive green water had a greenish brown foam encrusting the grassy bank. 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. 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. apples, bread, green beans and ground beef. Late in the film, a disillusioned Bilott (Mark Ruffalo), up against a wall, imagines that the multinational corporation, the likes of which he once defended, might be setting him up to be a cautionary tale for all their would-be litigants: Look, everybody, even he cant crack the maze, Bilott says, and hes helped build it.. 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. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. izuku has a rare quirk fanfiction; novello olive oil trader joe's; micah mcfadden parents; qatar airways 787 9 business class; mary holland married; spontaneous novel ending explained There is something wrong with this water, Tennant says on the videotape. Wilbur Tennant had become desperate. After this sale, Tennant's cattle started to become sick and Tennant began to understand that . See how thats all wallered down? 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. Dont understand that at all. He suspected one of his town's largest employers was up to no good, allegedly dumping chemicals and contaminating his farm's water supply, and the result was hundreds of sickened and dead cattle. On the other line was Wilbur Tennant (played by Bill Camp), a cattle farmer from Parkersburg, W.V. A few years after the sale, Tennant suspected DuPont had filled the landfill with more than just garbage. He owned 200 cows that grazed on 600 acres. When DuPont settled that lawsuit in 2004, the company agreed to finance a study of PFOAs health effects. Just because there really is something in the water doesnt mean you cant also be paranoid. Twitter sets this cookie to integrate and share features for social media and also store information about how the user uses the website, for tracking and targeting. Wilbur Tennant showed Bilott alarming video footage in which his previously docile animals had turned . Did they think he would just sit by? Now it looked like dirty dishwater. In the 1980s, Jim Tennant and his wife, Della, got an offer from DuPont. "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.". Location of conflict: Little Hocking, City of Belpre, Tuppers Plains, Village of Pomeroy, Lubeck Public Service District, and Mason County Public Service District: . DuPont settled the Tennant case for an undisclosed amount. 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. The use of these cookies is strictly limited to measuring the site's audience. The flies hummed as loud as bees. Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. 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 . 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. In the flames, a calf lay broadside, burning. DuPont then really did proceed to turn that plot into a dumping ground for sludge that it knew to be toxic, going so far as to quietly conduct tests for perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in the nearby river and expressing concern for the health of the Tennants livestock in internal documents nearly a decade before they would be denying culpability and blaming the Tennants in court. Photos by Focus Features and EPK. It wasnt his first. Trial lawyer Harry Deitzler, whos played by Bill Pullman in the film, told Slate in a telephone interview that while Dark Waters captured Bilotts sense of commitment and general modesty, it was less accurate in its depiction on one particular issue: Robert Bilott has not been known to be an especially big fan of Mai Tais, either in general or on special occasions. His pleas for help fell on deaf ears, according to the Huffington Post's article, "Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia." Thank you for helping us continue making science fun for everyone. 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. 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.