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. 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. His earlier efforts had all revealed unpleasant surprises: tumors, abnormal organs, unnatural smells. This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management. Jim still calls it "the home place," although its windows are now boarded up and the outhouse is crumbling into the field. DuPont determined that PFOA passed from pregnant employees to their fetuses. Wilbur Earl Tennant - May 15, 2009 - Obituary - Tributes.com This cookie is native to PHP applications. Rob Bilott's Exposure is a real-life whodunit, a page-turning courtroom drama, a David-and-Goliath story of one man against an industrial colossus and a shocking expos of America's utterly broken environmental policy.You should also take this book personally - because the "exposure" of the title is yours. The farm spread roughly 600 acres, and had a total of 200 cattle roaming around. PFAS are ubiquitous. Wilbur Tennant - Ancestry.com The cookie does not store any personally identifiable data. Sloan Science & Film At fifty-four, Earl was an . It is cut from the same cloth as movies like 'Erin Brockovich' and 'A Civil Action'. There is something wrong with this water, Tennant says on the videotape. AWSALB is an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target. Hunting had been one of Earls greatest pleasures. He was 7 years old. Join Facebook to connect with Wilbur Tennant and others you may know. It dont do you any good to go to the DNR about it. The Messed Up True Story Behind Dark Waters - Grunge.com Attorney Rob Bilott discusses the Fight Forever Chemicals campaign on Nov. 19, 2019. 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). After this sale, Tennant's cattle started to become sick and Tennant began to understand that . Its something I have never run into before., He reached back into the cow and pulled out a liver that looked about right. Class Action - Part 1. Bubbles formed as it tumbled over stones in a sudsy film. 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. 0 Comments Comments wilbur tennant farm location . A few years after the sale, Tennant suspected DuPont had filled the landfill with more than just garbage. Anyone could see that something was terribly wrong, not only with the landfill itself but with the agencies responsible for monitoring it. 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.". Home. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. At the end of the movie, I had a revelation. Bilott is back in court again. 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. Bilott later determined it was one of the forever chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid, commonly referred to today as PFOA. a series of Camcorder videos showing "soapy froth" in a creek running through DuPont's landfill property and into Tennant's farm. Invest in quality science journalism by making a donation to Science Friday. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. A load balancing cookie set to ensure requests by a client are sent to the same origin server. SiteLock sets this cookie to provide cloud-based website security services. It dont do you any good to go to the DNR about it. 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. Isnt that lovely?. Over the decades they steadily acquired land and cattle, until 200 cows roamed more than 600 hilly acres. The Tennants had sold some of their property to DuPont years earlier. He focuses on the froth-covered creek before the tape cuts to a dissected calf with blackened teeth and oddly colored organs. Tennant didnt live to witness the scope of what unfolded after he persuaded Bilott to file the lawsuit about his dead cows. Sue Bailey was pregnant when she worked in the Teflon division of the plant. Wilbur Tennant passed away on May 15, 2009 at the age of 67 in Washington, West Virginia. Robert Bilott isn't done. Maybe if he filmed it, they could see for themselves and realize he was not just some crazy old farmer. Jim Tennant and his wife, Della, sold DuPont a 66-acre tract of land that became part of the Dry Run Landfill. GRAPHIC CONTENT: An excerpt from Wilbur Earl Tennant's video showing the mysterious wasting disease affecting his cows in the 1990s. And now, another side of the DuPont story | Cape Gazette These cookies help provide anonymized information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. And after Bilott watched and listened, he took action. Edit your search or learn more. (Maddie McGarvey/for the Washington Post). About 600 are in use today, according to the EPA. Interview: Todd Haynes on - Slant Magazine During manufacturing processes, PFAS chemicals are released into the air, soil, and water around industrial facilities, the EPA reports. DuPont bought 66 acres of the Tennant's farm land from Wilbur Tennant's brother Jim and his wife Della [1]. In short, I was playing for the opposite team, Bilott recalled in his memoir about the lawsuit he ended up filing against DuPont and the explosive aftermath. On the other side of his property line, Dry Run Landfill was filling up the little valley that had once belonged to his family. May 15, 2009; Location: Washington, West Virginia; Tribute & Message From The Family. Her calf, black and white, lay dead on its side in a circle of matted grass. He zoomed out and panned over to an industrial pipe spewing froth into the creek. 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. The company told the family that they wanted to use the land to . A creek connects the landfill and the fields of Tennant's farm. wilbur tennant farm location The same year, DuPont found that water in one local district contained PFOA levels at three times that figure. 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 . C8 is a "surfactant," a chemical compound that reduces surface tension. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The Burden of Truth in 'Dark Waters' - Film School Rejects song that goes bum bum bum 2020. wilbur tennant farm locationconservation international ceo. This cookie is used for load balancing purposes. 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. But friends knew the grandson of one of their neighbors had become an environmental lawyer in Cincinnati. 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. Wilbur Earl Tennant (1942-2009) - Find a Grave Memorial The TiPMix cookie is set by Azure to determine which web server the users must be directed to. In 2005, DuPont agreed to phase out its use of C8 (PFOA) by 2015, according to The Intercept. Earl had come to believe that its water was now poisonedwith what, he did not know. Theres been fifty-six cows thats been burnt just like this.. . "The innards was bright green.". 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. 'Dark Waters' Review: The Killing Fields of West Virginia June 14, 2022. Dry spells shrank it to a necklace of pools that winked with silver minnows. DuPont, Billot, Tennant and PFOA - vanessawilliams - Suffolk University It was small and ephemeral, fed by the rains that gathered in the creases of the ancient mountains that rumpled West Virginia and gave it those misty blue, almost-heaven vistas. Recently, the cows had started charging, trying to kick him and butt him with their heads, as this one had before she died. In the 1990s Wilbur began to notice weird deformities in his cows and some of them were even dying. 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. 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. The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare - Brutal Proof 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. Where they should have been smooth, they looked ropy, covered with ridges. Wilbur Earl Tennant, 67 of New England passed away suddenly at his residence May 15, 2009. Leadership Lessons From Rob Bilott's 20 Year Battle For - Forbes are linked to DuPont's landfilling of PFOA. 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. Revelations by another chemical company gave Bilott leverage to go back into court and request more records from DuPont. "I've been dealing with this for . 'Dark Waters' is an upcoming American legal thriller helmed by Todd Haynes. Wilbur Tennant showed Bilott alarming video footage in which his previously docile animals had turned . Persistent farmer whose cows died from a mysterious disease helped They're in virtually everything we use, including stain-resistant fabric and carpets, nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, and firefighting foam. Bilott is seeking class-action status in the case against several companies, including 3M and Chemours. Photos by Focus Features and EPK. The True Story of 'Dark Waters': How Accurate are the Characters? - The It was contaminated with high levels of PFOA. In October 2018, he filed a lawsuit on behalf of a firefighter, who used fire suppression foam and equipment containing PFAS for 40 years. 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. Wilbur Tennant is one farmer in a community who sees DuPont as something more than an employer. "Though PFOA was not classified by the government as a hazardous substance, 3M sent DuPont recommendations on how to dispose of it. The goal of the merger was to combine two businesses that dabbled in . What "Dark Waters" gets right about the DuPont/PFAS water pollution case 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.. Thunderstorms occasionally swelled the creek so much that he couldnt wade across it. 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. Predictably, his complaints to government went ignored. How accurately does Dark Waters depict the twists and turns of this maze? He was an excellent marksman, and his family had always had enough meat to eat. 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. People who didnt know him very well called him Wilbur, but friends and family called him Earl. Drawing Parallels between the Dupont Chemical accident and The Westlake 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 Story of DuPont - 1 - ENVMAT He knew the folks at the DNR, because they gave him a special permit to hunt on his land out of season. Black smoke curled into the daylight. 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. It kicked and thumped and wallered around there like you wouldnt believe.. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Quite soon after DuPont establishes their landfill, weird things start happening to his cattle.