But when DuPont learned that Bilott was preparing a new lawsuit, it announced that it would re-evaluate that figure. The note explained that an unregulated chemical named PFOA had been detected in the drinking water in ‘‘low concentrations,’’ but that it was not a health risk. With the trial looming, Bilott stumbled upon a letter DuPont had sent to the E.P.A. ‘‘I learned how these companies work, how the laws work, how you defend these claims,’’ he said. in leadership positions. But now Taft received a windfall: Bilott and his team of West Virginian plaintiff lawyers received $21.7 million in fees from the settlement. ‘‘I was shocked,’’ he said. . That trial begins in March. | Joe Fassler. He said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should deem the chemicals hazardous substances and set a drinking water standard for them within two years. It did not appear on any list of regulated materials, nor could he find it in Taft’s in-house library. It was, he says again, ‘‘the right thing to do.’’ Bilott might have had the practiced look of a corporate lawyer — soft-spoken, milk-complected, conservatively attired — but the job had not come naturally to him. . This arrangement, which largely allows chemical companies to regulate themselves, is the reason that the E.P.A. Now 1990. Still, Kiger might have forgotten about it had his wife, Darlene, not already spent much of her adulthood thinking about PFOA. And the DuPont fortune, expanding with the company as it went from gunpowder maker to chemical behemoth, still supports some 3,500 members of … Would you like to receive desktop browser notifications about breaking news and other major stories? Then he took on an environmental suit that would upend his entire career — and expose a brazen, decades-long history of chemical pollution. Given what Bilott had documented in his Famous Letter, Taft stood by its partner. The attacks recurred periodically, bringing blurry vision, slurred speech and difficulty moving one side of his body. The email went on to extol TERA’s ability “to assemble a package and then sell this to EPA, or whomever we desired.”. Bilott spent the following months drafting a public brief against DuPont. He had not attended college or law school in the Ivy League. DuPont reacted quickly, requesting a gag order to block Bilott from providing the information he had discovered in the Tennant case to the government. These were bad facts.’’ He had seen what the PFOA-tainted drinking water had done to cattle. Copyright © 2020, Environmental Working Group. In 1961, a DuPont toxicologist warned the chemicals enlarge rat and rabbit livers. Verizon rolls out $80 unlimited data plan, This story has been shared 25,538 times. DuPont is one of the world’s largest producers of chemicals and science-based products. He didn’t complain. In all ways but one, Bilott himself was in the ideal position to file such a suit. As Lerner reports, DuPont recommended TERA, the science-for-hire firm founded and led by Dourson. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently operated a site in Parkersburg that is more than 35 times the size of the Pentagon, was responsible. Denise Rutherford, senior vice-president of corporate affairs for 3M, argued the chemicals pose no human health threats at current levels and have no victims, conflicting with a large body of research and 3M’s own internal documents. Rob is a private person. But his heels were so dug in. Extensive data has been developed, demonstrating that these alternatives are much more rapidly eliminated from the body than PFOA, and have improved health safety profiles. Legal Disclaimer updated April 2016 | Privacy Policy updated October 2019. The California representative Harley Rouda, who chairs the subcommittee, accused the companies of obscuring and suppressing evidence in what he called a “seismic event” that “shakes the foundation of democratic capitalism” by “violating the trust of the American people”. The 3M Company, the Chemours Company and DuPont appeared before lawmakers over PFAS, Last modified on Wed 11 Sep 2019 09.45 EDT. Close-ups follow of the calf’s blackened teeth (‘‘They say that’s due to high concentrations of fluoride in the water that they drink’’), its liver, heart, stomachs, kidneys and gall bladder. In the last five years, however, a new wave of endocrinology research has found that even extremely low doses of such chemicals can create significant health problems. Lifelong friends ignored the Tennants on the streets of Parkersburg and walked out of restaurants when they entered. ‘‘I couldn’t blame the Tennants for getting angry.’’. It was assured that the panel would return convincing results. But Bilott could not predict what those results would be. It appeared on no federal or state list of contaminants. ‘‘It’s about high time that someone in the state department of something-or-another got off their cans.’’, At one point, the video cuts to a skinny red cow standing in hay. Rob Bilott on land owned by the Tennants near Parkersburg, W.Va.Credit...Bryan Schutmaat for The New York Times. ‘‘My first impression was that he was not like other guys,’’ she says. ‘‘I learned to question everything you read,’’ he said. Two: If I do, is it harmful? If Dourson’s nomination is confirmed by the Senate, he’ll be taking the helm of the EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention as crucial decisions loom about PFOA and related chemicals in the family of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs. Alarmed, DuPont transferred all female workers out of the plant. is an extraordinary remedy. The evidence continued to build for years, as outlined by health advocacy organization the Environmental Working Group. He took depositions from plant employees, perused public records and organized huge amounts of historical data. ‘‘The blood run out of their noses and out their mouths. It announced a new threshold: 150 parts per billion. ‘‘We were incurring a lot of expenses,’’ Bilott says. DuPont both used PFOA in its Teflon products and then manufactured the chemical before spinning off that part of the business into a new company, Chemours. ... I’m going to start at this head.’’, The video cuts to a calf’s bisected head. In 1991, DuPont scientists determined an internal safety limit for PFOA concentration in drinking water: one part per billion. The camera zooms in, revealing a mound of soapy froth. Chemours, which was spun off from DuPont to house its performance chemicals segment, said it will pay half of the settlement. ‘‘It was something you could do to make a difference.’’ When, after graduation, Taft made him an offer, his mentors and friends from New College were aghast. Two years passed without any findings. The whole business might have ended right there. Sixteen years after residents filed suit claiming to have been injured from poisonous water, DuPont and Chemours Co. said on Monday they had agreed to pay about $671 million in cash to settle several lawsuits related to the leak of a toxic chemical it used to make Teflon. ‘‘I had the impression that it was extremely tough on him,’’ Winter says. I just tried to get the best job I could. (Reuters) - DuPont and Chemours Co have agreed to pay $671 million in cash to settle thousands of lawsuits involving a leak of a toxic chemical used to make Teflon, the companies said on Monday. By the ’90s, Bilott discovered, DuPont understood that PFOA caused cancerous testicular, pancreatic and liver tumors in lab animals. When asked for evidence, it forwarded two letters written to West Virginian government agencies from 1982 and 1992, both of which cited internal studies that called into question links between PFOA exposure and human health problems.). ‘‘You can’t ignore the economic realities of the ways that business is run and the way clients think. Joe called the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources (‘‘They treated me like I had the plague’’), the Parkersburg office of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (‘‘nothing to worry about’’), the water division (‘‘I got shut down’’), the local health department (‘‘just plain rude’’), even DuPont (‘‘I was fed the biggest line of [expletive] anybody could have been fed’’), before a scientist in the regional E.P.A. ‘‘The way that transpired was just amazing to me,’’ Bilott says. ‘‘We were getting frustrated,’’ Bilott said. Taft continued to pay consultants to interpret the new findings and relay them to the epidemiologists. hundreds of military bases, airports and fire department training sites.

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