His litigation efforts yielded more than $671 million dollars in damages for approximately 3,500 people. DuPont also settled with the EPA, agreeing to pay a mere $16.5 million fine for failure to disclose their findings about C8, a toxin that is now estimated to be present in 98 percent of the world's population.
Dark Waters mostly stays true to the real story "Dark Waters" is extremely accurate when compared to the true events, which makes it all the more upsetting. The script is based on the 2016 New York Times article "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare," written by journalist Nathaniel Rich.
Robert Bilott (born August 2, 1965) is an American environmental attorney from Cincinnati, Ohio. Bilott is known for the lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs from West Virginia....Robert BilottAlma materNew College of Florida (BA) Ohio State University (JD)OccupationEnvironmental lawyer5 more rows
Rob has gained international prominence in connection with uncovering and disclosing the world-wide impact of environmental contamination by the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkylated substances), particularly PFOA and PFOS.
According to a 2007 study, C8 is in the blood of 99.7% of Americans. It's called a "forever chemical" because it never fully degrades.
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.
Bilott's health has taken a battering too. A mysterious neurological disorder struck him in 2008. He suffered tremors and a palsy on his right side which turned into violent shaking convulsions up and down the right side of his body. The episodes would return at unexpected moments, leaving Bilott incapacitated.
Robert Bilott is a partner at the law firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister, LLP in Cincinnati, Ohio where he has practiced environmental law and litigation for more than twenty-eight years.
In 2018, Bilott filed a lawsuit against corporate entities tied to DuPont — which became defunct in 2017 — as well as 3M and other major chemical companies. The suit seeks to explore the health effects of these alternative PFAS.
Most non-stick pans are coated with a chemical called Teflon. Teflon contains a compound known as C8, which is harmful to both your health and the environment. According to a large body of research, C8 disrupts normal hormone function and lowers testosterone levels in men.
Dark Waters depicts the real-life story of attorney Rob Bilott's fight to find justice for the community of Parkersburg in West Virginia after it's discovered that the DuPont chemical company (manufacturers of 'Teflon', the material used in the majority of non-stick cooking pans) have been illegally dumping toxic waste ...
In Katherine Applegate’s “Willodeen,” an orphan girl in a land called Perchance learns that the fates of all of Earth’s creatures are intertwined.
In “Second Nature,” Nathaniel Rich offers a tour of the ways humans have both conquered the natural world and been overwhelmed by the unintended consequences.
The state’s $50 billion plan to re-engineer its coastline may wash some fishing communities off the map.
A plunge in oil prices has hammered the state’s economy — but also shown a glimpse of a different possible future.
The Green New Deal has been called a political “loser.” But back in 1988, both parties saw climate legislation as sensible.
In David Wallace-Wells’s “The Uninhabitable Earth” and Nathaniel Rich’s “Losing Earth,” we have a picture of the increasingly dire problem of global warming.
Fixing the planet is going to be expensive. Can we stomach the bill for human survival?
We knew everything we needed to know, and nothing stood in our way. Nothing, that is, except ourselves.
I don’t think there’s anything that I’m not afraid of, on some level. But if you mean, What are we afraid of, as humans? Chaos. The outsider. We’re afraid of change. We’re afraid of disruption, and that is what I’m interested in.”
A young, shackled black man is shot to death — and the police say he killed himself. The resulting investigation has pitted the victim’s father against the most powerful man in New Iberia, La.
Over four months, a methane well in southern California’s Aliso Canyon leaked Lebanon’s equivalent of yearly emissions into the atmosphere. No one knows what the long-term effects will be.
Three boys falsely accused of murder, and what the twenty-year saga says about all of us.
A journey on the Sunset Limited, which ferries people from Louisiana to California.
A species of jellyfish that can transform itself back to a polyp at any time appears to debunk the most fundamental law of the natural world — you are born, and then you die.
In fact, nearly a decade before they would be blaming Tennant's farming abilities in court for the harm done onto his cows, the company conducted internal tests for PFOA (perflurooctanoic acid).
As Robert explained in Exposure, DuPont sent a photographer to take aerial photos of the property as part of its legal defense, and when Wilbur came out with his gun, the company's lawyers reached out to the farmer and told him that the pilot was going to pursue the incident with federal authorities.
Dark Waters is directed by Todd Haynes and written by Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan. The film has been revered by critics and was nominated for several awards, including a win at the Environmental Media Awards for Best Feature Film.
Dark Waters is available to rent and purchase on most VOD platforms. It is also on Showtime, which is available as an add-on channel on both Amazon Prime and Hulu. Check out the trailer below: