December 20, 2019 • 48 mins
When corporate defense lawyer Rob Bilott first learned about Wilbur Tennant's dying livestock, the frustrated West Virginian farmer was at his wits' end. He'd sought help from numerous local authorities to no avail, but he was certain DuPont was poisoning his livestock, as well as the surrounding area. Bilott's investigation led him down the rabbithole, deep into a web of contamination, chemical pollution and corporate cover-ups. Join the guys as they speak with Mr. Bilott to learn more about his first-hand experience bringing this mighty company to justice.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Welcome back
(00:24):
to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Nol.
They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul, Mission Control dec and most importantly,
you are you. You are here and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know now, uh, Matt Noel.
As as we know, we cover a wide range of
(00:45):
topics here on the show, and some topics are things
that occurred way back in the day, in the years
of your and some topics or things that may occur
in the future. And some topics, like today's show, are
things where we enter into an ongoing conversation and ongoing debate.
And as you know, any time that we are able
(01:08):
to do so, we we aim to go toward our
primary sources. Right. You want firsthand experience, You want people
who have had their boots on the ground, as it were,
and that is why today we are immensely fortunate to
welcome to the show Rob Black, who is a corporate
defense attorney or was for eight years, and took on
(01:31):
an environmental suit that would ultimately expose a decade long,
like multiple decades long history of intense chemical pollution. You
may be familiar with Rob from the headline of a
New York Times article in sten titled the lawyer who
(01:52):
became DuPont's worst Nightmare. Rob, thank you so much for
coming on the show today. Well, thank you for having me.
Let's let's jump right into this. We we got a
chance to see the movie Dark Waters that is based
on your experience, and I would say much of that
film is told through your perspective and really your story,
(02:14):
and it is largely, at least according to director Todd Haynes,
based on that New York Times magazine article that we
mentioned at the top. And uh, the way the way
it gets started, the way the movie gets started, it
takes us to nineteen ninety eight. So let's go ahead
and just go there. What was your position at uh
(02:35):
at Taft It's called Taft Law in the movie, I
believe it has a slightly different name. But what was
your position there at Taft Law? What kinds of clients
were you representing? And what kinds of lawsuits were you
fighting at that time. Yeah, that the the full name
of the law firm. It's the shorthand is now referred
to as Taft Law, but it's Taft at Tineas Hollister
(02:55):
and I actually started there at a law school in
nine uh working in the environmental group along with folks
like Tom Turp, who you also see in the film
Um and I was working on environmental matters for primarily
our corporate clients, helping them understand and comply with the
(03:15):
vast array of federal and state environmental rules, statutes, regulations.
And that's primarily what I was doing up until right
about the time I became a partner at the law firm,
when I received a call from Wilbur Tennant out of
West Virginia and explained to us a little bit the
(03:36):
contents of that call and the problem that was sort
of posed to you that you were able to kind
of step into address in I was contacted by a
gentleman who was starting to describe all kinds of problems
he was having with cows on this property in West Virginia.
And I really wasn't sure why he was contacting me.
(03:59):
Let this had to do with anything, I was working
on it. And then he mentioned the name of my
grandmother and that he had gotten my name through my grandmother,
And so I paid a little more attention at that
point and found out that he apparently owned property that
was right next to land that one of my grandmother's
(04:19):
good friends owned, and they apparently had been talking earlier
that day and Mr Tennant was complaining about cow's dying
on his property. Nobody locally, they're outside of purpose for
West Virginia, would really talk to him. He had tried
contacting the states, the federal e p A folks at
the plants, and wasn't getting very far as was looking
(04:41):
for a lawyer who might be able to help him,
and so the neighbor had just been talking to my
grandmother who had mentioned that I was a environmental lawyer
in Cincinnati and surely I could help him. So he
was calling me, and we agreed to you know, once
I heard this is from my grandmother, I agreed to
to sit down and look at what he had. So
(05:02):
let's let's pull back just a little bit here before
we get too deep into the case itself and what
you were exploring um at the around that time in
the nineties. How would you describe du Pont at that time,
like how big of a player were they in the
chemical industry, what kind of products were they producing, and
ultimately what was their relationship to Parkersburg, West Virginia at
(05:26):
that point in time. Back in the late nineties, du
Pont was of the world's largest chemical companies. You know,
had a sterling reputation UM. They had an immense um
um amount of scientists within the company that had had
(05:47):
a good reputation for um scientific work over the years
on toxicity of chemicals. I knew them fairly well. We
had run across their lawyers over the years at various
super fun cleanup sites. But we were representing our other
clients and DuPont was not one of our clients, but
(06:08):
we know their attorneys would be in the same room
with us, and we were discussing which companies ought to
be cleaning up various sites across the country. So we
knew them well. They had a good reputation. They were
a very large company, well known in the chemical world
UM and they happened to own the world's largest teslon
(06:29):
manufacturing facility UM and it was located in Parkersburg, West
Virginia long the Ohio River. So we're talking about Wilbur Tenant.
He's the he's the farmer that that contact, the man
who owned farmland that contacted you. UM, and you were
talking about that land that was immediately adjacent to his UM.
It was something called the dry run landfill, I believe,
(06:49):
or at least that's what it's referred to in the
movie um as and what So you initially sued DuPont
just to find out, at least the way is depicted
in the movie, just to find out what was inside
that landfill that could possibly be contaminating Wilbur's land. Correct,
that's right. UM. When we sat down with Mr Tennants
(07:13):
and looked at videotapes and photographs that he had, UM,
what we found out was there was a landfill right
next to Mr. Tennant's property that DuPont was using. UM.
It was supposed to be just routine trash and regular
non hatchardist waste from the plant. UM. And we were
(07:34):
trying to figure out why the water coming out of
this landfill, the runoff out of the landfill had white
foam and it appeared that that foam was making the
cows that were drinking the water, sick wildlife in the area,
sick um. And so we started digging into what exactly
(07:56):
was going into this landfill because what we were seeing
in the records and the permits for the landsfill from
the state weren't weren't revealing any anything that would explain
what was happening to the animals of what we were
seeing with the white foaming water. So just let's talk
in particular what was occurring to the cows. So the
(08:19):
evidence that Mr Tennant brought to you was a ton
of videotapes, right, like a bunch of VHS tapes of
him documenting his cattle as they are dying off and
he's showing that they have appear to have enlarged organs
and blackened teeth. And he's also noticing that some of
(08:39):
the rocks within his creek that's running on his property
are bleached or at least appear to be you know, um,
discolored discolored. Yeah, So, like, talk to me about how
you felt when you saw that, Like what what was
your reaction to seeing those things and did you immediately
think there was something really really bad going on there? Yeah.
Mr Tennet's had been taking videotape of what he was
(09:02):
seeing on his property and in the creek for years.
Um He he had started seeing problems in the mid
to late nineties around or so and had been trying
to get somebody to pay attention, and so he figured
he'd start videotaping it so at least people could see
what he was talking about. And so he brought these
(09:23):
tapes up to us, and as you indicated, I mean,
it was pretty powerful video. It showed animals that were
wasting away, you know, just were skin and bones, that
had tumors, that had black and teeth, their eyes were
sunken back in their head or just colored. There were
other wildlife in the area, fish and frogs and fear
(09:47):
that seemed to be suffering as well. And there were
actually portions of those tapes or Mr Tenant was cutting
into the animals that had died to try to find
out what had happened. Did you see misshape and miscolored
organs and um and tumors and black and teeth in
these animals. So it was pretty powerful when we looked
(10:09):
at that videotape, and you can see these animals standing
in water with white foam um that something clearly was wrong,
something was was very wrong there, so we figured, yes,
we would try to help. So this is the pivotal
moment right where where you decide that, yes, we will
(10:30):
take this case. For for anyone who's unfamiliar with the
way these sorts of investigations involved, like how they evolve
over time, what were the next early steps, like as
soon as as soon as you decide we will take
on this matter. What what is the first the first
(10:51):
iteration of the investigation? Do we identify the foam? Do
we take samples? How does it work? Well? You know? What?
What are things? I did was try to go to
the state agency that was regulating that landfill, that had
given the company a permit, and pull the permits and
(11:12):
find out what types of materials are being disposed there.
What are they monitoring for in the water? You are
we seeing detections of those chemicals above the limits that
the state has set um you know, in my world
to that point, I've been dealing with all these different
(11:32):
federal state laws. You know. My understanding was if there
were toxic or hazardous materials of concern, those are the
ones that would be listed in the permits or those
would be the ones that you would have to be
monitoring for UM. So I thought this would be a
fairly straightforward thing that we could pull these permits, pull
(11:52):
the records for this landfill, and surely there must be
something that was out of lack um you know, something
that was being admitted and way too high of concentration
um you know, and that we would be able to
find that through going through these government permits. And that's
what we focused on with du Pont initially as well.
M was their records relating to what was permitted, what
(12:16):
was regulated at that landfill, and we simply didn't see
anything um that was explaining what we were seeing through
those permit records. I'm fascinated by this whole concept of
allowable limits of toxins and the process of you know,
how the EPA decides what is it is not acceptable
in terms of you know, um impurities in or in
(12:39):
contaminations and environments and drinking water, etcetera. UM. Is that like,
can you speak to that a little bit, to someone
with your expertise as to what that process is like
and why we sometimes see you know, rollbacks of e
p A standards for example that oh no, actually wait
we don't need to be this rigorous where we're over
overdoing it, you know, or um or re examining something
(13:00):
like this where maybe it goes in the opposite direction. Well,
you know, it's an extremely complex process. Um. You know,
we're talking about a regulatory system that really, uh you
look at the grand scheme of events here hasn't been
around all that long. You know, the u s e.
P A didn't even come into existence until um in
(13:22):
some of the first laws at the federal level regulating
chemicals going out into the market and how you test
them and how you assess their safety really didn't come
out until six And you know, it's a fairly limited
group of chemicals that have actually been assessed and have
been deemed worthy to be regulated at a federal level
(13:45):
or state level, and you know, with standards being set
under different federal laws and regulations, and really what we
came to find a help through this case, uh, you know,
was there's a much larger world of unregulated chemicals. Chemicals
that have escaped that process. Either they were already out
(14:06):
in our world in our environment decades before these new
federal laws came into play, but before the EPA even
existed or somehow they skated through or or bypassed the
system altogether. And we're gonna talk more about this topic
after a quick word from our sponsor, and we're back.
(14:33):
So at this point, we we see, of course, the
the what many people would think of as the looming
shadow of the gigantic company du Pont, and the firm
has done some I believe the firm has in its
past done some corporate work on the plaintiff side. What
(14:54):
was the prospect, like, what was the conversation like on
your side when you when you had to choose shall
we take on DuPont? Shall we take on this enormous
corporate entity. Was there any hesitation, any um, any sense
of uh that this could endanger your livelihood or anything
(15:17):
like that. Well, I think that that was a conversation
that's definitely evolved over time. You know, when when Mr
Tennant first came to us and we were first looking
into this issue, um, you know, we assumed this would
be something that would be rather straightforward. You know, it's
there was a regulated, permitted landfill, something that was being
(15:39):
controlled by the state of West Virginia. We thought we
would be able to to find out what what you know,
hazardous materials we're in that landfill and assume that we
could get to the bottom of it relatively quickly. Um.
We had no idea at the time that this was
going to involve some unregulated mystery can nical. But even
(16:01):
even on those initial stages where we were talking with
Mr Tennant and trying to decide whether to take the
case and actually sue du pot um, you know, it
was clear Mr Tennant in his family probably we're not
going to be able to uh, you know, afford the
kind of rates we typically charged our corporate clients. So
that was one of the first times we ever took
(16:23):
on a case on what they call contingency, you know,
where the clients only pays at the end if there's
actually a recovery. But again, we thought it was a
fairly straightforward, Uh we hoped it would get further straightforward case.
It wasn't until you know, it was getting into the
discovery and getting into the documents that we realized we
(16:45):
were dealing with a much much bigger issue, one that
went way beyond just this farmer's family, um and his property,
but what something that was impacting the entire community and
eventually realized the entire country, if not the entire world
old it's going to be a much bigger undertaking. And
in in the movie at least, it's it's depicted as
(17:06):
when you stumble upon something within the discovery all these documents,
something that that is referred to as p f O
A or pfo A related with regards to the dry
running landfill. Um, can you can you just talk about that,
like what that was, what your journey was to figuring
out what the heck that substance was, because there wasn't nobody,
(17:27):
nobody actually had anything written down in these documents about
what it was, and you didn't really learn about it
until you were at the at least it appears like
you were at that Chemical Alliance dinner where you saw
the reaction to p f O A S. So let's
just talk about how you found it, what it is,
and that Chemical Alliance dinner. Well. I I have also
(17:50):
recently published the book called Exposure, which I try to
go into more detail about the discovery of this chemical
and how it was we came to find out it
even existed, and in what documents we saw this in
and how how I really started to understand what was
going on here was a pretty complicated process. But what
(18:12):
I can tell you is we were, you know, getting
getting nowhere really with focusing on the regulated listed materials
in this landfill and their permits. So I got to
the point where I finally decided I would ask to
Pond for all of their records relating to anything that
was going to this landfill from the plant. And we
(18:34):
met with great pushback from the company at that point, No,
you you need to keep focused on these hazardous listed materials,
and we had to go to court and we eventually
got a core order that required the company to start
turning over this broader group of documents. And it was
pouring through all of those materials, and there was a
lot that I stumbled upon the document one day that
(18:56):
mentioned this chemical referred to as a e f O
or p f O a H. And I tried to
find out what was this because it was indicating that
there was a lot of that material that had been
used at the plant and that it had been some
of that waste has been sent to this landfill. Uh.
(19:16):
So it was finding that reference really changed everything. I
tried to find information, you know, that was available publicly
online or in our library and really couldn't find much
of anything about this chemical. I wasn't even sure it
was a chemical at that point. Um, So that really
launched us down a whole new road. And really, you know,
(19:40):
it is something I had been had to focus on
for the next several years, just finding out what is
this stuff? And why is so much of it being
used at that plan? And why did it why did
the waste end up to this landfill? What does it
do to the cows that are drinking people? And in
the fall or autumn of two thousands, you had to
(20:03):
you You took them to court. You took to Pont
to court to comply with that request that they share
all documentation related to p f O A and that
that this feels like the watershed moment because you find
that not only is there uh, not only is their
correspondence internally or documentation eternally onto Pont side, but it
(20:26):
is robust, I believe, more than a hundred ten thousand pages.
And the thing that was scary to me is that
some of this paperwork is uh what fifty years old
at that point? Um, what did you do when you
got this this just mass info dump of all these
different things from it feels like they're from different sources, right,
(20:49):
medical reports, like thousands of boxes. Right? Yeah, what how
did you how did you begin to digest that? Well?
As you indicated, I mean that process us really began
after we were able to get the courts, you know,
to order the company to start turning over its internal
files about this material. And it eventually ended up being
(21:12):
millions of pages of documents. And those were the days
really before things were produced on electronic disks or thumb drives.
So we were getting physical, hard copy paper, which frankly
I think ended up being a blessing in the end, because, um,
we didn't necessarily know exactly what terms, you know, we
(21:35):
were looking for, how it do refer to this chemical?
In fact, we eventually learned they were referring to it
in four or five different ways that we wouldn't have
even known to ask for documents about FC one for
three or C eight you know it. It only was
going through all those documents that were able to piece
(21:56):
that together, um, and that that took many years sitting
through you know, I physically printed these things out, were
organized all those hard copies, read through every page and
trying to put together, put it in chronological order, and
try to piece together the history of what happened here.
And as you indicated, we saw documents going back to
(22:17):
the nineties fifties, the company started purchasing this material in
from the three M Company and had started extensive toxicology
studies on it in the sixties, and human studies in
the seventies and cancer studies in the eighties. So there
was a wealth of information and the most disturbing aspect
(22:38):
of it was realizing there was a lot known about
the toxicity of the chemical. Not only was it in
the waste that had been sent to this landfill and
that the cows were drinking, but it had been found
in the drinking water of the community in the eighties,
and nobody else outside the company seemed to be aware
of this. It did not look like the community you've
(23:01):
been told, did not look like the regulators were aware.
Um In fact, they're even draft stand by press releases
in case somebody found out that apparently never went out.
So it was very disturbing information and realized we were
dealing with, but we've realized was a public health threat
that had gone unnoticed. I don't want to come off
(23:22):
to naive here, But I mean the implication as this
went to the very top of this company in terms
of covering up these studies and just absolute brazen disregard
for people's safety. We're talking about information that was definitely
within the corporate files, within the scientific files, within the
(23:44):
lawyers were aware of that. The lawyers were even advising,
you know, the clients that this was a problem going
back years UM. And you know, there's a point where
I eventually even sat down with the CEO of the
company UM and showed him all of these internal documents
after he was standing up and publicly saying that there
(24:05):
was no information suggesting there were any health issues. So
I sat down with him and went through all of
those internal documents that showed just the opposite. UM. So
it was there was a wealth of information within the
company's own files. And this is this is something that
we want to want to emphasize. Is it true that
(24:29):
when you were when you were looking through all this
extensive documentation that literally no one else outside of DuPont
had ever seen before. Is it true that you found
they were contradicting their own recommendations about how to handle
pfo A. UM, You know, there were internal recommendations and
(24:54):
discussion about whether to switch frankly away from the chemical
to a different one in order to avoid some of
the problems they were seeing with p f l A.
And these discussions went back into the eighties, and there
were recommendations from three M, the company that was making
the p f l A and sending it to pot
since uh, you know, the three M was recommending that
(25:17):
it not be put into waterways, um, you know, that
it should be incinerated, and unfortunately DuPont was was not
solving those recommendations. I'm just gonna take a quick break
here and hear a word from our sponsor and we're
(25:40):
back talking about dark Waters and robbed a lots experience. Okay, so, uh,
we're really starting to get into the direness of this
story and the effects of what was going on there.
Let's jump I want to I want to kind of
focus in on the individual rules, the people in the
(26:01):
community who are working on you know, in these in
these facilities where they're actually creating the chemicals, and then
the people living that are drinking that water, and the
you know, in the movie, it's just kind of a
known thing that if you go and you work at
the that the chemical plant, your life is going to
(26:23):
be shortened. It's just something that people in the community
would talk about. The it's a known thing. You're gonna
make a good living for a fairly shortened amount of time.
And it was almost as if it's a trade off
and a known thing, at least as it depicted in
the movie. And I had a conversation with some of
my family from Ohio and like the Acron area, m
Caiago falls that area, and there it was just even
(26:48):
and within my relatives it was a known thing that
if you go and you work at a chemical company,
you're basically risking your life to get a good stable job.
Is that what you found in Parkersburg? And um, what
we're what were the effects on the people working in
these plants? I think as you see in the film
Dark Waters, Um, you know that there was definitely pushed
(27:10):
back within the community when the lawsuits began. Uh. You know,
this was one of the major employers in town. It
had been a contributor and you had provided funding for
a lot of the local organizations. Um, so there were
a lot of folks that we're not happy with the
idea you know that that there was litigation being brought
(27:33):
against you know, this this this employer in the community. UM.
And there was there was pushback you know, from the
against the folks that were speaking out UM. And you know,
even among the employees, UM, you know, there were folks
that were that we're definitely becoming thick. UM. In fact,
(27:53):
in the book, we discussed one of the former employees UM,
you know, who used to work at the lab um
you know, for for decades, was working with these chemicals
who developed ultort of colitis and just the severe personal
impact you know that that has on folks like that, UM,
(28:14):
you know. And I think that's one of the great
things about the film Dark Waters is that it really
gives you a good insight into how something like this
really impacts the real people in the community that are
dealing with it on a day to day basis. You know,
we're talking about something that was dragging on for years
and years. In the meantime, real people are living there,
(28:37):
you know, real people are drinking this in real people
are getting sick and dying. UM. And I think, you know,
it's something, Uh, I think it was powerful. It's powerful
to see what that really does to folks. I tremendously
appreciate that point. I think we all do, because one
thing the film does a fantastic job of depicting is
(28:59):
the human costs, the very real human costs of these
this sort of contamination and pollution and cover up with um.
You know, it could be so easy for us, you know,
just as people everyday people to see a headline on
the news or to hear a statistic and for us
(29:20):
to relegate that to the realm of abstraction. I we
can we can also tell that this had um a
clear dare I say, personal impact on you, specifically as
as an individual and as an attorney, because while this
is moving through court, while you're aggregating this evidence, while
(29:46):
you're finding this documentation, eventually, if we just if we
jump to two thousand again, eventually you call the attorney
on DuPonts and you have this conversation that results in
the tenants settling their case. And as as we as noted, right,
(30:11):
there's there's this one moment where it could have stopped.
There as that one single case, right, and the firm
gets as as you would indicated earlier, it's contingency fee.
But that's not where it stops because you make the
decision to continue unraveling this strange web. Could could you
(30:34):
tell us a little bit about, well, what compelled you
or what propelled you forward after the settlement. Yeah, you know,
by the time I had that conversation that we were
able to resolve the case for Mr Tenant and his family,
you know, we had I'll say I had been looking
(30:55):
through enough of the documentation at that point to realize
this one far beyond Mr Tennant's property. UM. And you know,
Mr Tennant, even in his family, were extremely concerned about
their community and their neighbors who, you know, we're drinking
this and had no idea. You know, we had found out,
(31:17):
you know, by looking at these documents that this was
not just on their property, not just in the landfill,
but it was in the local drinking water and nobody
was being told. So he was very passionate about finding
a way that we could get this information out to
the broader community. UM. And that that really bothered me
as well, knowing that, you know, I may be one
(31:39):
of the only people that had seen this information, was
aware of this public health threat, and nobody else seemed
to know it. So I did make the decision to
sit down and put all that information, at least most
of what I could find, um um, into a letter
that I sent to the U. S. E p A
in various different governmental agencies back on March six, two
(32:01):
thousand one, where I hoped by laying out what I
had been seeing in these documents, these agencies would see
the same thing and realized there was a public health
right here. People were drinking this material. This is out
there in the environment. You know. This agencies really hadn't
been given this information, and they would come in and
(32:22):
stop it and take action to clean it up, get
the water filtered and regulated, um you know. And I,
looking back, realized how naive I was to think that
the government agencies would actually swoop in and do something.
But um to me, that was a critical um step.
We needed to alert these agencies and the public to
(32:45):
this public health threat. And that happened, and Duplant actually
went to court to get a gag order to stop
us and talking about it, and luckily the court rejected
that and I was allowed to go and provide the
information to the e p A. And eventually, you know,
EPA started digging through it and realized this information had
(33:05):
been withheld sued DuPont and one of the few times
that's ever happened for suing a company for withholding information
like this from the agency. And that began the process
of looking into these chemicals and starting to regulate them,
where we unfortunately that process is still grinding on some
(33:26):
eighteen years later. And you said chemicals, they're right because
for a lot of this and a lot of people
maybe think teflon this one product, this one singular thing
is the issue. The carbon is a repeating carbon chain.
I believe that's how it's referred to. UM. It's this
one thing, but no, no, it's uh, it's numerous chemicals
(33:47):
that are very similar to this one. Right. Well, the
chemical that we were focused on in particular was one
of these chemicals called p f L A, and it
is one of a large group of chemicals that we
now know as t FAS p S A S a
group of man made chemicals that were invented right after
(34:08):
World War Two, primarily by three M. You know though,
these man made carbon and flooring combination chemicals UM that
share similar characteristics, and at the time we were focused
on one of them, p f O A. But what
we've now come to know is that there's a large
number of these out there, UM, and they're being found
(34:28):
also in drinking water across the country, and in all
of our blood and in the environment. So let's let's
talk about what that means for us. UM. There, the
three of us sitting in this room talking to you,
are are super producer Paul out there in the booth.
We all grew up with with my parents and I
making omelets in our you know, our saucepans that have
(34:51):
were covered with teflon, and we do. I'd use a
fork to make my omelet, and I know for a
fact that I've ingested that stuff in that way, outside
of the drinking water, outside of all you know, all
the other ways are being contaminated. Like what what does
that big what does the big picture really look like
for for all of humanity, for all of organic life. Well,
(35:13):
you know, that's the thing that's really very disturbing about
this whole story is we're talking about contamination on a
global scale that I'm not sure we've seen before. UM.
Where you know this this this chemical and this family
of chemicals, the PFAS chemicals have been used in an
enormous variety and array of different products over the decades
(35:37):
where you know, not just um um uh nonstick cookware,
but fast food wrappings, UM, stain resistant carpeting clothing, UH,
wire cabling, firefighting films, UH, microwave, popcorn, bag coatings, I mean,
you name it. And so these chemicals have been used
(36:00):
in such a vast array of products that it's out
there and not only in our water, but it's gotten
into soils, it's gotten into food. It's unfortunately, these chemicals
have a great ability to to stay out in the environment.
You know, once they're out there, they have a great
(36:21):
inability to be broken down by natural conditions. So you
hear them now referred to as forever chemicals p fl
A for example. UM it just really doesn't break down
under natural conditions and would be there for millions of years.
So pretty much everything that's been pumped out in the
last sixty seventy years is still there in our soil
(36:44):
and our water and now getting into us. And not
only does the stuff get out and stay in the environment,
it has a unique ability to get into living things
where it tends to stick into the blood. PFOA, for example,
gets into our blood and even the tiny these amounts
will build up over time. UM, So it's persistent and biocumulative,
(37:05):
and now we also know toxic. So you know, these
these chemicals in there, they're great, um persistence, Their ability
to be basically contaminating the whole planet and people on
the planet are presenting really tremendous challenges and concerns to
the scientific community right now, particularly as we just now
(37:27):
start sampling and finding out exactly where this stuff is.
It's been being pumped out there for decades, but we're
only just now really starting to sample and find it
and really realize the extent of the contamination. And I
certainly see and share your concern about the big picture
of contamination issues involved here. But to Matt's question, you know,
you know your story involves high levels of contamination literally
(37:50):
being pumped into water supplies and environments. Um, the whole
flicking off of tep long with a fork or you know,
over time, that would necessarily be something as much to
worry about as the big picture of things that you're addressing.
Or maybe I'm wrong, I just wanted to put that
to you. Well, but drinking these chemicals, you know, in
the water is has certainly been recognized by the scientific world,
(38:13):
is one of the primary sources of getting exposed. I mean,
if you're living in a community where these chemicals are
in your drinking water, that's going to be one of
your primary ways of getting it into your body. Uh.
These other exposures are probably going to be less significant,
but they'll still um, you know, managed to get into
you somehow. But really, you know, if you're in an
(38:34):
area where it's it's made it into the water, that's
really a prime concern to stop that that exposure, that's
a direct exposure into the body. And I believe one
thing that if there's one takeaway that everyone listening to
today's episode needs to carry with them after after the
audio has stopped played, it's this we're talking about the
(38:59):
jennis of an investigation that expands, you know, to these
vast parameters. But we're not really talking about something that
happened in the past. We're not only talking about that
because as as you establish, Rob, this is this is
going on, These chemicals, these substances are still out there
(39:22):
in multitudes of different Uh, let's see multitudes of different applications,
multitudes of different h ellicit distributions right whether in in
drinking water or in DuPont so called digestion ponds. We
now are looking towards the future and would love to
(39:43):
hear your perspective on what the future of p f
O A and these related contaminants may actually be. What,
because you know that directly translates to the health of
the public and the health of livestock and and even
perhaps not to be alarmist about it, the health of
(40:04):
generations to come, could you speak with us a little
bit about what you see in the near to mid
future as um as the state of America's health as
it applies to these substances, or any any action, whether
environmental recovery actions or whether legal actions that might mitigate
(40:27):
potential future harm. Yeah, you know, as the information finally
started coming out about about these chemicals. Actually three m
back in two thousand announced that it was going to
stop making uh p f o A and the related
one PFOS that was used to Scotch Guard and cirefighting films.
So they very quickly announced they would stop making two
(40:48):
of these DuPont unfortunately then jumped in at that point
and started making and continue to make p fl A
you know, as more of this information came out to
our litigation and the e p A got more involved
and more concerns, du Pont and the other companies that
were still using and making p f A at the
time announced in two thousand six that they would stop
(41:10):
making p f A and phase put out over the
next ten years. By during that period of time, companies
have brought out what they referred to as alternatives or
safer replacements for these UM longer chain C eights, ones
that have eight carbons, things like C fixes, C fours,
(41:33):
and the hopes that they're less persistent, less biocumulative, and unfortunately,
the data that's coming out suggest they might share very
similar toxicities and hopefully won't last in the environment. Though
is long and I think what we're seeing is as
this data is coming out about this broader class of
chemicals and more testing as occurring, people are finally becoming
(41:55):
aware that these chemicals even exist and what their exposures
have been or might be UM And you know, that's
one of the things I'm very encouraged about with the
release of Dark Waters in the book, is that that
information it will now be out to a wider group
of people will now understand that they've been exposed at
least have the tools to start beginning to two avoid
(42:19):
those exposures hopefully going forward at least be aware of
what kind of products and where where in the environment
these chemicals might be, so that they can choose to
avoid it if they want. And we are now finally
seeing regulatory authorities start to finally take action. It's taken
a long time. The u s e p A still
(42:40):
has not regulated these chemicals on a federal level, but
the states are moving forward setting drinking water guidelines on
their own in order to protect people. So we're seeing
action begin, and I think we're seeing increased awareness so
that people can take steps to protect themselves, and hopeful
we'll also see technologies being developed to help us get
(43:03):
these things out of our environment and hopefully find ways
to make sure that our exposures are minimized going forward.
Thank you so much for having something positive to talk
about in the story, Rob because man, it's um it's
we get into very dark waters here when we're when
(43:25):
we're dealing this. Sorry, I just have one in there,
No for real, It's it's it's this movie and this
story and your experience. It's it's very intense and at
times it can be disheartening many weeks. Yeah, I mean,
for sure, it really points to a real um lack
of humanity on the parts of folks that can really
(43:46):
that that are the ones who are most empowered to
really make a difference and just choose not to, it
would seem I believe the euphemism is self regulation. Well yeah, so,
so I don't want to spoil the ending of the movie.
If you've read the r iCal, you know how how
it turns out for the people of Parkersburg and a
lot of the other people affected. But I just really quickly,
for my money, the biggest the biggest issue is the
(44:10):
self regulation of these chemical companies with their proprietary chemicals.
And the problem is that the e p A and
all these regulatory bodies won't know what chemicals to to
regulate if the chemical company doesn't come forward and give
them those guidelines. Um. At least that's the way it
was when these lawsuits began. Have you have you seen
(44:32):
any change in that respect or is it still kind
of the way it was? Yeah, I mean for existing chemicals,
like those chemicals that were out there before a lot
of these rules and laws came into play. Um. In fact,
this situation was cited as an example UM of why
(44:54):
those laws needed to be changed. In fact, in twenty
the federal law regulated chemicals coming out in the market
was a beef stop in order to to try to
address that very issue. I think it remains to be
seen how effective you know, that's going to be going forward,
But to me, it's encouraging. What's really encouraging is to
(45:15):
see this information come out, um And because I think
once you give people the facts and this information, um,
you know, even if it's going to take a while
for these things to grind through the regulatory system or
the political system, people on an individual basis, once they
know the information, they can at least take steps to
(45:36):
protect themselves. And I think that's something you see in
the movie as well. It is just the power of
information and individuals to stand up and do things to
protect themselves in their communities. Well said, then we completely
agree we've seen dark waters for ourselves. For anyone listening,
(45:58):
if you would like more information, because information is power,
and in this case it's also self empowerment. If you
would like to learn more about this again, ongoing story,
then check out the film Dark Waters. Additionally, uh find Exposure,
which is Rob Blood's book coming out via Simon and Schuster. Yeah, Rob,
(46:23):
thank you so much. Is there anything else you want
to leave us with? No, and I really appreciate the opportunity. Again,
you know, anything like this that helps people understand, um,
what has actually happened, What is happening, believe it or
not in the United States in today's world. You know,
this is, as you indicated, not something that happened, you know,
(46:45):
back in the nineteen tens or twice. This is modern
day United States and for people to understand this is
what's happening, and here are the things we need to
do that hopefully will make things better. Well, and as
we know from this story, the step in a lot
of this is just reporting and letting people know what's
going on in your neck of the global woods, as
(47:05):
Ben would say. So if you want to do that
and you have something like this happening around you, or
you just want to share how things like this have
affected your lives, please connect with us on social media
where we're Conspiracy Stuff and Conspiracy Stuff Show. You can
also find us on our Facebook group. Here's where it
gets crazy on Facebook. A great place to post articles
and follow up with the topics that we discussed on
(47:26):
the show every week. And if you want to call in,
if you're out there listening, we have a phone number
you can leave us. A message. Number is one eight
three three st d w y t k uh. Sorry,
Robin Well, it might be a little strange coming out
of nowhere there um uh. And if you don't want
to do that, if you want to write us a
good old fashioned email, we are conspiracy at i heart
(47:49):
radio dot com. M hm. Stuff they Don't Want You
(48:10):
to Know is a production of I Heart Radio's How
Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
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listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Welcome back
(00:24):
to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Nol.
They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul, Mission Control dec and most importantly,
you are you. You are here and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know now, uh, Matt Noel.
As as we know, we cover a wide range of
(00:45):
topics here on the show, and some topics are things
that occurred way back in the day, in the years
of your and some topics or things that may occur
in the future. And some topics, like today's show, are
things where we enter into an ongoing conversation and ongoing debate.
And as you know, any time that we are able
(01:08):
to do so, we we aim to go toward our
primary sources. Right. You want firsthand experience, You want people
who have had their boots on the ground, as it were,
and that is why today we are immensely fortunate to
welcome to the show Rob Black, who is a corporate
defense attorney or was for eight years, and took on
(01:31):
an environmental suit that would ultimately expose a decade long,
like multiple decades long history of intense chemical pollution. You
may be familiar with Rob from the headline of a
New York Times article in sten titled the lawyer who
(01:52):
became DuPont's worst Nightmare. Rob, thank you so much for
coming on the show today. Well, thank you for having me.
Let's let's jump right into this. We we got a
chance to see the movie Dark Waters that is based
on your experience, and I would say much of that
film is told through your perspective and really your story,
(02:14):
and it is largely, at least according to director Todd Haynes,
based on that New York Times magazine article that we
mentioned at the top. And uh, the way the way
it gets started, the way the movie gets started, it
takes us to nineteen ninety eight. So let's go ahead
and just go there. What was your position at uh
(02:35):
at Taft It's called Taft Law in the movie, I
believe it has a slightly different name. But what was
your position there at Taft Law? What kinds of clients
were you representing? And what kinds of lawsuits were you
fighting at that time. Yeah, that the the full name
of the law firm. It's the shorthand is now referred
to as Taft Law, but it's Taft at Tineas Hollister
(02:55):
and I actually started there at a law school in
nine uh working in the environmental group along with folks
like Tom Turp, who you also see in the film
Um and I was working on environmental matters for primarily
our corporate clients, helping them understand and comply with the
(03:15):
vast array of federal and state environmental rules, statutes, regulations.
And that's primarily what I was doing up until right
about the time I became a partner at the law firm,
when I received a call from Wilbur Tennant out of
West Virginia and explained to us a little bit the
(03:36):
contents of that call and the problem that was sort
of posed to you that you were able to kind
of step into address in I was contacted by a
gentleman who was starting to describe all kinds of problems
he was having with cows on this property in West Virginia.
And I really wasn't sure why he was contacting me.
(03:59):
Let this had to do with anything, I was working
on it. And then he mentioned the name of my
grandmother and that he had gotten my name through my grandmother,
And so I paid a little more attention at that
point and found out that he apparently owned property that
was right next to land that one of my grandmother's
(04:19):
good friends owned, and they apparently had been talking earlier
that day and Mr Tennant was complaining about cow's dying
on his property. Nobody locally, they're outside of purpose for
West Virginia, would really talk to him. He had tried
contacting the states, the federal e p A folks at
the plants, and wasn't getting very far as was looking
(04:41):
for a lawyer who might be able to help him,
and so the neighbor had just been talking to my
grandmother who had mentioned that I was a environmental lawyer
in Cincinnati and surely I could help him. So he
was calling me, and we agreed to you know, once
I heard this is from my grandmother, I agreed to
to sit down and look at what he had. So
(05:02):
let's let's pull back just a little bit here before
we get too deep into the case itself and what
you were exploring um at the around that time in
the nineties. How would you describe du Pont at that time,
like how big of a player were they in the
chemical industry, what kind of products were they producing, and
ultimately what was their relationship to Parkersburg, West Virginia at
(05:26):
that point in time. Back in the late nineties, du
Pont was of the world's largest chemical companies. You know,
had a sterling reputation UM. They had an immense um
um amount of scientists within the company that had had
(05:47):
a good reputation for um scientific work over the years
on toxicity of chemicals. I knew them fairly well. We
had run across their lawyers over the years at various
super fun cleanup sites. But we were representing our other
clients and DuPont was not one of our clients, but
(06:08):
we know their attorneys would be in the same room
with us, and we were discussing which companies ought to
be cleaning up various sites across the country. So we
knew them well. They had a good reputation. They were
a very large company, well known in the chemical world
UM and they happened to own the world's largest teslon
(06:29):
manufacturing facility UM and it was located in Parkersburg, West
Virginia long the Ohio River. So we're talking about Wilbur Tenant.
He's the he's the farmer that that contact, the man
who owned farmland that contacted you. UM, and you were
talking about that land that was immediately adjacent to his UM.
It was something called the dry run landfill, I believe,
(06:49):
or at least that's what it's referred to in the
movie um as and what So you initially sued DuPont
just to find out, at least the way is depicted
in the movie, just to find out what was inside
that landfill that could possibly be contaminating Wilbur's land. Correct,
that's right. UM. When we sat down with Mr Tennants
(07:13):
and looked at videotapes and photographs that he had, UM,
what we found out was there was a landfill right
next to Mr. Tennant's property that DuPont was using. UM.
It was supposed to be just routine trash and regular
non hatchardist waste from the plant. UM. And we were
(07:34):
trying to figure out why the water coming out of
this landfill, the runoff out of the landfill had white
foam and it appeared that that foam was making the
cows that were drinking the water, sick wildlife in the area,
sick um. And so we started digging into what exactly
(07:56):
was going into this landfill because what we were seeing
in the records and the permits for the landsfill from
the state weren't weren't revealing any anything that would explain
what was happening to the animals of what we were
seeing with the white foaming water. So just let's talk
in particular what was occurring to the cows. So the
(08:19):
evidence that Mr Tennant brought to you was a ton
of videotapes, right, like a bunch of VHS tapes of
him documenting his cattle as they are dying off and
he's showing that they have appear to have enlarged organs
and blackened teeth. And he's also noticing that some of
(08:39):
the rocks within his creek that's running on his property
are bleached or at least appear to be you know, um,
discolored discolored. Yeah, So, like, talk to me about how
you felt when you saw that, Like what what was
your reaction to seeing those things and did you immediately
think there was something really really bad going on there? Yeah.
Mr Tennet's had been taking videotape of what he was
(09:02):
seeing on his property and in the creek for years.
Um He he had started seeing problems in the mid
to late nineties around or so and had been trying
to get somebody to pay attention, and so he figured
he'd start videotaping it so at least people could see
what he was talking about. And so he brought these
(09:23):
tapes up to us, and as you indicated, I mean,
it was pretty powerful video. It showed animals that were
wasting away, you know, just were skin and bones, that
had tumors, that had black and teeth, their eyes were
sunken back in their head or just colored. There were
other wildlife in the area, fish and frogs and fear
(09:47):
that seemed to be suffering as well. And there were
actually portions of those tapes or Mr Tenant was cutting
into the animals that had died to try to find
out what had happened. Did you see misshape and miscolored
organs and um and tumors and black and teeth in
these animals. So it was pretty powerful when we looked
(10:09):
at that videotape, and you can see these animals standing
in water with white foam um that something clearly was wrong,
something was was very wrong there, so we figured, yes,
we would try to help. So this is the pivotal
moment right where where you decide that, yes, we will
(10:30):
take this case. For for anyone who's unfamiliar with the
way these sorts of investigations involved, like how they evolve
over time, what were the next early steps, like as
soon as as soon as you decide we will take
on this matter. What what is the first the first
(10:51):
iteration of the investigation? Do we identify the foam? Do
we take samples? How does it work? Well? You know? What?
What are things? I did was try to go to
the state agency that was regulating that landfill, that had
given the company a permit, and pull the permits and
(11:12):
find out what types of materials are being disposed there.
What are they monitoring for in the water? You are
we seeing detections of those chemicals above the limits that
the state has set um you know, in my world
to that point, I've been dealing with all these different
(11:32):
federal state laws. You know. My understanding was if there
were toxic or hazardous materials of concern, those are the
ones that would be listed in the permits or those
would be the ones that you would have to be
monitoring for UM. So I thought this would be a
fairly straightforward thing that we could pull these permits, pull
(11:52):
the records for this landfill, and surely there must be
something that was out of lack um you know, something
that was being admitted and way too high of concentration
um you know, and that we would be able to
find that through going through these government permits. And that's
what we focused on with du Pont initially as well.
M was their records relating to what was permitted, what
(12:16):
was regulated at that landfill, and we simply didn't see
anything um that was explaining what we were seeing through
those permit records. I'm fascinated by this whole concept of
allowable limits of toxins and the process of you know,
how the EPA decides what is it is not acceptable
in terms of you know, um impurities in or in
(12:39):
contaminations and environments and drinking water, etcetera. UM. Is that like,
can you speak to that a little bit, to someone
with your expertise as to what that process is like
and why we sometimes see you know, rollbacks of e
p A standards for example that oh no, actually wait
we don't need to be this rigorous where we're over
overdoing it, you know, or um or re examining something
(13:00):
like this where maybe it goes in the opposite direction. Well,
you know, it's an extremely complex process. Um. You know,
we're talking about a regulatory system that really, uh you
look at the grand scheme of events here hasn't been
around all that long. You know, the u s e.
P A didn't even come into existence until um in
(13:22):
some of the first laws at the federal level regulating
chemicals going out into the market and how you test
them and how you assess their safety really didn't come
out until six And you know, it's a fairly limited
group of chemicals that have actually been assessed and have
been deemed worthy to be regulated at a federal level
(13:45):
or state level, and you know, with standards being set
under different federal laws and regulations, and really what we
came to find a help through this case, uh, you know,
was there's a much larger world of unregulated chemicals. Chemicals
that have escaped that process. Either they were already out
(14:06):
in our world in our environment decades before these new
federal laws came into play, but before the EPA even
existed or somehow they skated through or or bypassed the
system altogether. And we're gonna talk more about this topic
after a quick word from our sponsor, and we're back.
(14:33):
So at this point, we we see, of course, the
the what many people would think of as the looming
shadow of the gigantic company du Pont, and the firm
has done some I believe the firm has in its
past done some corporate work on the plaintiff side. What
(14:54):
was the prospect, like, what was the conversation like on
your side when you when you had to choose shall
we take on DuPont? Shall we take on this enormous
corporate entity. Was there any hesitation, any um, any sense
of uh that this could endanger your livelihood or anything
(15:17):
like that. Well, I think that that was a conversation
that's definitely evolved over time. You know, when when Mr
Tennant first came to us and we were first looking
into this issue, um, you know, we assumed this would
be something that would be rather straightforward. You know, it's
there was a regulated, permitted landfill, something that was being
(15:39):
controlled by the state of West Virginia. We thought we
would be able to to find out what what you know,
hazardous materials we're in that landfill and assume that we
could get to the bottom of it relatively quickly. Um.
We had no idea at the time that this was
going to involve some unregulated mystery can nical. But even
(16:01):
even on those initial stages where we were talking with
Mr Tennant and trying to decide whether to take the
case and actually sue du pot um, you know, it
was clear Mr Tennant in his family probably we're not
going to be able to uh, you know, afford the
kind of rates we typically charged our corporate clients. So
that was one of the first times we ever took
(16:23):
on a case on what they call contingency, you know,
where the clients only pays at the end if there's
actually a recovery. But again, we thought it was a
fairly straightforward, Uh we hoped it would get further straightforward case.
It wasn't until you know, it was getting into the
discovery and getting into the documents that we realized we
(16:45):
were dealing with a much much bigger issue, one that
went way beyond just this farmer's family, um and his property,
but what something that was impacting the entire community and
eventually realized the entire country, if not the entire world
old it's going to be a much bigger undertaking. And
in in the movie at least, it's it's depicted as
(17:06):
when you stumble upon something within the discovery all these documents,
something that that is referred to as p f O
A or pfo A related with regards to the dry
running landfill. Um, can you can you just talk about that,
like what that was, what your journey was to figuring
out what the heck that substance was, because there wasn't nobody,
(17:27):
nobody actually had anything written down in these documents about
what it was, and you didn't really learn about it
until you were at the at least it appears like
you were at that Chemical Alliance dinner where you saw
the reaction to p f O A S. So let's
just talk about how you found it, what it is,
and that Chemical Alliance dinner. Well. I I have also
(17:50):
recently published the book called Exposure, which I try to
go into more detail about the discovery of this chemical
and how it was we came to find out it
even existed, and in what documents we saw this in
and how how I really started to understand what was
going on here was a pretty complicated process. But what
(18:12):
I can tell you is we were, you know, getting
getting nowhere really with focusing on the regulated listed materials
in this landfill and their permits. So I got to
the point where I finally decided I would ask to
Pond for all of their records relating to anything that
was going to this landfill from the plant. And we
(18:34):
met with great pushback from the company at that point, No,
you you need to keep focused on these hazardous listed materials,
and we had to go to court and we eventually
got a core order that required the company to start
turning over this broader group of documents. And it was
pouring through all of those materials, and there was a
lot that I stumbled upon the document one day that
(18:56):
mentioned this chemical referred to as a e f O
or p f O a H. And I tried to
find out what was this because it was indicating that
there was a lot of that material that had been
used at the plant and that it had been some
of that waste has been sent to this landfill. Uh.
(19:16):
So it was finding that reference really changed everything. I
tried to find information, you know, that was available publicly
online or in our library and really couldn't find much
of anything about this chemical. I wasn't even sure it
was a chemical at that point. Um, So that really
launched us down a whole new road. And really, you know,
(19:40):
it is something I had been had to focus on
for the next several years, just finding out what is
this stuff? And why is so much of it being
used at that plan? And why did it why did
the waste end up to this landfill? What does it
do to the cows that are drinking people? And in
the fall or autumn of two thousands, you had to
(20:03):
you You took them to court. You took to Pont
to court to comply with that request that they share
all documentation related to p f O A and that
that this feels like the watershed moment because you find
that not only is there uh, not only is their
correspondence internally or documentation eternally onto Pont side, but it
(20:26):
is robust, I believe, more than a hundred ten thousand pages.
And the thing that was scary to me is that
some of this paperwork is uh what fifty years old
at that point? Um, what did you do when you
got this this just mass info dump of all these
different things from it feels like they're from different sources, right,
(20:49):
medical reports, like thousands of boxes. Right? Yeah, what how
did you how did you begin to digest that? Well?
As you indicated, I mean that process us really began
after we were able to get the courts, you know,
to order the company to start turning over its internal
files about this material. And it eventually ended up being
(21:12):
millions of pages of documents. And those were the days
really before things were produced on electronic disks or thumb drives.
So we were getting physical, hard copy paper, which frankly
I think ended up being a blessing in the end, because, um,
we didn't necessarily know exactly what terms, you know, we
(21:35):
were looking for, how it do refer to this chemical?
In fact, we eventually learned they were referring to it
in four or five different ways that we wouldn't have
even known to ask for documents about FC one for
three or C eight you know it. It only was
going through all those documents that were able to piece
(21:56):
that together, um, and that that took many years sitting
through you know, I physically printed these things out, were
organized all those hard copies, read through every page and
trying to put together, put it in chronological order, and
try to piece together the history of what happened here.
And as you indicated, we saw documents going back to
(22:17):
the nineties fifties, the company started purchasing this material in
from the three M Company and had started extensive toxicology
studies on it in the sixties, and human studies in
the seventies and cancer studies in the eighties. So there
was a wealth of information and the most disturbing aspect
(22:38):
of it was realizing there was a lot known about
the toxicity of the chemical. Not only was it in
the waste that had been sent to this landfill and
that the cows were drinking, but it had been found
in the drinking water of the community in the eighties,
and nobody else outside the company seemed to be aware
of this. It did not look like the community you've
(23:01):
been told, did not look like the regulators were aware.
Um In fact, they're even draft stand by press releases
in case somebody found out that apparently never went out.
So it was very disturbing information and realized we were
dealing with, but we've realized was a public health threat
that had gone unnoticed. I don't want to come off
(23:22):
to naive here, But I mean the implication as this
went to the very top of this company in terms
of covering up these studies and just absolute brazen disregard
for people's safety. We're talking about information that was definitely
within the corporate files, within the scientific files, within the
(23:44):
lawyers were aware of that. The lawyers were even advising,
you know, the clients that this was a problem going
back years UM. And you know, there's a point where
I eventually even sat down with the CEO of the
company UM and showed him all of these internal documents
after he was standing up and publicly saying that there
(24:05):
was no information suggesting there were any health issues. So
I sat down with him and went through all of
those internal documents that showed just the opposite. UM. So
it was there was a wealth of information within the
company's own files. And this is this is something that
we want to want to emphasize. Is it true that
(24:29):
when you were when you were looking through all this
extensive documentation that literally no one else outside of DuPont
had ever seen before. Is it true that you found
they were contradicting their own recommendations about how to handle
pfo A. UM, You know, there were internal recommendations and
(24:54):
discussion about whether to switch frankly away from the chemical
to a different one in order to avoid some of
the problems they were seeing with p f l A.
And these discussions went back into the eighties, and there
were recommendations from three M, the company that was making
the p f l A and sending it to pot
since uh, you know, the three M was recommending that
(25:17):
it not be put into waterways, um, you know, that
it should be incinerated, and unfortunately DuPont was was not
solving those recommendations. I'm just gonna take a quick break
here and hear a word from our sponsor and we're
(25:40):
back talking about dark Waters and robbed a lots experience. Okay, so, uh,
we're really starting to get into the direness of this
story and the effects of what was going on there.
Let's jump I want to I want to kind of
focus in on the individual rules, the people in the
(26:01):
community who are working on you know, in these in
these facilities where they're actually creating the chemicals, and then
the people living that are drinking that water, and the
you know, in the movie, it's just kind of a
known thing that if you go and you work at
the that the chemical plant, your life is going to
(26:23):
be shortened. It's just something that people in the community
would talk about. The it's a known thing. You're gonna
make a good living for a fairly shortened amount of time.
And it was almost as if it's a trade off
and a known thing, at least as it depicted in
the movie. And I had a conversation with some of
my family from Ohio and like the Acron area, m
Caiago falls that area, and there it was just even
(26:48):
and within my relatives it was a known thing that
if you go and you work at a chemical company,
you're basically risking your life to get a good stable job.
Is that what you found in Parkersburg? And um, what
we're what were the effects on the people working in
these plants? I think as you see in the film
Dark Waters, Um, you know that there was definitely pushed
(27:10):
back within the community when the lawsuits began. Uh. You know,
this was one of the major employers in town. It
had been a contributor and you had provided funding for
a lot of the local organizations. Um, so there were
a lot of folks that we're not happy with the
idea you know that that there was litigation being brought
(27:33):
against you know, this this this employer in the community. UM.
And there was there was pushback you know, from the
against the folks that were speaking out UM. And you know,
even among the employees, UM, you know, there were folks
that were that we're definitely becoming thick. UM. In fact,
(27:53):
in the book, we discussed one of the former employees UM,
you know, who used to work at the lab um
you know, for for decades, was working with these chemicals
who developed ultort of colitis and just the severe personal
impact you know that that has on folks like that, UM,
(28:14):
you know. And I think that's one of the great
things about the film Dark Waters is that it really
gives you a good insight into how something like this
really impacts the real people in the community that are
dealing with it on a day to day basis. You know,
we're talking about something that was dragging on for years
and years. In the meantime, real people are living there,
(28:37):
you know, real people are drinking this in real people
are getting sick and dying. UM. And I think, you know,
it's something, Uh, I think it was powerful. It's powerful
to see what that really does to folks. I tremendously
appreciate that point. I think we all do, because one
thing the film does a fantastic job of depicting is
(28:59):
the human costs, the very real human costs of these
this sort of contamination and pollution and cover up with um.
You know, it could be so easy for us, you know,
just as people everyday people to see a headline on
the news or to hear a statistic and for us
(29:20):
to relegate that to the realm of abstraction. I we
can we can also tell that this had um a
clear dare I say, personal impact on you, specifically as
as an individual and as an attorney, because while this
is moving through court, while you're aggregating this evidence, while
(29:46):
you're finding this documentation, eventually, if we just if we
jump to two thousand again, eventually you call the attorney
on DuPonts and you have this conversation that results in
the tenants settling their case. And as as we as noted, right,
(30:11):
there's there's this one moment where it could have stopped.
There as that one single case, right, and the firm
gets as as you would indicated earlier, it's contingency fee.
But that's not where it stops because you make the
decision to continue unraveling this strange web. Could could you
(30:34):
tell us a little bit about, well, what compelled you
or what propelled you forward after the settlement. Yeah, you know,
by the time I had that conversation that we were
able to resolve the case for Mr Tenant and his family,
you know, we had I'll say I had been looking
(30:55):
through enough of the documentation at that point to realize
this one far beyond Mr Tennant's property. UM. And you know,
Mr Tennant, even in his family, were extremely concerned about
their community and their neighbors who, you know, we're drinking
this and had no idea. You know, we had found out,
(31:17):
you know, by looking at these documents that this was
not just on their property, not just in the landfill,
but it was in the local drinking water and nobody
was being told. So he was very passionate about finding
a way that we could get this information out to
the broader community. UM. And that that really bothered me
as well, knowing that, you know, I may be one
(31:39):
of the only people that had seen this information, was
aware of this public health threat, and nobody else seemed
to know it. So I did make the decision to
sit down and put all that information, at least most
of what I could find, um um, into a letter
that I sent to the U. S. E p A
in various different governmental agencies back on March six, two
(32:01):
thousand one, where I hoped by laying out what I
had been seeing in these documents, these agencies would see
the same thing and realized there was a public health
right here. People were drinking this material. This is out
there in the environment. You know. This agencies really hadn't
been given this information, and they would come in and
(32:22):
stop it and take action to clean it up, get
the water filtered and regulated, um you know. And I,
looking back, realized how naive I was to think that
the government agencies would actually swoop in and do something.
But um to me, that was a critical um step.
We needed to alert these agencies and the public to
(32:45):
this public health threat. And that happened, and Duplant actually
went to court to get a gag order to stop
us and talking about it, and luckily the court rejected
that and I was allowed to go and provide the
information to the e p A. And eventually, you know,
EPA started digging through it and realized this information had
(33:05):
been withheld sued DuPont and one of the few times
that's ever happened for suing a company for withholding information
like this from the agency. And that began the process
of looking into these chemicals and starting to regulate them,
where we unfortunately that process is still grinding on some
(33:26):
eighteen years later. And you said chemicals, they're right because
for a lot of this and a lot of people
maybe think teflon this one product, this one singular thing
is the issue. The carbon is a repeating carbon chain.
I believe that's how it's referred to. UM. It's this
one thing, but no, no, it's uh, it's numerous chemicals
(33:47):
that are very similar to this one. Right. Well, the
chemical that we were focused on in particular was one
of these chemicals called p f L A, and it
is one of a large group of chemicals that we
now know as t FAS p S A S a
group of man made chemicals that were invented right after
(34:08):
World War Two, primarily by three M. You know though,
these man made carbon and flooring combination chemicals UM that
share similar characteristics, and at the time we were focused
on one of them, p f O A. But what
we've now come to know is that there's a large
number of these out there, UM, and they're being found
(34:28):
also in drinking water across the country, and in all
of our blood and in the environment. So let's let's
talk about what that means for us. UM. There, the
three of us sitting in this room talking to you,
are are super producer Paul out there in the booth.
We all grew up with with my parents and I
making omelets in our you know, our saucepans that have
(34:51):
were covered with teflon, and we do. I'd use a
fork to make my omelet, and I know for a
fact that I've ingested that stuff in that way, outside
of the drinking water, outside of all you know, all
the other ways are being contaminated. Like what what does
that big what does the big picture really look like
for for all of humanity, for all of organic life. Well,
(35:13):
you know, that's the thing that's really very disturbing about
this whole story is we're talking about contamination on a
global scale that I'm not sure we've seen before. UM.
Where you know this this this chemical and this family
of chemicals, the PFAS chemicals have been used in an
enormous variety and array of different products over the decades
(35:37):
where you know, not just um um uh nonstick cookware,
but fast food wrappings, UM, stain resistant carpeting clothing, UH,
wire cabling, firefighting films, UH, microwave, popcorn, bag coatings, I mean,
you name it. And so these chemicals have been used
(36:00):
in such a vast array of products that it's out
there and not only in our water, but it's gotten
into soils, it's gotten into food. It's unfortunately, these chemicals
have a great ability to to stay out in the environment.
You know, once they're out there, they have a great
(36:21):
inability to be broken down by natural conditions. So you
hear them now referred to as forever chemicals p fl
A for example. UM it just really doesn't break down
under natural conditions and would be there for millions of years.
So pretty much everything that's been pumped out in the
last sixty seventy years is still there in our soil
(36:44):
and our water and now getting into us. And not
only does the stuff get out and stay in the environment,
it has a unique ability to get into living things
where it tends to stick into the blood. PFOA, for example,
gets into our blood and even the tiny these amounts
will build up over time. UM, So it's persistent and biocumulative,
(37:05):
and now we also know toxic. So you know, these
these chemicals in there, they're great, um persistence, Their ability
to be basically contaminating the whole planet and people on
the planet are presenting really tremendous challenges and concerns to
the scientific community right now, particularly as we just now
(37:27):
start sampling and finding out exactly where this stuff is.
It's been being pumped out there for decades, but we're
only just now really starting to sample and find it
and really realize the extent of the contamination. And I
certainly see and share your concern about the big picture
of contamination issues involved here. But to Matt's question, you know,
you know your story involves high levels of contamination literally
(37:50):
being pumped into water supplies and environments. Um, the whole
flicking off of tep long with a fork or you know,
over time, that would necessarily be something as much to
worry about as the big picture of things that you're addressing.
Or maybe I'm wrong, I just wanted to put that
to you. Well, but drinking these chemicals, you know, in
the water is has certainly been recognized by the scientific world,
(38:13):
is one of the primary sources of getting exposed. I mean,
if you're living in a community where these chemicals are
in your drinking water, that's going to be one of
your primary ways of getting it into your body. Uh.
These other exposures are probably going to be less significant,
but they'll still um, you know, managed to get into
you somehow. But really, you know, if you're in an
(38:34):
area where it's it's made it into the water, that's
really a prime concern to stop that that exposure, that's
a direct exposure into the body. And I believe one
thing that if there's one takeaway that everyone listening to
today's episode needs to carry with them after after the
audio has stopped played, it's this we're talking about the
(38:59):
jennis of an investigation that expands, you know, to these
vast parameters. But we're not really talking about something that
happened in the past. We're not only talking about that
because as as you establish, Rob, this is this is
going on, These chemicals, these substances are still out there
(39:22):
in multitudes of different Uh, let's see multitudes of different applications,
multitudes of different h ellicit distributions right whether in in
drinking water or in DuPont so called digestion ponds. We
now are looking towards the future and would love to
(39:43):
hear your perspective on what the future of p f
O A and these related contaminants may actually be. What,
because you know that directly translates to the health of
the public and the health of livestock and and even
perhaps not to be alarmist about it, the health of
(40:04):
generations to come, could you speak with us a little
bit about what you see in the near to mid
future as um as the state of America's health as
it applies to these substances, or any any action, whether
environmental recovery actions or whether legal actions that might mitigate
(40:27):
potential future harm. Yeah, you know, as the information finally
started coming out about about these chemicals. Actually three m
back in two thousand announced that it was going to
stop making uh p f o A and the related
one PFOS that was used to Scotch Guard and cirefighting films.
So they very quickly announced they would stop making two
(40:48):
of these DuPont unfortunately then jumped in at that point
and started making and continue to make p fl A
you know, as more of this information came out to
our litigation and the e p A got more involved
and more concerns, du Pont and the other companies that
were still using and making p f A at the
time announced in two thousand six that they would stop
(41:10):
making p f A and phase put out over the
next ten years. By during that period of time, companies
have brought out what they referred to as alternatives or
safer replacements for these UM longer chain C eights, ones
that have eight carbons, things like C fixes, C fours,
(41:33):
and the hopes that they're less persistent, less biocumulative, and unfortunately,
the data that's coming out suggest they might share very
similar toxicities and hopefully won't last in the environment. Though
is long and I think what we're seeing is as
this data is coming out about this broader class of
chemicals and more testing as occurring, people are finally becoming
(41:55):
aware that these chemicals even exist and what their exposures
have been or might be UM And you know, that's
one of the things I'm very encouraged about with the
release of Dark Waters in the book, is that that
information it will now be out to a wider group
of people will now understand that they've been exposed at
least have the tools to start beginning to two avoid
(42:19):
those exposures hopefully going forward at least be aware of
what kind of products and where where in the environment
these chemicals might be, so that they can choose to
avoid it if they want. And we are now finally
seeing regulatory authorities start to finally take action. It's taken
a long time. The u s e p A still
(42:40):
has not regulated these chemicals on a federal level, but
the states are moving forward setting drinking water guidelines on
their own in order to protect people. So we're seeing
action begin, and I think we're seeing increased awareness so
that people can take steps to protect themselves, and hopeful
we'll also see technologies being developed to help us get
(43:03):
these things out of our environment and hopefully find ways
to make sure that our exposures are minimized going forward.
Thank you so much for having something positive to talk
about in the story, Rob because man, it's um it's
we get into very dark waters here when we're when
(43:25):
we're dealing this. Sorry, I just have one in there,
No for real, It's it's it's this movie and this
story and your experience. It's it's very intense and at
times it can be disheartening many weeks. Yeah, I mean,
for sure, it really points to a real um lack
of humanity on the parts of folks that can really
(43:46):
that that are the ones who are most empowered to
really make a difference and just choose not to, it
would seem I believe the euphemism is self regulation. Well yeah, so,
so I don't want to spoil the ending of the movie.
If you've read the r iCal, you know how how
it turns out for the people of Parkersburg and a
lot of the other people affected. But I just really quickly,
for my money, the biggest the biggest issue is the
(44:10):
self regulation of these chemical companies with their proprietary chemicals.
And the problem is that the e p A and
all these regulatory bodies won't know what chemicals to to
regulate if the chemical company doesn't come forward and give
them those guidelines. Um. At least that's the way it
was when these lawsuits began. Have you have you seen
(44:32):
any change in that respect or is it still kind
of the way it was? Yeah, I mean for existing chemicals,
like those chemicals that were out there before a lot
of these rules and laws came into play. Um. In fact,
this situation was cited as an example UM of why
(44:54):
those laws needed to be changed. In fact, in twenty
the federal law regulated chemicals coming out in the market
was a beef stop in order to to try to
address that very issue. I think it remains to be
seen how effective you know, that's going to be going forward,
But to me, it's encouraging. What's really encouraging is to
(45:15):
see this information come out, um And because I think
once you give people the facts and this information, um,
you know, even if it's going to take a while
for these things to grind through the regulatory system or
the political system, people on an individual basis, once they
know the information, they can at least take steps to
(45:36):
protect themselves. And I think that's something you see in
the movie as well. It is just the power of
information and individuals to stand up and do things to
protect themselves in their communities. Well said, then we completely
agree we've seen dark waters for ourselves. For anyone listening,
(45:58):
if you would like more information, because information is power,
and in this case it's also self empowerment. If you
would like to learn more about this again, ongoing story,
then check out the film Dark Waters. Additionally, uh find Exposure,
which is Rob Blood's book coming out via Simon and Schuster. Yeah, Rob,
(46:23):
thank you so much. Is there anything else you want
to leave us with? No, and I really appreciate the opportunity. Again,
you know, anything like this that helps people understand, um,
what has actually happened, What is happening, believe it or
not in the United States in today's world. You know,
this is, as you indicated, not something that happened, you know,
(46:45):
back in the nineteen tens or twice. This is modern
day United States and for people to understand this is
what's happening, and here are the things we need to
do that hopefully will make things better. Well, and as
we know from this story, the step in a lot
of this is just reporting and letting people know what's
going on in your neck of the global woods, as
(47:05):
Ben would say. So if you want to do that
and you have something like this happening around you, or
you just want to share how things like this have
affected your lives, please connect with us on social media
where we're Conspiracy Stuff and Conspiracy Stuff Show. You can
also find us on our Facebook group. Here's where it
gets crazy on Facebook. A great place to post articles
and follow up with the topics that we discussed on
(47:26):
the show every week. And if you want to call in,
if you're out there listening, we have a phone number
you can leave us. A message. Number is one eight
three three st d w y t k uh. Sorry,
Robin Well, it might be a little strange coming out
of nowhere there um uh. And if you don't want
to do that, if you want to write us a
good old fashioned email, we are conspiracy at i heart
(47:49):
radio dot com. M hm. Stuff they Don't Want You
(48:10):
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