The Poisoned Water of West Virginia

A story, quote, and lesson about the cost of doing the right thing

We all think we are good people.

That’s also what Rob Bilott probably thought as he was helping his clients as a lawyer for Taft, an American law firm.

For almost eight years after joining Taft in 1990, Bilott’s specialty was defending chemical companies in public litigation. He excelled at his job, prompting Taft to make him a partner by 1998.

This was all threatened when Bilott took on an unusual client. He represented Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, West Virginia, whose cattle were dying in large numbers with mutations and illnesses unlike anything he had seen before. Tennant firmly believed that his farm was being contaminated by the nearby plant of the chemical giant DuPont.

Taking Tennant as a client meant going against what he had been building for the last 8 years. It meant putting his position as a partner at risk. At first, Bilott was skeptical. He had defended these companies in the past and couldn’t possible imagine them doing something like this. However, what he would soon find out shook him to his core.

Rob Bilott on land owned by the Tennants near Parkersburg. Credit: Bryan Schutmaat for The New York Times

Bilott read many documents and environmental studies in his path to the truth. His conclusion? During their experiments and production of Teflon, the popular kitchen coating, DuPont had knowingly dumped hundreds of tons of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in a nearby landfill, contaminating not only farm animals but also most of the residents of Parkersburg.

Bilott had seen enough. In 2001, he filed a class action lawsuit against DuPont representing 70,000 people in Ohio and West Virginia affected by PFOA-contaminated water. When faced with the lawsuit, DuPont entered into a non-binding agreement to provide medical monitoring of up to $235 million for those affected if an independent science panel confirmed "probable links" between PFOA in the drinking water and human disease.

Because tens of thousands of people agreed to have their blood tested, the independent panel took almost 10 years to analyze and process the results. They found that there was a probable link between PFOA and kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, among other afflictions.

Instead of going ahead with the planned $235 million relief for those afflicted, DuPont withdrew from their agreement and refused to pay a single penny.

After several of the class started dying from causes related to the contaminants, Bilott was asked what tormented him. Here’s his answer:

“The thought that we still hadn’t been able to hold this company responsible for what they did in time for those people to see it.”

Bilott was faced with unsurmountable odds. Either they go to endless trials for each individual plaintiff (maybe taking a few years for each of the 70,000 members), or DuPont walks away unscathed. He wasn’t stepping down.

By 2015, Bilott began opening individual personal injury lawsuits against DuPont. After losing the first three cases for $19.7 million in damages by 2017 DuPont agreed to settle the remainder of the cases for $671.7 million.

Bilott’s story is remarkable. He firmly believed that DuPont had to be brought to justice and he did whatever he could to make it happen, sacrificing relationships, job opportunities and even his personal health in the process.

Most of us may not be in positions where we need to sacrifice everything to do something right. But Bilott’s story reminds us that morality isn’t about the easy choices, it’s about the hard ones. The ones that cost us. The ones that demand we risk comfort, reputation, or stability in order to stand by what we know is true

It’s tempting to believe that being a “good person” is something passive, something we simply are. Yet Bilott shows us that being good is often something we do. It’s a verb, not a label.

We all think we are good people. The real question is: when the moment comes, will our actions prove it?

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P.S. If you enjoyed this week’s topic, I highly recommend watching the movie Dark Waters (2019) starring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway. It’s a highly entertaining retelling of this real story and those involved.

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