Robert Bilott | |
---|---|
Born | Albany, New York, U.S. | August 2, 1965
Alma mater | New College of Florida (BA) Ohio State University (JD) |
Occupation | Environmental lawyer |
Known for | Class action lawsuit against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs from Parkersburg, West Virginia |
Spouse | Sarah Barlage (m. 1996) |
Children | 3 |
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 injured by chemical waste dumped in rural communities in West Virginia. Bilott has spent more than twenty years litigating hazardous dumping of the chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). They were unregulated as industry had never publicly identified them as having known hazardous effects, despite internal studies showing these results.
Bilott's litigation was the foundation for his memoir titled Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont (2019). As a result of his work, he became the subject of increasing media attention in the late 2010s. The 2018 documentary The Devil We Know and the 2019 feature film Dark Waters drew attention to his legal battles with Dupont and the hazards of these chemicals. This public attention resulted in his receiving numerous awards, including the international Right Livelihood Award.
In 2024 President Joe Biden announced the first standards for regulating PFAS in drinking water in the United States, as well as $1 billion in funding to aid districts and cities to protect their water supplies.
Bilott was born on August 2, 1965, in Albany, New York. [1] Bilott's father served in the United States Air Force, and Bilott spent his childhood on several air force bases. Because the family moved frequently, Bilott attended eight different schools before graduating from Fairborn High School in Fairborn, Ohio.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and urban studies from the New College of Florida. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law in 1990. [2] [3]
Bilott was admitted to the bar in 1990 [3] and began his law practice at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, Ohio. [4] For eight years he worked almost exclusively for large corporate clients and his specialty was defending chemical companies. [5] He became a partner at the firm in 1998. [1]
Bilott represented Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, West Virginia, whose cattle were dying. [1] The farm was downstream from a landfill where DuPont had been dumping hundreds of tons of perfluorooctanoic acid. In the summer of 1999, Bilott filed a federal suit against DuPont in the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. In response, DuPont advised that DuPont and the United States Environmental Protection Agency would commission a study of the farmer's property, conducted by three veterinarians chosen by DuPont and three chosen by the Environmental Protection Agency. When the report was released, it blamed the Tennants for the dying cattle, claiming that poor husbandry was responsible: "poor nutrition, inadequate veterinary care and lack of fly control." [5]
After Bilott discovered that thousands of tons of DuPont's PFOA had been dumped into the landfill next to the Tennants' property and that DuPont's PFOA was contaminating the surrounding community's water supply, DuPont settled the Tennants' case. PFOA was unregulated by EPA, and the industry had never reported the results of its internal studies showing it to be hazardous to humans and animals.
In August 2001, Bilott filed a class action lawsuit against DuPont on behalf of the approximately 70,000 people in West Virginia and Ohio with PFOA-contaminated drinking water. This was settled in September 2004, with class benefits valued at over $300 million, including DuPont agreeing to install filtration plants in the six affected water districts and dozens of affected private wells, a cash award of $70 million, and provisions for future medical monitoring to be paid by DuPont up to $235 million, if an independent science panel confirmed "probable links" between PFOA in the drinking water and human disease. [1]
Because tens of thousands of people in the affected districts agreed to have their blood tested for the presence of PFOA, the independent scientific panel jointly selected by the parties (but required under the settlement to be paid for by DuPont) took years to analyze and process the results. It found that there was a probable link between drinking PFOA and kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia, and ulcerative colitis. DuPont announced its withdrawal from the above agreement.
Bilott began opening individual personal-injury lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of affected users of the Ohio and West Virginia water supplies, who by 2015 numbered more than 3,500 individuals. After losing the first three cases for a total of $19.7 million in damages, in 2017 DuPont agreed to settle the remainder of the then-pending cases for $671.7 million. [1] [6]
Dozens of additional cases filed after the 2017 settlement were settled in 2021 for an additional $83 million (announced in conjunction with a $4 billion settlement between DuPont and its spin-off, Chemours, over PFAS liabilities), bringing the total settlement value in the personal injury cases for those exposed to PFOA in their drinking water to over $753 million. [7]
In 2018, Bilott filed a new case seeking new studies and testing of the larger group of PFAS chemicals on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of everyone in the United States who has PFAS chemicals in their blood, against several PFAS manufacturers, including 3M, DuPont, and Chemours. [8] In March 2022, the federal court overseeing the case certified the case to proceed as a class action on behalf of millions of people with PFAS in their blood. [9]
In 2018, Bilott was appointed by the federal court in South Carolina overseeing all cases filed across the United States for harm caused by PFAS in aqueous fire fighting foam to serve as national “Advisory Counsel” to the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee overseeing all that consolidated multi-district litigation (the “AFFF MDL”). [10] In 2021, Bilott was co-class counsel in the first class settlement in the AFFF MDL for those impacted by PFAS private drinking water well contamination from a Tyco fire training facility in Wisconsin, providing settlement benefits in excess of $15 million. [11] In 2023, the largest drinking water settlements in US history were reached in the AFFF MDL with 3M and DuPont-related companies for PFAS impacts to US public water systems, valued at over $13 billion, followed by additional US public water system settlements in 2024 with Tyco and BASF, valued at another $1 billion. [12] Bilott was also part of the legal team that settled PFAS claims by the State of Ohio against DuPont- related companies for $110 million in 2024. [13]
In April 2024, the President Joseph R. Biden administration announced the first regulations for standards for PFAS in drinking water. It also announced $1 billion in funding to enable cities and districts to protect their water supplies from contamination. [14]
In 2016, Bilott's story was the focus of a featured cover story by Nathaniel Rich in the New York Times Magazine , entitled, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare". Rich's article was later published in his book, Second Nature (2021). [15] Bilott's work was also featured in extensive articles in The Huffington Post ("Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg") and The Intercept (multi-part "The Teflon Toxin" series).
Robert Bilott wrote the memoir Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont , first published in English in 2019 by Atria Books. [16] It was later translated into Chinese (2022). [17] and Japanese (2023). [18] The audio book version is narrated by Jeremy Bobb, with the first chapter narrated by actor Mark Ruffalo. He played Bilott in Dark Waters (2019), the film adapted from Rich's article. [19]
Nathaniel Rich's article, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare," was adapted for Dark Waters , a 2019 film starring Mark Ruffalo as Bilott, and Anne Hathaway as Bilott's wife, Sarah Barlage. The article was also adapted by U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith for a poem, Watershed.
Bilott's investigation and litigation against DuPont are also featured in the feature-length American documentary The Devil We Know (2018) and the Swedish documentary, The Toxic Compromise. It is also the subject of the "Toxic Waters" episode of the multi-part feature documentary, Parched, which aired on the National Geographic TV channel in 2017.
Bilott is the subject of the song and video "Deep in the Water" by The Gary Douglas Band, and the song "Blank" / "Worker" by emo revival band The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die. [20]
Bilott appears in Devil Put The Coal In The Ground (2022), a documentary about the suffering and environmental devastation that resulted from the coal industry and its decline. [21] Additionally, Bilott appears in the Belgian documentary, Solvay, the Invisible Pollution (2023), about chemical giants and the widespread pollution of PFAS. [22] He is interviewed in Toxic Bodies, a French documentary about industry use and knowledge of PFAS. [23]
Bilott wrote the foreword of the book Forever Chemicals Environmental, Economic, and Social Equity Concerns with PFAS in the Environment (2021), [24] by David M. Kempisty and Leeann Racz, published in 2021 by CRC Press. He also wrote the foreword to PFAS – The Eternal and Invisible Pollutants in the Water: Stories of Denied Rights and Active Citizenship, a book published in Italy in 2024. [25]
He appears in the 2023 documentary, Burned: Protecting the Protectors, which focuses on PFAS exposures among firefighters [26] and the Japanese documentary, Water is Treasure: PFAS - Fight for Life, addressing the impacts of PFAS in Okinawa. Bilott is also in the 2024 Australian documentary, Revealed: How to Poison a Planet, with Mark Ruffalo. [27]
In 2017, Bilott received the international Right Livelihood Award, also known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize", for his decades of work on PFAS chemical contamination issues. He was featured on a stamp issued in Austria, which commemorated the award.
In 2020, Bilott was part of a "Fight Forever Chemicals" social media and outreach campaign that was a Winner in Entertainment and a Finalist in Global Campaign, Media Partnership for the social media Shorty Awards. "Fight Forever Chemicals" also received a Gold Distinction in Environment and Sustainability. [28]
Bilott serves on the board of directors for Less Cancer, the board of trustees for Green Umbrella, [29] and the board of directors of the New College Foundation. He had served on the alumni board for New College of Florida from 2018 to 2021. In 2021, Bilott received an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from New College of Florida [30] and an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from The Ohio State University's Environmental Science Graduate Program. [31] In 2023, Bilott received an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Thomas More University [32] and received the Humanitarian Impact Award from the National PFAS Contamination Coalition in 2024. [33]
He is a fellow in the Right Livelihood College, an Honorary Professor at the National University of Cordoba in Argentina, and a lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences. [34]
In 1996, Bilott married Sarah Barlage. They have three sons. [2]
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene, and has numerous applications because it is chemically inert. The commonly known brand name of PTFE-based composition is Teflon by Chemours, a spin-off from DuPont, which originally discovered the compound in 1938. Polytetrafluoroethylene is a fluorocarbon solid, as it is a high-molecular-weight polymer consisting wholly of carbon and fluorine. PTFE is hydrophobic: neither water nor water-containing substances wet PTFE, as fluorocarbons exhibit only small London dispersion forces due to the low electric polarizability of fluorine. PTFE has one of the lowest coefficients of friction of any solid.
Perfluorooctanoic acid is a perfluorinated carboxylic acid produced and used worldwide as an industrial surfactant in chemical processes and as a material feedstock. PFOA is considered a surfactant, or fluorosurfactant, due to its chemical structure, which consists of a perfluorinated, n-heptyl "tail group" and a carboxylic acid "head group". The head group can be described as hydrophilic while the fluorocarbon tail is both hydrophobic and lipophobic.
W. Michael McCabe is an American policy advisor specializing in environmental and energy policy. He had previously served as a Regional Administrator, and later Deputy Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), being the only person in the Agency's history to serve as both. Between 2003 and 2006, McCabe consulted for DuPont and led DuPont's defense against an EPA lawsuit of the toxic PFAS chemical PFOA. In November 2020 he was named a volunteer member of the Joe Biden presidential transition Agency Review Team.
Taft Stettinius & Hollister, commonly known as "Taft", is an American, AmLaw100 law firm founded in Cincinnati, with offices in Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Delaware, Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; Denver, Colorado; Detroit, Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana; Covington, Kentucky; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Phoenix, Arizona; and Washington, D.C. Taft has been referred to as Cincinnati's most prestigious law firm.
A 'non-stick surface' is engineered to reduce the ability of other materials to stick to it. Non-sticking cookware is a common application, where the non-stick coating allows food to brown without sticking to the pan. Non-stick is often used to refer to surfaces coated with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a well-known brand of which is Teflon. In the twenty-first century, other coatings have been marketed as non-stick, such as anodized aluminium, silica, enameled cast iron, and seasoned cookware.
The Weinberg Group is a Washington, DC–based food and drug regulatory consulting group. Founded in 1983, the firm assists pharmaceutical and biotech companies with the "development and implementation of successful and innovative regulatory strategies" and also helps these companies to "remediate, maintain and improve their regulatory compliance." The Weinberg Group sent a memo to DuPont in 2003 recommending that the company “reshape the debate by identifying the likely known health benefits of PFOA exposure.”
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are a group of synthetic organofluorine chemical compounds that have multiple fluorine atoms attached to an alkyl chain; there are 7 million such chemicals according to PubChem. PFAS came into use after the invention of Teflon in 1938 to make fluoropolymer coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. They are now used in products including waterproof fabric such as Nylon, yoga pants, carpets, shampoo, feminine hygiene products, mobile phone screens, wall paint, furniture, adhesives, food packaging, heat-resistant non-stick cooking surfaces such as Teflon, firefighting foam, and the insulation of electrical wire. PFAS are also used by the cosmetic industry in most cosmetics and personal care products, including lipstick, eye liner, mascara, foundation, concealer, lip balm, blush, and nail polish.
Perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS) is a PFAS chemical compound having a four-carbon fluorocarbon chain and a sulfonic acid functional group. It is stable and unreactive because of the strength of carbon–fluorine bonds. It can occur in the form of a colorless liquid or a corrosive solid. Its conjugate base is perfluorobutanesulfonate which functions as the hydrophobe in fluorosurfactants.
The Devil We Know is a 2018 investigative documentary film by director Stephanie Soechtig regarding allegations of health hazards from perfluorooctanoic acid, a key ingredient used in manufacturing Teflon, and DuPont's potential responsibility. PFAS are commonly found in every household, and in products as diverse as non-stick cookware, stain resistant furniture and carpets, wrinkle free and water repellant clothing, cosmetics, lubricants, paint, pizza boxes, popcorn bags, and many other everyday products.
The Chemours Company is an American chemical company that was founded in July 2015 as a spin-off from DuPont. It has its corporate headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, United States. Chemours is the manufacturer of Teflon, the brand name of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), known for its anti-stick properties. It also produces titanium dioxide and refrigerant gases. It is currently being sued by the PA Attorney General, for knowingly exposing the public to PFAS.
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in the development of the U.S. state of Delaware and first arose as a major supplier of gunpowder. DuPont developed many polymers such as Vespel, neoprene, nylon, Corian, Teflon, Mylar, Kapton, Kevlar, Zemdrain, M5 fiber, Nomex, Tyvek, Sorona, Corfam and Lycra in the 20th century, and its scientists developed many chemicals, most notably Freon (chlorofluorocarbons), for the refrigerant industry. It also developed synthetic pigments and paints including ChromaFlair.
Water contamination in Lawrence and Morgan Counties, Alabama, revolves around the presence of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) in the water supply. After the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released new health advisories in March 2016, there was concern over health risks of the levels of PFOA and PFOS present. The responses of different government officials, agencies, and companies raise questions as to whether or not there was any environmental injustice involved.
GenX is a Chemours trademark name for a synthetic, short-chain organofluorine chemical compound, the ammonium salt of hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA). It can also be used more informally to refer to the group of related fluorochemicals that are used to produce GenX. DuPont began the commercial development of GenX in 2009 as a replacement for perfluorooctanoic acid, in response to legal action due to the health effects and ecotoxicity of PFOA.
Baron & Budd, P.C. is an American plaintiffs' law firm headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Opponents of mass tort litigation have criticized the firm for the zealousness with which it represents its clients, and for the political activities of some of its attorneys.
Michael L. Dourson is an American toxicologist and Director of Science at the nonprofit organization, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment. He was formerly a senior advisor to the Administrator of EPA, and prior to that, a professor at the Risk Science Center at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Prior to joining the University of Cincinnati, he was founder and president of the nonprofit Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment. Earlier in his career, he was employed by the Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Criteria and Assessment Office, among other assignments.
Dark Waters is a 2019 American legal thriller film directed by Todd Haynes and written by Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan. The story dramatizes Robert Bilott's case against the chemical manufacturing corporation DuPont after they contaminated a town with unregulated chemicals. It stars Mark Ruffalo as Bilott, along with Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare Winningham, William Jackson Harper, and Bill Pullman.
This timeline of events related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) includes events related to the discovery, development, manufacture, marketing, uses, concerns, litigation, regulation, and legislation, involving the human-made PFASs. The timeline focuses on some perfluorinated compounds, particularly perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and on the companies that manufactured and marketed them, mainly DuPont and 3M. An example of PFAS is the fluorinated polymer polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), which has been produced and marketed by DuPont under its trademark Teflon. GenX chemicals and perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS) are organofluorine chemicals used as a replacement for PFOA and PFOS.
Despite the best efforts of the government, health, and environmental agencies, improper use of hazardous chemicals is pervasive in commercial products, and can yield devastating effects, from people developing brittle bones and severe congenital defects, to strips of wildlife laying dead by poisoned rivers.
Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont is the 2019 memoir by Robert Bilott, an American environmental attorney at Taft Stettinius & Hollister. The book follows Bilott's personal and professional journey through the litigation that revealed a global crisis of persistent organic pollution due to PFOA and PFAS, referred to as "forever chemicals." For its contribution to broadening public awareness of environmental hazard, Exposure received the 2020 Green Prize for Sustainable Literature from the Santa Monica Public Library.
Washington Works, officially named Chemours Washington Works and previously DuPont Washington Works is a plastics factory in West Virginia, United States.