Dark Waters and Erin Brockovich are two environmental legal dramas based on true stories. Dark Waters is a 2019 film starring Mark Ruffalo as Robert Bilott, the environmental lawyer who fought for over two decades against the chemical company DuPont. The lawsuit centered on the water contamination Dupont caused in Parkersburg, West Virginia. The corporation contaminated the small town’s water supply with PFAS chemicals, most notably perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Both PFOA and PTFE are toxic synthetic compounds and “forever chemicals”, chemicals that persist in the environment and in human bodies because of their inability to break down easily. The chemicals were components of DuPont’s product Teflon, which is primarily used in nonstick cookware. The movie Dark Waters depicts the real-life illnesses and health issues faced by the people of Parkersburg, including kidney cancer, thyroid disease, and birth defects. Bilott represented 70,000 residents of Parkersburg who were exposed to contamination, and his case went from the summer of 1999 until 2017. In 2016, Bilott was named “DuPont’s Worst Nightmare” by the New York Times after winning over a billion dollars for victims, including medical expenses. The lawsuit also resulted in the discontinuation of the PFAS-based process used in the production of Teflon.
Erin Brockovich is a 2000 film based on the true story of Erin Brockovich, a paralegal who played a pivotal role in the lawsuit against Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) over the groundwater contamination they caused in the town of Hinkley, California. The movie stars Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich. Erin Brockovich is a paralegal at a real estate law firm when she discovers that PG&E has been contaminating Hinkley’s water supply with a toxic form of the chemical chromium: hexavalent chromium. The people of Hinkley were aware that they were being exposed to a type of chromium; however, they were told by PG&E that it was a beneficial and harmless type of chromium known as trivalent chromium, or chromium-3, rather than the carcinogenic hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6. Hexavalent chromium was being used to protect metal at PG&E’s natural gas plant in Hinkley. Since the plant’s operation, residents of the town had been suffering unexplained illnesses, such as different types of cancer, as well as reproductive issues and miscarriages. Erin Brockovich and her then-boss Ed Masry led a lawsuit against PG&E, which ended in 1996 with a settlement of $333 million, the largest ever awarded in a class-action lawsuit at the time.
The case Robert Bilott led against DuPont in the film Dark Waters surprisingly didn’t start with evidence of humans being affected by the contamination, but rather livestock. Robert Bilott, who worked at the Taft law firm at the time, was contacted by David Tennant, a farmer from Parkersburg whose cattle and other livestock were dying in large numbers as well as experiencing aggression, disorientation, and other behavioral symptoms. Tennant’s farm animals sparked the investigation into the people living in Parkersburg. During the 1960s, before the contamination in Parkersburg, DuPont conducted unethical testing of Teflon in order to observe the chemical’s effects on humans. Dupont laced cigarettes with Teflon and gave these cigarettes to the company’s employees. The participants in this illegal testing of Teflon were unaware of what had been done to the cigarettes, and began to develop a sickness called polymer fume fever, which was later given the name of “teflon flu”. Many employees later developed cancer; pregnant employees suffered miscarriages and gave birth to children with defects. This incident was depicted in Dark Waters, helping to portray Dupont’s blatant disregard for the health of not only the public but also its employees. The end credits of Dark Waters showed a scary statistic: PFOA is believed to be in the blood of 99% of humans on Earth, illustrating the long-term consequences of the use of PFAs. Additionally, due to PFOA’s nature as a “forever chemical”, it will persist in human bodies for essentially forever.
The cases led by Bilott and Brockovich have great significance in the field of environmental law. The shocking crimes committed by corporate giants like DuPont and PG&E reveal the companies’ disregard for human health and lack of accountability. Dupont was able to take advantage of the people of Parkersburg, a rural community in West Virginia consisting mostly of farmers who made little income and didn’t have the resources to fight a large company like Dupont. DuPont was intentional in where it decided to place its PFOA-containing landfills: they wanted to make sure that they would be able to get away with any problems caused by the landfills. PG&E similarly took advantage of the town of Hinkley, California. Hinkley is another rural and low-income town, where people wouldn’t have a fighting chance against a large corporation. People like Erin Brockovich and Robert Bilott have worked to expose these unethical intentions of companies like DuPont and PG&E. Both cases also took place over more than a decade, showing how hard it is to come to a fair settlement.
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