缓解胃痛的方法Unit 6
The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare
By Nathaniel Rich
1 Rob Bilott received a call from a cattle farmer. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W. Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently operated a site in Parkersburg, was responsible. Tennant had tried to ek help locally, but DuPont just about owned the entire town. He had been spurned not only by Parkersburg’s lawyers but also by its politicians, journalists, doctors and veterinarians. He reached out to Bilott becau he knew the latter’s grandmother.
2 He did not understand, however, that Bilott was not the right kind of environmental lawyer. Bilott worked almost exclusively for large corporate clients. His specialty was defending chemical companies. Several times, Bilott had even worked on cas with DuPont lawyers. Nevertheless, as a favor to his grandmother, he agreed to meet the farmer.
如何选购冰箱3 During the meeting, Wilbur Tennant explained that he and his four siblings had run the cattle farm sin
ce their father abandoned them as children. In the early ’80s, his brother Jim sold 66 acres to DuPont, which wanted a landfill for waste from its factory near Parkersburg.
4 DuPont named the plot Dry Run Landfill after the creek that ran through it. The same creek flowed down to a pasture where the Tennants grazed their cows. Not long after the sale, the cattle began to act deranged.
5 Tennant showed Bilott photographs of cows with stringy tails, malformed hooves and red, receded eyes; cows suffering constant diarrhea, staggering bowlegged like drunks.
6 Bilott decided right away to take the Tennant ca. It was, to him, the right thing to do.
7 Bilott filed a federal suit against DuPont in the summer of 1999 in the Southern District of West Virginia. In respon, DuPont and the E.P.A. commissioned a study of the property. Their report did not find DuPont responsible for the cattle’s health problems. The culprit, instead, was “poor nutrition, inadequate veterinary care and lack of fly control.” In other words, the Tennants didn’t know how to rai cattle; if the cows were dying, it was their own fault.
8 Bilott stumbled upon a letter DuPont had nt to the E.P.A. that mentioned a substance at the landf
ill with a cryptic name: “PFOA.” He hunted through references and learned that it was short for perfluorooctanoic acid. But besides that, he could find nothing. He asked DuPont to share all documentation related to the substance; DuPont refud. In the fall of 2000, Bilott requested a court order to force them. The order was granted. Dozens of boxes containing thousands of unorganized documents began to arrive at Bilott’s office. There were more than 110,000 pages in all, some half a century old. Bilott spent the next few months on the floor of his office, poring over the documents and arranging them in chronological order.
9 He began to e a story.
10 The story began in 1951, when DuPont started purchasing PFOA from 3M for u in the manufacturing of Teflon. Though PFOA was not classified by the government as a hazardous substance, 3M nt DuPont recommendations on how to dispo of it. It was to be incinerated or nt to chemical-waste facilities, not to be flushed into surface water or wers. But over the decades that followed, DuPont pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds of PFOA powder through the outfall pipes of its factory into the river.
11 In 1984, DuPont became aware that dust vented from factory chimneys ttled well beyond the pr
operty line and, more disturbing, that PFOA was prent in the local water supply. DuPont declined to disclo this finding.
12 By the ’90s, DuPont understood that PFOA caud cancerous tumors in lab animals. It decided against disusing PFOA. The risk was too great: Products manufactured with PFOA were an important part of DuPont’s business, worth $1 billion in annual profit.
13 In August 2000, Bilott called DuPont and explained that he knew what was going on. It was a brief conversation.
14 The Tennants ttled. Bilott would receive a contingency fee. The whole business might have ended right there. But Bilott was not satisfied.
15 He spent the following months drafting a public brief against DuPont. It was 972 pages long, including 136 attached exhibits. He demanded immediate action to regulate PFOA and provide clean water to tho living near the factory. DuPont reacted quickly, requesting a gag order to block Bilott from providing the information he had discovered in the Tennant ca to the government. A federal court denied it. Bilott nt his entire ca file to the E.P.A.
三言两语的意思16 The letter led, four years later, in 2005, to DuPont’s reaching a $16.5 million ttlement with the E.P.A., which had accud the company of concealing its knowledge of PFOA’s toxicity and prence in the environment in violation of the Toxic Substances Control Act. DuPont cead production and u of PFOA in 2013.
珍惜打针617 The next step was to file lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of everyone who water was tainted by PFOA. As of October, 2015, 3,535 plaintiffs had done so. At the
rate of four trials a year, DuPont would continue to fight PFOA cas until the year 2890.广场操
18 Bilott never reprented a corporate client again.
参考译文：
一位使杜邦公司陷入可怕梦魇的律师
纳撒尼尔·里奇
1 罗伯·比洛特接到一个养牛场主的电话，他名叫威尔伯·泰能特，住西弗吉尼亚州帕克斯堡镇，他说他的养牛场里到处有牛死去。他认为杜邦化学公司应对此负责，因为该公司在帕克斯堡一直有个经营场
地，直到最近才撤离。泰能特曾在当地投诉求助，但整个镇几乎都是杜邦的，不仅是镇上的律师，甚至那里的政客、记者、医生和兽医都对他嗤之以鼻。他来找比洛特，是因为与后者的祖母相识。
安全技术交底制度2 但他不知道，比洛特不是他所需要的那种环保律师。比洛特的客户几乎全是大公司。他的专长是为化学公司辩护。他甚至还多次与杜邦的律师合作共同处理案件。但是，看在他祖母的面上，他同意约见这位养牛场主。
3 见面时，威尔伯·泰能特说，他和他的四个兄弟姐妹早年被父亲遗弃，自那以后一直经营着这个养牛场。20世纪80年代初，他的兄弟吉姆把66英亩土地卖给了杜邦作垃圾填埋场，用来堆放帕克斯堡附近一个杜邦工厂的废弃物。
4 流经该地块的一条溪流名叫枯水溪，杜邦就以此溪取名，将这块地称为枯水溪垃圾填埋场。就是这条小溪流到泰能特兄弟几家放牛的一片草地。土地卖出不久，牛群就开始变得行为怪异。
我的前半生读后感5 泰能特拿出照片给比洛特看，牛尾如细绳，牛蹄畸形，牛眼凹陷还带红色。牛腹泻不断，腿成弓形，走路像是醉酒一样摇摇晃晃。
6 比洛特当即决定接受泰能特的案子。对他而言这是应该做的。
7 1999年夏天，比洛特依据联邦法，在西弗吉尼亚州南区法院起诉杜邦。作为回应，杜邦与环境保护
局授权委托对泰能特兄弟地产进行调查。调查报告认为牛的健康问题责任不在杜邦，造成问题的原因是“营养不良，缺乏医护，没有灭蝇措施”。换言之，泰能特兄弟不懂养牛，他们的牛相继死去是咎由自取。常熟市属于哪个省份
8 比洛特偶然发现一份杜邦给环境保护局的信函，信中提及在垃圾场有一种代码为“PFOA”的物质。他搜遍了参考资料，发现它是全氟辛酸的缩写。但除此之外他一无所获。他要求杜邦让他查阅有关该物质的所有文件，杜邦拒绝。2000年秋，比洛特向法院提出申请，要求法院下令迫使杜邦交出文件。法院同意。几十
