NPR.

In the In the late 1990s, a West Virginia farmer was disturbed to find his cows were dying, one by one.

This is 153 of these animals that I've lost on this farm.

The farmer was Wilbur tenant.

Wilbur made this video of his cows dying by a creek.

And he suspected the chemical company DuPont was responsible.

DuPont had this gigantic factory nearby making Teflon, that non-stick material for

pots and pans.

DuPont was disposing of its waste next door to Wilbur,

and the creek had been carrying green water to his farm.

That water shouldn't look like that.

There's something new or wrong with this water.

His cows drank it and soon developed a terrible illness

and started foaming at the mouth.

It soon emerged that this green water

was contaminated with an extremely toxic chemical called PFOA. PFOA was used to make Teflon and it hadn't just been

contaminating Wilbur's farm but also the entire town's water supply.

DuPont had known about how toxic PFOA was since the 1960s,

but it kept that information secret because dumping toxic chemicals

was in its best financial interests. And one school of legal and economic thought is, yeah, that's exactly what it should have done.

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Mary Childs.

And I'm Darren Woods.

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