Welcome back to Daisy Watches – This week’s movie is “The Devil We Know”
This documentary tells the tale of the PFAS nightmare originating at DuPont’s Washington Works plant located in West Virginia. The story is the same inspiration for the blockbuster film “Dark Waters” starring Mark Ruffalo previous discussed on our blog.
Movie Elements
- I absolutely loved the DuPont advertisements spliced with home video and news coverage footage. Visuals of dead animals, bizarre foam on ponds, and mysterious clear liquids pouring from waste pipes, combined with the promoted false claims of safety combined with the reality of the contamination visually demonstrates the egregiousness of DuPont’s lies. I find these advertisements reminiscent of the various radium products used and marketed in America during the 1910’s to 1940’s.
- The timeline of the movie is not chronological, allowing the director to tell the story in the order it can be best understood. The opening scene is the farm infamous for the home video footage of dead animals and waste pipes. After the intro, the film cuts to Buckley as an adult chatting with his mom about his birth. These story telling tools allow the human component to remain at the surface of the film. These people are people, not just a history lesson or a number in a paper about the amount of people harmed.
- The name of the movie, “The Devil We Know”, is from a 1984 DuPont meeting summary document about C-8 (also known as PFOA) discovered during the initial litigation. The meeting summary discussed the impacts of continuing to use C-8, knowing the chemical was causing health problems in the workers and people of the town. A question of possibly creating a new chemical with the same properties, but without adverse health effects was asked. The conclusion was “C-8 is the devil we know” and attempting to create a new chemical would be too costly for the company. Thus, they continued to use and manufacture C-8 knowing they were harming people, animals, and the planet.
Favorite Scenes
Erin Brockovich Promotion
This is a promotion for the movie, not a scene – but I thought this was an excellent call back to my previous post. I want to highlight the importance of quality marketing. This promotion is simple, just Erin talking in an office, but the power is in using well-known figures in environmental contamination speaking confidently on the matter. I also love the powerful quote used as the cover frame.
Buckey Crying For His Father
About 1 hour and 5 minutes into the movie, a scene of Buckey crying for his late father has stayed with me since watching this film. It’s a raw scene and the grief is palpable through the screen. “I miss my dad… would have loved just to have talked to him about this”. I think this scene is a reminder of the human cost of environmental disasters. This man’s entire life has been in some way or another shaped by the contamination from DuPont. Money can be awarded by judge and jury, it won’t bring back the, health lost, time wasted, or loved-ones lost.
What is the site status of the West Virginia plant now?
Beginning in the early 2000s, DuPont began voluntarily sampling the area of the West Virginia facility. Following confirmed various concentrations of PFAS, the EPA ordered DuPont to provide safe drinking water alternatives to the people living near area. DuPont separated it’s performance chemical manufacturing to a new division in 2015, called Chemours. The plant continues to manufacture PFAS and other forever chemicals.
This diagram shows the exposure routes of PFAS from the facility.
Source: Environmental Protection Agency – Davis et al. Chemosphere 67 (2007) 2011-2019
In 2017, the DuPont/Chemours were ordered to provide alternate water sources to sampled locations with PFOA concentrations above 70 ppt within the extended area shaded in blue:
Source: Environmental Protection Agency – Chemours Washington Works History and Safe Drinking Water Act (SWDA) Settlements
Unfortunately, Chemours has also been found to be illegally discharging PFAS to the Ohio river since 2019. A judge recently ordered the plant to immediately stop illegal discharge of various forever chemicals. Chemours plans to appeal the decision. The people of West Virginia and Ohio will be haunted by PFAS for the reminder of their lives and the generations following.
Stay tuned for the next installment of Daisy Watches!
Resources:
https://www.epa.gov/oh/chemours-washington-works-history-and-safe-drinking-water-act-swda-settlements
https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/west-virginia-chemours-federal-judge-chemicals-ohio-river/
https://governor.ohio.gov/media/news-and-media/state-secures-111-million-settlement-with-dupont-for-environmental-restoration-along-ohio-river
https://westvirginiawatch.com/2025/08/08/a-victory-for-public-health-u-s-judge-orders-chemours-to-stop-dangerous-discharges-from-wv-plant/
https://www.epa.gov/oh/chemours-washington-works-history-and-safe-drinking-water-act-swda-settlements