Monsanto's Dirty Little Secret: Anniston, Alabama

Hello All,
I don't normally create my own threads, unless I feel they are relevant and have not been covered nor become aware to the majority of ATS Members. During the last year or so, I have become extremely interested in GMO's and their legality. This research has led to me to the conclusion that, as is popular opinion, Monsanto Corporation is indeed evil to the bone. This all started with my watching of Food, Inc. and The World According to Monsanto, which to my surprise, is available for free on YouTube.
The World According to Monsanto
Food, Inc.

Now. Onto my main topic. During my research into Monsanto, I became aware of a true Environmental Crisis that in my personal opinion, dwarfs the BP oil spill.

Anniston and Monsanto (Solutia)
Anniston, Alabama. Ever heard of it? Probably not unless you are from the Southeast. A town of a little over 23,000 people in Central Alabama, it is situated about halfway between Birmingham, Alabama and Atlanta, Georgia.


Anniston's main claim to fame were its massive military presence at Fort Mcclellan, which also happened to include the Anniston Chemical Activity.

The Army has stored approximately seven percent of the nation’s original chemical weapons stockpile at the Anniston Army Depot since the early 1960s. In August 2003, the Army began disposing of these weapons at the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility. By July 2010, it has destroyed by incineration 75% of the depot's total stockpile[1] including all 437 tons (397 metric tons) of GB (sarin) and all VX nerve agent on site.

In addition to the Army, Anniston also had a large chemical production plant owned by none other than Solutia (a spin off of Monsanto).

The Site is not listed on the NPL, but is considered to be a NPL-caliber site. Solutia Inc.'s Anniston plant encompasses approximately 70 acres of land and is located about 1 mile west of downtown Anniston, Alabama.

Opened in 1929, under control of the Swann Chemical Plant Co. the facility was the first site in the world to begin producing PCB's for use in Industrial coolants. In 1935, Monsanto Corporation bought the plant, and continued producing PCB's at that plant, and another in Illinois, until 1977. Just two years prior to its banning by the Federal Government.

The plant produced massive amounts of fluids for use in capacitors, transformer oils, heat transfer fluids in closed systems, plasticizers, hydraulic fluid, adhesives, and in carbon paper. All of these materials are essentially the main sources of PCB's in the environment today.

No one is sure just how many pounds of PCB's the plant leaked into the environment during the 37 years it was in operation. A Monsanto report from 1969 reported that the plant was:

From the background data presented it appears that something of the order of 80 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) are produced annually.

What does this mean for Anniston?

So what exactly does the production of 80 million pounds of PCB's mean for the environment? Well, nothing, besides the fact that since the early 1960's it has been a proven chemical that is detrimental to both human and environmental health. Unfortunately for Anniston, Alabama, Monsanto choose to hide the fact that it was dumping unknown amounts of these chemicals into the local watershed.

In 1969, the Anniston plant was discharging about 250 pounds of PCBs into Snow Creek a day, according to an internal memo marked "CONFIDENTIAL-F.Y.I. AND DESTROY."

250 pounds per day? Well, that's not THAT bad. Right? Oh, well it gets worse.

"On Thursday (November 6, 1969) the line on the bottom of the #3 Aroclor still receiver failed which resulted in the loss of approximately 1,500 gallons of Aroclor 1242 to the acid sewer. To date we have only been able to recover approximately 350 gallons of this material."

So, in one day alone, Monsanto released over 1,500 gallons of Aroclor (PCB's) into the environment. But, its okay. They ended up capturing 900 gallons of it.

By the time the Government stepped in, Monsanto had completely wrecked the Anniston Ecosystem. With almost 2% of the sediment of its rivers comprised of Aroclor, nothing would ever again be normal in Anniston.

In 1970, Monsanto investigators discovered that in many areas of the Choccolocco Creek, the mud tested almost 1656 PPB, compared to the normal 6 PPB in most regions of the United States. Later that year, Monsanto released information to the Alabama Water Improvement Commission, who choose to not only ignore the reports, but not release the information to the public.

Monsanto learned that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had taken fish samples from Choccolocco Creek and found fish with more than 55 times the legal limit of PCBs

So now the FDA has received this information, it should go public right? Well yes, in fact, in did. But, the reporter who was given the reports was "convinced" to write a "factual" report that would assure that there was, "no cause for alarm". Monsanto promised to do better, but in fact the problem got worse. Instead of dropping, the plant actually began leaking 900 times the amount they had hoped per day. In other words, they were leaking almost 90 pounds per day, compared to their hope of .01 pounds per day.

Remember, this is all during or before the year of 1970

So when did the people of Anniston, Alabama discover the PCB problem?

1975?
1980?
1985?

No. 1993

A contractor, now deceased, had found deformed fish in Choccolocco Creek and had tested the fish for PCBs. The results, given by the contractor to regulators, showed enough contamination to prompt an investigation by the State. On November 2, 1993 the Alabama Department of Public Heath issued the first fish consumption advisory officially warning residents not to eat fish caught from Choccolocco Creek

Aftermath

According to The World According to Monsanto, Anniston residents have upwards of 3000 PPB of PCB's in their bloodstream, compared to the average of 6 Part Per Billion. This has led to rates of Cancer being much higher than the average American, and the cordoning off of many areas of the city for complete renovation or uninhabitability.

Starting in 1996, Monsanto began buying up residential properties in highly-contaminated areas, and bulldozing them into the ground. This was after the plant in the region became part of Solutia, Inc. and the FDA reported that atleast 8 properties in the town had higher than legal limit for PCB exposure.

Fortunately, many residents of the town have taken Monsanto to court, including a suit involving over 4600 residents. That suit ended up being rewarded $43 million in damages to 3,500 of the residents.

A later lawsuit resulted in:

Lawyers for more than 20,000 plaintiffs in federal and state trials over PCB pollution in Anniston reached an agreement Wednesday with the companies accused of chemical contamination.
The $700 million settlement, announced in federal district court in Birmingham, would resolve all outstanding Anniston PCB litigation.

So, what are your opinions? I personally am not surprised with Monsanto.

Sometimes I lose hope in Humanity. We seem to be so caught up in greed that we lose sight of our fellow individuals.

Questions, Comments, Anything I missed?

Links:

Introduction

Wiki

More Indepth

Even More Indepth

I've brought them up before, jsut not in this much detail. Monsanto's putting bacteria genetics in soybeans. Comany's just plain insane.

reply to post by CynicalDrivel


True. I've seen many, many mentions of it in threads before, but never an actual thread on the topic. I live(d) in Birmingham, Alabama so I often heard people mention it. But, most people know little about it. Its as if Monsanto just swept it under the rug.

No, sadly I am not surprised. The confluence of corporate greed, poor oversight, the disintegration of investigative reporting, and the turning of our traditional news sources into profit centers seems to be a perfect storm of completely unacceptable consequences. I think that Monsanto has had this figured out for awhile - much to all of our peril.

S&F for the thread and information.

Just wanna say I'll be back here to spend some time. I've become very interested in the GMO issue for the last year as well.

I'm not far from Anniston, I'm a videographer/editor, my background is in news, I went to boot camp and AIT at Fort McClellan and while my motion graphics aren't as polished as the other two I recently made this little movie.

I'm thinking I might wanna do a mini-doc on this. Oh yeah I'm thinking that. Mebbe we should talk.

Thanks for fighting the good fight brother! Brilliant job writing and all.

The quote below is from your "even more in-depth" link above. I'm only a few pages in and I plan to read it all. If a corporation can be a person then Monsanto is a sociopath.

Of course they knew how toxic the stuff was and this is just a tiny thing in the overall evil, but note the "inefficiency and loss of time". Unbelievable.

"Personal cleanliness is of utmost importance. Work clothes should be changed daily and must not be worn away from the plant. Before changing to street clothes at the end of the day the workmen should bathe with plenty of soap and warm water. Neglect of these simple precautions may result in skin infections, ill health, discomfort, inefficiency and loss of time."
www.chemicalindustryarchives.org...

So if a corporation, by law, is a person, and this "person" is a murdering sociopath, a serial killer even, can we get the death penalty please?

Dear Monsanto,

Please Die.

Thank You,

Unanimous

We need to declare war on this company! They are waging war on us and killing and maiming us!

I am sure that lots of those mega corporations have army of skeletons in their closets. All marked confidential and to be destroyed.
Profit is ok. But when it is the only thing that really matters....

Several years ago my research on albino alligators led me to discover this small town you speak of. The things I read concerning the pollution and the lack of care for the people, the creatures and the planet grieved me terribly. We were meant to be stewards of this planet and it has been ruined. Now, the ruination has even created another lucrative market based on deformities of the creatures.

I am linking an article which states that the gators mentioned in the article were found in Houma. That is approx 450 miles from Anniston.
www.dailymail.co.uk...

This mutation is called leucism. Could leucism be related to pcb's? When I put those two words together in search engine quite a bit of information comes up concerning water creatures.

Originally posted by isthisreallife


Fortunately, many residents of the town have taken Monsanto to court, including a suit involving over 4600 residents. That suit ended up being rewarded $43 million in damages to 3,500 of the residents.

A later lawsuit resulted in:

Lawyers for more than 20,000 plaintiffs in federal and state trials over PCB pollution in Anniston reached an agreement Wednesday with the companies accused of chemical contamination.
The $700 million settlement, announced in federal district court in Birmingham, would resolve all outstanding Anniston PCB litigation.

So, what are your opinions? I personally am not surprised with Monsanto.

Money is only paper. It cannot restore the balance of nature or give back a quality of life to people or creatures that have suffered because of these travesties. And it's not just the big corporate heads. Every hand that has helped to conceal these dirty deeds are guilty, right down to the lowest on the totem pole.

good thread . there should be more of this name and face specific factual investigations on ats , rather than too many opinion threads where you dont know what you are clicking on or going to read about. stars and flags for that.

like fluoride the heavy use of pcbs is fairly well secretised , leading people to beleive that thses industries are thoroughly regulated. when they are not.

i had associated through earlier reading some years ago that pcb s even at background levels were responsible for altering aspects of gender. feminized fish and other aquatic populus was found after spills in the uk. their genes were so affected that most males had literally turned into females, which consequently affected their ability to breed.

Another nasty chemical is vocs volatile organic compounds which is a main component of paint ; it also affects a very broad spectrum of organic life ; leaving us without mould on our walls but also with the inability to breathe clean air.

these chems may do the job for cheap but they should be banned . as for monsanto it seems intent on megalomania directed towards the environment and us. all we can do is make sure they have a worse name than they already do. but our governments and msm are already inseparable from them realistically.

wrong-uns ; lock em up, thats what i say

Stars and Flag, a well researched Thread and good Information provided!

Monsanto is pure Evil and need to get destroyed by the People of Free World.

Great thread...

If we knew all about what these corporations did to our environment, "in the name of capitalism", this country would be a truly different nation. But as years progressed and decades passed people just threw away cares for progress and We the People had no idea what was taking place.
We had it good.
We were blinded by the "Dream".

I used to see it as this and blame the corporations with greed...which is half of the problem.

But now I am turning a different leaf.
I am convinced that if the average citizen knew/cared about this, all 300 million of them...
We could do something about it.
But it seems we don't care or just are too apathetic or distracted.
Too fat and too lazy, i.e., too addicted to food or too busy watching television.
Which is despicable.
Because all of us can put these corporations in their place.
Just by standing up and ceasing to purchase goods from them.
We, the people, feed their greed.
Without us, they wouldn't exist.
Instead of stopping it, we are enabling them.
Going to the grocery store and buying all their products.
By allowing them to "force" farmers to use their seeds.
We fund our own gov't to "allow" them to monopolize farming.
And it seems we choose to ignore the facts blazing straight in our face.


So what do you do after decades of apathy and corporate destruction?

That is the true question that I'm sure has no real answer.
And if you really look at the situation it will enrage you.

reply to post by isthisreallife


I have a little history with this area. My ex wifes parents live in Gadsden which is not far away. My father was stationed at Mcclellan for a short time before going to vietnam. He told me they had mock ups of vietnamese villages for training out there. At the height of their "career" if you will, they had the largest stockpile of chem weapons in the US, per my father, who spent many days guarding it. About 4 years ago I was in Gadsden with the inlaws. We were sitting on the porch and some sirens started to wail. I said to my mother in law "are those tornado sirens?" she said no those go off every tuesday, they are in case of an accident at the army base. I said Mcclellan? She said yea, and had that really dumb look on her face. I asked her if that concerned her and she said no, why? I filled her in. I find it kinda weird that an army base that suppposedly no longer houses these things tests the sirens every tuesday. That whole area is a little strange. I was browsing the local newspaper one morning and flipped through the realestate section just to look at local pricing and was amazed. Home prices are probably 70% lower than the rest of the country and rentals are ridiculously cheap. Not much industry or work oppurtunity except for Goodyear tire plant

Originally posted by havok
Great thread...

If we knew all about what these corporations did to our environment, "in the name of capitalism", this country would be a truly different nation. But as years progressed and decades passed people just threw away cares for progress and We the People had no idea what was taking place.
We had it good.
We were blinded by the "Dream".

I used to see it as this and blame the corporations with greed...which is half of the problem.

But now I am turning a different leaf.
I am convinced that if the average citizen knew/cared about this, all 300 million of them...
We could do something about it.
But it seems we don't care or just are too apathetic or distracted.
Too fat and too lazy, i.e., too addicted to food or too busy watching television.
Which is despicable.
Because all of us can put these corporations in their place.
Just by standing up and ceasing to purchase goods from them.
We, the people, feed their greed.
Without us, they wouldn't exist.
Instead of stopping it, we are enabling them.
Going to the grocery store and buying all their products.
By allowing them to "force" farmers to use their seeds.
We fund our own gov't to "allow" them to monopolize farming.
And it seems we choose to ignore the facts blazing straight in our face.


So what do you do after decades of apathy and corporate destruction?

That is the true question that I'm sure has no real answer.
And if you really look at the situation it will enrage you.


Maybe because over the decades government's has put up such a system that your,mine and everybodys mind and body got hijacked in running from bill to bill. Instead of running in to the future of human progress

edit on 4-9-2011 by havok because: Edited format

Great job on this thread, OP. I've said it before, if ever there was a conspiracy that needed a spotlight shone on it, if ever there was an NWO/Elite to worry about, Monsanto would be at the top of it. It may be easier to worry about HAARP, Project Bluebeam, the birth certificate of the POTUS, because at the end of those thoughts you don't have to do anything about it and if people were honest they would acknowledge it's all about entertainment value. This is a conspiracy that we can and should do something about. I can't post links to petitions and stuff but if you search for it, you will find many sites that protest Monsanto and on those sites you will find other ideas on how to fight this monster. Monsanto puts profit above life, don't let them.

Wow, never heard of this case. im glad the residents at least got 700 million, altho its not right theyve been poisoned for so many years.

reply to post by isthisreallife


Man I'm fro Alabama and had no idea thanks for posting this s&f
2nd

This is just one of the many skeletons in not only Monsanto's closet, but ALL of the petrochemical/Agricultural companies in the world.
Oh and just so you know..They've been feeding our livestock bacteria and other forms of chemical 'Feed' for 30 years or more! It started in the hog farms and has spread to nearly all livestock used for consumption!

Zindo

I'm not far from Anniston either. And if you guys look at the pollution in Weiss Lake, it seems like there is some cover up there too.

I try to tell everyone about this - like, my Uncle bought land close to all that with no knowledge any of this ever went down there.

The first hint of any of this I ever had was when i went to the Museum of Natural History there in Anniston. I thought, why did this little place get such a nice museum? Well, it had stuff like "By Grant of Monsanto" plaques on it.

I later found out that they paid the city a bunch of money, but if you look at that museum, it looks like just out of the goodness of their heart they gave the city the money for that museum. Yeah.

Well, anyway, no one around here KNOWS about this. It's not talked about. I can remember my mom swimming in that lake before she was diagnosed with cancer. Not saying it caused it - but you know when you start studying all this, you sorta get like, hmmmm....I don't really want my kids or family getting in that lake anymore. KWIM? But most people do not have a clue. Not a clue.

Well, anyway, I'm close by too, and if I can help any, let me know. I'm on the Georgia side.
It's funny but even close to the Georgia border there, in Rome, a lot of people are like "Why is there so much more cancer in Coosa and West Rome?" They blame it on Kraft (sp?) mill. I bet though, truth be known, it's because if you live out that way, you are closer to that pollution and you are more likely to go shop, and go to the lake over there. Plus a lot of people from Anniston get jobs over here, in West Rome, so they move here. Lots of brain cancer - I remember a study about that. People blamed GE for it - that's closed now, but there was speculation about radon and stuff too - but like, my uncle died of brain cancer, and he did a whole, whole lot of yard work in Anniston.

Also, there's a LOT of obesity. I really think a lot of that is environmental, especially with the PCB levels and such - they are endocrine disruptors.