A number of years ago Anniston was deemed the most polluted city in the country because of a local PCB plant called Monsanto that contaminated the surrounding area. I had wanted to do some type of project relating to this for awhile, but the opportunity did not present itself until what proved to be my final week at the Anniston Star for my internship.
The project was done in conjunction with a story writer Meghan Nichols was working on about how the settlement money from a lawsuit over the pollution has affected the lives of people nearly 5 years after Monsanto (now Solutia) was found guilty.
To go along with her story I took a series of portraits of the people she talked to, here are four of the six I took. Three of these ran in the paper, but these were the four I had wanted to run.
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| Vernon Powell and his wife, both Tolbert claimants, received about $20,000 between them from the settlement of the lawsuit against Monsanto. He paid off his house, but owes thousands in medical bills. Powell is shirtless to show scars from several surgeries he says were necessary because of PCBs. |
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| Edgar Stroud stands in the backyard on the site of his former garden. An engineer testing the dirt around his home for PCBs told him it was not a good idea to be eating anything grown in the ground there. He used his settlement money to fix up a side house which is seen to his left. |
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| David Baker of Community Against Pollution poses with a protective mask in the CAP office. Baker trains members of the community to clean up PCB’s and was deeply involved with the law suits. |
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| Opal Scruggs looks out towards Wellborn Plaza and the Solutia plant from the front door of her home for a portrait. Scruggs received settlement money from Monsanto, but says it was not worth much. |
Related posts:
these`are haunting.
(see above)