4 minute read
The ghost city Anniston
Out Of The Borders
by Anastasiia Hrechka
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Anniston, Alabama, 1979: „While looking around, the abandoned houses draw my attention. Whole neighborhoods are dead, people that I know are dead. Either dead or sick - cancer, paralysis, memory loss are a few of the illnesses strolling around. I am surprised by the amount of empty and moribund zones. On my way I enter the local church and a shiver runs down my spine. The emptiness and stillness chase me out. I continue discovering the town. The streetlights are dark. No red, no green, no yellow. I don’t know what to do, I want to disappear. I pass a backyard stream, it’s red, blood red…“
This story is fictional. Nevertheless, this is a real description of how it was, of how Anniston became a ghost city as a result of PCB-release into the air and water by Monsanto. And yes, “Monsanto admitted to poisoning residents of Anniston with PCBs”. But what is Monsanto and what are these plaguy PCBs?
Monsanto used to be the world‘s largest seed company. While in the 70s Monsanto was a chemical company, in the 80s it began to transform into a seed company. In 2018 Bayer bought Monsanto.
Monsanto took over the Swann chemical company in Anniston in 1935 and started producing PCBs and other substances. PCBs are mixtures of up to 209 individual chlorinated compounds.
They are either oily liquids or solids that are colorless to light yellow and were used in hundreds of industrial and commercial applications.
Between 1935 and 1971 Monstanto dumped tens of thousands of pounds of PCBs into streams (that’s why they were blood red) or buried them in and around the city.
And guess what?! In 1979 PCBs were banned in the US, but it was already too late. Simultaneously, Monsanto closed their chemical company in Anniston but years later people from there are still sick. Even small amounts of PCBs harm the developing nerve system of fetuses and children. Mental illnesses like attention-deficit disorders or cancer, paralysis and memory loss are a few of the possible consequences of a PCB-poisoning. Whole neighborhoods were erased because people died. People left the town because of the fear of death. Empty houses remained.
Red Stream
© Mathieu Asselin
Unfortunately this is not the first time catastrophes like this have happened. For years Monsanto fooled people, made them believe things that they shouldn’t believe in. Through propaganda and communication advertisements they described a utopia - a perfect world where chemistry contributes to universal well-being:
And yes, Monsanto long knew of the severe damage it caused. But they chose to get caught up in their narrow-mindedness and ignorance, while the residents of Anniston stayed behind with irreversible consequences: their blood had the highest recorded levels of PCBs in the whole nation, maybe even in the whole world.
-David Baker
Environmental activist David Baker stands over the grave of his brother Terry, who died.
© Mathieu Asselin
Lost in desperation and hopelessness the inhabitants of Anniston didn’t know how to act. But in 1998 a community against pollution was built. That’s how the chemical company was forced to clean up the mess they caused. But they didn’t.
Johnnie Cochran, a lawyer, agreed to help the residents. He said: “There is always some study and they’ll study it to death, then 30 years later you’ll find out it’s bad for you. We know it’s bad for us RIGHT NOW!”.
Even though they won the case, the results were unsatisfactory. Sick children got 2000$, despite the fact that they had to live with their illnesses until the end of their lives.
The story of the ghost city Anniston is terrifying and scary. It’s influencing people’s lives up until now. Still, it’s just one of many examples of human cruelty, of human ignorance and arrogance. This is not the first and not the last example. Incidents, or better said catastrophes like this should not happen again but probably will. We learn from mistakes, they say. But do we actually?
Made out of the pictures of Mathieu Asselin
© Anastasiia Hrechka
