Anniston Star
August 24. 2003

PCB plaintiffs 'shocked'

By Elizabeth Bluemink
Star Staff Writer
08-24-2003

Some expressed the urge to bolt western Anniston.

Others held out hope for a cleanup that will allow them to again walk without fear in their own yards.

Many plaintiffs in Anniston’s PCB lawsuits said they still are reeling with amazement that the lawsuits over PCB contamination in Anniston seem to be over.

“I thought it was going to go on forever,” said Hattie Finley, 51. “I feel shocked.”

The petite woman who signed up for the Tolbert v. Monsanto case, which she and many other plaintiffs call the “Johnny Cochran case,” stood close to the microphone Thursday morning. She listened as lawyers, judges and the chief executive officer of Solutia, the company sharing the burden of the settlement with Monsanto, lauded each other and the people in western Anniston for their efforts in the cases over the years.

Finley suffers from severe headaches, seizures and a stomach ailment that has bothered her since she was 15. Medicare pays her hospital bills. “If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t have anything.”

She said she does not know what compensation she will get from Solutia and Monsanto, but “anything will help.”

The Rev. Lenworth Westbrooks, an associate pastor at 17th Street Baptist Church, said he was pleased with the settlement and said he agrees with the judges’ statements that “those who are not injured should not receive compensation.”

He said his property and blood are polluted with PCBs, but “a lot of people have had zero PCBs, and yet they expect to be compensated.”

“We need cleanup,” he said. “We need to get the PCBs under control in our yards.”

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are a class of chemicals first produced by Swann Chemical Company in Anniston. In 1935, Monsanto Co. bought the plant and produced PCBs for use in electric transformers and other industrial products until the early 1970s.

As early as the 1930s, certain kinds of PCBs were linked to cancer in rats. Over the decades, evidence accumulated that PCBs also could cause harm to humans. PCBs now are listed as a probable human carcinogen and a suspect in numerous other diseases, as well as developmental problems in children.

Mulling the settlement, Cathy and Lewis Robinson sat on the porch of their PCB-polluted home on Brown Avenue, wondering if their share would allow them to move out of their neighborhood.

They’ve been trying to sell their property for two years.

She used to have a garden, but she does not dig in the dirt anymore. He has PCBs in his blood.

They just want out, they said. “I’m tired of this place,” she said.

Cliff Davidson, an activist who owns contaminated property, said that he “really hopes that (the settlement) helps people. There are people who really need it.”

He doesn’t want his children and grandchildren to grow up in western Anniston — the way it is now. He said he hopes that the community’s problems will be fixed, or that they will be able to move.

Kimberly Hogan, 33, said she hopes the cleanup will allow her and her family to live comfortably in western Anniston in the future.

Her husband, Timothy, said that years ago, his sisters developed skin problems after playing in dirt dug from western Anniston ditches.

He said he wants a thorough cleanup and proof afterward that the land is clean.

“How will we know that it’s cleaned up for real?” Kimberly Hogan asked. “It’s not like we can test the dirt ourselves.”

Both said they believe the settlement is a good thing.

“Maybe it will help to compensate somebody’s pain and take the stress off, maybe help them with their medications,” Kimberly Hogan said.