Toxic town, Anniston – United States, 2018
The small city of Anniston, in Alabama, little more than 20 000 inhabitants, is one of the most polluted places in the earth. Located up of the western districts of the city since 1935, Mosento power plant reversed into the environment, and for at least forty years, highly and permanently toxics substances: polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB).
Whatever if the production has been interrupted in 1970: air, soil, water, are permanently contaminated. Inhabitants of the small city as well. Cancers, diabetes, heart disease are on the rise. And in 2003, Anniston was on national American press headlines by offering the first example of environmental justice. Monsanto, that was aware for decades of the toxicity of the substances reversed in the environment, is charged to pay 700 millions of dollars.
Fifteen years after this historic verdict, Anniston went back to oblivion. But the contamination does not disappeared. Gardens were cleaned up, but depollution of the contaminated areas is a colossal task that could last for decades. Currently, western districts of Anniston that belong to the poor and black people, are abandoned. And children, women and men that live there, are suffering from the PCB’s curse.
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