One year ago, health officials said they did not know whether people were still being significantly exposed to PCBs on polluted Anniston-area properties.
Today, they still say they don't know.
"It's really sad that the agencies haven't been able to get a sense of the current exposures," said Cheryl Browder, a community-health educator for the Alabama Department of Public Health. "We know there were serious exposures in the past."
Meanwhile, many local residents fear for their health.
Some say they feel their properties are still threatened by additional PCB and heavy-metal pollution. Others worry that environmental exposures have contributed to family illnesses.
Some residents who know they have PCB and lead on their properties say they have been given conflicting data on the severity of the problems and conflicting recommendations about protective health measures.
To date, health officials have conducted five investigations in Anniston - three for PCBs and two for lead. Two of the studies are completed and three are still under review. A public health hazard was identified regarding PCBs at certain locations, but none of the studies were considered conclusive by the people who did them.
That has compounded the frustration of local activists like Shirley Williams. "They need to work it out. We are in dire need," said Ms. Williams, who is the health coordinator for Community Against Pollution, a non-profit organization working on behalf of polluted western Anniston neighborhoods.
The health department's Ms. Browder said it has been impossible for the state and federal health officers to find money for a detailed PCB exposure study. Even a letter from Gov. Siegelman to the White House last spring asking for such a study failed to rattle the money cages, she said.
Officials said one of the main problems with the previous studies was lack of participation from residents.
For example, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry published a PCB-exposure investigation last August, but was only able to obtain new blood samples from 18 homes within a half-mile radius of the Solutia Inc. plant, the site where PCBs were manufactured until 1972.
Ms. Williams, of CAP, complained that the exposure investigation did not reflect the entire community.
Ms. Browder commented, "There was not enough participation for ATSDR or the people to be satisfied."
In the path of contamination
The perception of environmental risk is very strong in certain neighborhoods of Anniston and Oxford.
For example, property owners in two neighborhoods - one in a northern pocket of Oxford under the South Quintard bridge, and the other on West 9th Street in western Anniston - believe they are directly in the path of ongoing contamination.
Both locations are in flood zones. The low-lying properties receive storm water runoff and are in close proximity to industries and contaminated ditches and streams.
The residents of both areas are leery of upcoming federally mandated cleanups. Some of them believe a buyout and relocation is the only answer.
"How do you clean up a flood area?" asked Lea Cheatwood.
"The next time that Snow Creek floods, is that water going to be clean? I don't think so," she said.
Ms. Cheatwood moved to her home on Williamson Drive in 1972. She didn't know it was in a flood zone, where some homes are sometimes one-third-submerged in storm water. She didn't know that nearby Snow Creek was severely contaminated. She didn't know that the small manufacturing plant up the street produced one of the most powerful pesticides in the world. And, she didn't know her own home was contaminated with PCBs. It took 20 years for her to learn these things, she said.
Now that she and her neighbors know these things, they wait.
Regarding the flooding, pleas to local officials and the Federal Emergency Protection Agency for relocation have been unproductive, Ms. Cheatwood said.
She and her neighbors have waited for more than a year to see air sampling results and a report on potential contamination at the Tull Chemical plant, which makes a poison for killing rodents and other animals that is banned for commercial use. Both investigations were conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The air study is still under review and the Tull assessment is due out on Aug. 15, according to Steve Spurlin, EPA's Anniston site manager.
Sandra Kutch, who has low levels of PCBs on her property, said "I'm crazy for not knowing what's going on."
Janice Fain, who has less than 1 part per million PCBs on her property, complained "we've been told not to have a garden or eat the peaches from our peach tree. They told us not to go out barefoot.
"But the results they gave us say that there's nothing in the soil."
She isn't sure what to believe. She can't help but think back three years ago, when her tomatoes hanging on the vine turned black hours after being submerged during a heavy flooding of Snow Creek. "They turned solid black," Ms. Fain said.
Sherri Berger, a spokeswoman for ATSDR, said the health agency is developing recommendations about gardening in the impacted areas.
A black, gritty powder accumulates on the residents' homes and cars. Ms. Cheatwood suspects it may be air pollution from nearby foundries - such as U.S. Pipe and Foundry - but the powder has not been tested.
The neighbors have compared notes and determined that in the past decade - in 21 homes in the immediate vicinity - 17 people died of cancer and nine others survived the disease. Five people died of respiratory and heart ailments and six survived. Two died of liver ailments and one survived. Several neighbors are constantly battling pneumonia.
To Ms. Cheatwood, herself a cancer survivor, those numbers seem extremely high.
It would be difficult to blame one source, she said, but she suspects the environment has played a role.
Confusing data
Property owners like Tim McKinney are unhappy with the soil testing.
After finding out last year that he had 50 parts per million of PCBs at his home at the corner of West 9th Street and Sparks Avenue, McKinney packed up his young family and moved out. They felt unsafe.
Based on other high test readings, for about a year he did not rent out other properties he owned in the neighborhood.
"We had three properties vacant for a year because they were dangerous," said McKinney, showing a paper that described high PCB and lead results for the properties.
It turned out that the early data was preliminary. It was later replaced by blended laboratory tests which showed much lower levels of PCBs.
McKinney said he still has not received lab results for his home on Sparks Avenue.
Still, the later tests in the ditch adjoining his property showed extremely high levels of lead, PCBs and other toxic substances. "It really makes me ill," McKinney said. Despite a fence erected by the EPA on his part of the ditch, other sections are still accessible. "Children are still playing in there," he said.
The EPA asked McKinney and other property owners who have elevated levels of PCBs or lead to provide access to Solutia, Inc., for emergency PCB-dirt removals and for more testing.
McKinney didn't refuse, but he didn't say yes, either. "I want to be there when they are doing it," he said.
Now that EPA has sent a follow-up letter, threatening legal enforcement, McKinney is finally doing what he never planned to do - he's choosing an attorney.
"I would like to see it cleaned up," he said. But, he said, it boils down to trust and using his own personal judgment regarding his own property.
He is not the only one digging his feet in.
Wesley Brechbiel and his wife, Opal, live on Duncan Avenue, the western boundary line of Solutia Inc. property and Solutia's western landfill. Brechbiel has elevated levels on one of his lots, and like McKinney he recently received a letter from the EPA threatening legal enforcement.
While he doesn't think PCBs will harm him, Brechbiel thinks Solutia's dirt removal might instead stir the dirt up and make the PCB contamination even worse. "They can't get it all out," he said. "We'll end up with a 'clean' property you can't give away."
He wants a buyout. "They can do anything they want after they buy the property."
Living with uncertainty
After several years of testing, some who live in Calhoun County's PCB- and lead-contaminated neighborhoods say feel confused and misled.
To understand the confusion, consider the following facts:
Air sampling tests and a health consultation drafted a year ago are still under review.
Blended lab tests have replaced the original toxic screening data - causing reported PCB and lead levels to drop dramatically for many properties. Some residents who were previously told to abandon their gardens, wash down their children's toys and leave their shoes outside say when they call the EPA community office they are now being told they are perfectly safe.
Other property owners have waited for more than a year to receive their test results.
Only one home out of 15 discovered in Anniston and Oxford to have dangerous levels of PCBs has been remediated. That's because many residents, often advised by attorneys, have objected to EPA's chosen methods of testing and remediation.
Health officials have said they are unable to determine whether residents living at the 'hot spots' are currently being exposed to dangerous levels of PCBs, although they have determined "serious" exposures occurred in the past.
None of the 120 residences determined to have dangerous levels of lead have been remediated. EPA hopes to remove contaminated dirt at 10 of those properties this fall.
For their part, the officials charged with addressing the pollution problems say they have accomplished a lot of testing in the past year and are getting closer to achieving cleanup.
"I think there is an impression that we are taking new tests to get the results we want. That's not the case," said Katrina Jones, EPA's coordinator for the lead investigation.
She said EPA - not Solutia, as in the case of PCBs - plans to remove contaminated dirt from 10 out of the 120 residences with elevated lead levels this fall. The removals will be prioritized by the degree of risk to children and women, she said.
"We've proceeded as quickly as possible," said Steve Spurlin, EPA coordinator for the PCB investigation. "In all honesty, we've had little to no cooperation regarding access for removals."
He emphasized that anybody who is not on the "short-term" removal list - the 15 properties for PCBs and 120 properties for lead - are "not threatened by a short-term health risk."
Regarding the soil-testing data, Spurlin said it has been difficult to convey that the early screenings were not fully accurate, and had potentially false high numbers. "They are considered a tool. We knew there would be variability."
"It's hard to convey that to the community," he said.
Health officials said they plan several activities in the Anniston area in the coming year, including giving more detailed instructions about gardening, conducting a study of PCB and lead contamination near local schools, and doing a fish-consumption study.
