How did Monsanto avoid a pollution crackdown in Alabama?
June 2003 Documents obtained by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and a review of court records show that a federal cleanup agreement between Monsanto and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) changed significantly in Monsanto s favor just seven days after Administrator Christine Todd Whitman received a briefing she had requested on the company s PCB pollution in Anniston, Alabama. The Anniston partial consent decree would govern how the community would be cleaned up after decades of ongoing pollution from Monsanto s former PCB operations at its chemical plant in this small Alabama community. The term partial indicates that the consent decree merely seeks a study of the contamination, not an actual cleanup. This term is rarely, if ever, used by EPA, another reason why this agreement is so unusual. One leading scientist has labeled Anniston the most contaminated place on earth. The Anniston cleanup agreement is pending final
