2023 marks two decades since the Monsanto Chemical Company settled a lawsuit with residents of Anniston, Alabama. Twenty thousand townspeople blamed illnesses like cancer and birth defects on exposure to chemicals known as PCBs. Monsanto manufactured these products at its plant southeast of town. This isn’t the only example of industrial chemicals allegedly harming Alabama residents. Environmental groups say another is in Birmingham. This plant doesn’t have to be in operation to present an apparent danger to the public.
The Bluestone plant makes coke. That’s a coal product used as fuel in the steel-making process. Today, Bluestone Coke is idled by a court settlement and lawsuits filed by local environmental groups accusing Bluestone of violating clean air and water regulations. But, residents say they’re still feeling the effects.
“You are right in the midst of it. You need to come back when that smoke is coming out of that chimney,” said Angela Smith.
We joined her as she talked with her neighbors on a hot summer afternoon. They live in the Fairmont neighborhood directly behind the Bluestone plant and describe the smoke. Wise says it can appear as early as sunrise as she washes up for the day.
“By time I get ready to get into bath…I got a window that's right by the bathtub. It’s so bad that I clean my bathroom and by the time I take a bath, the soot is back in the tub,” Wise recalled. “So basically That's how I found out how bad this was because I kept getting bacteria infections.”
Smith is on dialysis three times a week and the soot from the smoke makes it hard to get clean enough for her treatment. Bluestone is currently shut down due to ongoing litigation. Residents in the Birmingham area say they're still waiting.
“We were shocked to find all these different polluters out there that had been violating for five or 10 years in a row,” said Nelson Brooke. He’s been the Black Warrior Riverkeeper for almost 20 years. Brooke’s job is watching for pollution violations in the waterways and tributaries through West-Central Alabama. Bluestone Coke is high on that list…
“And so, we've been systematically targeted those polluters over the years, whether it's through advocacy or federal lawsuits utilizing the Clean Water Act,” Brooke.
A storm had just passed through Birmingham, and Brooke drives behind Bluestone Coke to monitor runoff into Five Mile Creek.
“It's not supposed to look like chocolate, black mud coffee. No creek is supposed to ever look like that,” Brooke commented.
Brooke says environmental groups like Riverkeeper take on the battles that nobody else in Alabama is willing to fight.
“This is a massive ongoing environmental injustice because a lot of the communities around here were communities that were essentially forced into living in these industrial areas with a little recourse,” Brooke said.
Even the soil was contaminated in these neighborhoods. In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency discovered that fill dirt potentially containing high levels of lead or arsenic. It was brought from nearby factories and dumped in residential areas to help with development or to reduce flooding. Ten years later, In 2021 the Jefferson County Health Department didn’t renew Bluestone Coke’s operating permit after repeated violations of The Clean Air Act. In December of 2022, a consent decree ordered Bluestone to pay nearly one million dollars in penalties. That was until published reports that the plant stopped payments on that deal.
And, still residents living in the shadow of Bluestone are stilling waiting…
“I have asthma, kidney failure and a lot more stuff,” said Angela Smith. We met her earlier in our story. She sits on our front porch talking about the illnesses caused by living so close to the plant.
“I just want a nice place where I won’t have to deal with this. Just let me live whatever I’ve got left in peace,” she said.
As the legal issues drag on, environmentalists say protecting air and water polluted by Bluestone Coke is only one challenge. The outsize impact of chemical runoff on black communities can’t be overlooked. They say it should be treated as an ongoing problem and not an issue of the past.