If anyone has had a pcb
contamination lawsuit pending
in the state of Alabama
and has previously had their
cases "dismissed" on
business reorganization arguments
by Monsanto/Solutia, then please
be advised that the Bankruptcy
Court in Montgomery has ruled
that Monsanto and Solutia are
both liable for the "cleanup"
in Anniston, and so it goes
if they are liable for the
"cleanup" then they are also
liable for personal injury
damages to the civilians and
Veterans who were stationed
there. Time to reinstate your
cases.

Fort McClellan has found itself
in headline news again as
the base made a scurried,
and somewhat buffoonish attempt
to quickly convert itself
into a rescue shelter for the
hurricane victims of the South
coast. The South shore of
Alabama, for sure, suffered
damage, so it was easy to
understand their early thinking
on this.

Afterall, our WAC barracks
buildings have been vacant
since the base closed in 1998
and town officials have tried
one good idea after another
to legitimately rescue the
vastness of the property there.

But the charm of Anniston
has very much been lost in
the wake of Monsanto's deeds,
and the base closing robbed
the area of over half it's
residential population.
Businesses have since folded
en masse, and the town is
now faced with the sick,
the dying, and the profoundly
disabled. Regular economic
development projects fail
at Fort McClellan, time and
time again.

In the bungling of all schemes
and dreams as the base was
going down for the count,
they could have beefed up
WAC Center is a national park
place and left the museum
there, and then built an
elaborate WAC retirement center
in the surrounding buildings
to include condominiums,
a health spa, apartments for
the elderly, townhouses for
families, and continued the
old shuttle bus runs into
downtown for medical care,
shopping, and entertainment
just like the old days. Who
would not have loved to play
the old golf course just one
more time or take a dip in
the sun in a new retirement
swimming pool?? After our
generation is gone, other
military retirees could have
come.

But nobody talked to US and
we were not in the loop,
and the WAC Veterans Association
headquarters does not have a brain.
So the opportunity is now
forever gone to do something
meaningful with the acreage
and for sure, it may fall
into wasteland before it is
through.

The Joint Power Authority of
Alabama now oversees the
management of the property.
And so the seeds of desparation
were sown, and along came the
hurricane season of the century
and what happened next is
anyones guess.

The Fort McClellan Veterans
have been actively protesting
and advocating in Washington
DC since August of 2005,
and generally in the agencies
since 2003, for emergency
disability assistance and
Presumptive Service Connection
status for chemical exposure
diseases after being stationed
in the area.

The civilians of Anniston have
already been litigated into
restitution, but the Veterans
have been locked out of all
those programs because we
have returned back to our home
states and no longer live in
downtown. Stupid, huh?

So the Veterans have been
left to scramble on our own,
albeit that all of us are
impoverished and disabled,
to become sickbed lawyers
and sickbed political protesters
to get what we rightfully
deserve out of this VA system.
No lawyers have taken up
our cause.

At the same moment in time
that we were pounding the
pavement in Washington,
it seems that $8 million
was allocated to Fort McClellan
to rennovate our old buildings
there to allegedly ready it
as a shelter for hurricane
survivors.

Fine well enough, but the
survivors never came. On
the average they only received
between 4 and 19 evacuees per
day. FEMA was forced to close
down the project after about
40 days and the money remains
squandered in the wind.

I haven't ever been able
to verify whether or not
the word got out that the
base was previously in a
contamination zone, and
whether the evacuees decided
to take other options because
of that. But whatever happened,
the Fort's idea of flourishing
as a rescue center went up
in smoke in the blink of
a FEMA eye!

The Fort McClellan Veterans,
on the other hand, are STILL
without emergency response
assistance from any agency
whatsoever. Not the EPA, not
the Center for Disease Control,
not the Dept. of Defense, not
the VA, and not anyone. We have
had idle small promises made to us
here and there, but each
day we wake up in the morning
and look around and say to
ourselves: "What has changed
since yesterday?" and the
answer is always the same.....
NOTHING !!