They Knew: Fort McClellan
They Knew: Fort McClellan
This case splits in two, and the split is the story. On one side: an environmental and court record that is documented — a chemical plant that ran for four decades beside the post, a congressional ban, elevated PCB levels in the people of Anniston, and a $300 million federal judgment. On the other side: the question of what the soldiers training at Fort McClellan actually absorbed — which is contested, with VA maintaining its position in words this page prints verbatim. What neither side contests is the ending so far: no presumption, no registry, and a congressionally ordered study in place of both.
Documented
1917–1999 — The post. Fort McClellan, Anniston, Alabama: opened 1917, closed 1999 under BRAC. It was a major training site for the U.S. Army Chemical Corps School, the Army Combat Development Command Chemical/Biological/Radiological Agency, the Army Military Police School, and the Women’s Army Corps. (VA, Potential Exposure at Fort McClellan — Public Health)
1929–1971 — The plant. The off-post Monsanto chemical plant operates south of Fort McClellan in Anniston, producing PCBs. In VA’s own words: “PCBs from the plant were released into the environment, and the surrounding community was exposed.” (VA Fort McClellan page; Board of Veterans’ Appeals, Citation Nr. 22001561, January 12, 2022)
1979 — Congress bans PCBs. The substance Monsanto discharged beside the post for forty years is banned nationwide. (Tolbert v. Monsanto Co., No. 13-15621 (11th Cir. September 4, 2015))
1990s — In the residents’ blood. Studies of Anniston residents find elevated PCB levels, “suggesting that people living or working nearby were exposed to PCBs.” (VA Fort McClellan page)
September 9, 2003 — The judgment. Final Judgment and Order in Tolbert v. Monsanto (N.D. Ala.) enters the Global Settlement Agreement, resolving the personal-injury and property-damage claims of 18,000 individual plaintiffs over PCBs “produced and discharged by Monsanto at its plant in Anniston, Alabama.” The Tolbert judgment itself carries $300,000,000, including healthcare services, pharmaceutical benefits for up to twenty years, a community health clinic in Anniston, health screening, and educational benefits. Combined with the parallel state-court case (Abernathy v. Monsanto), plaintiffs’ counsel reported the two-case global settlement at more than $700 million. (11th Cir. opinion)
The gap in the settlement. The Anniston settlement compensated Anniston residents. It created no remedy keyed to Fort McClellan service — and, per VA, “[t]here is no VA environmental health registry associated with service at Fort McClellan.” The civilians next door got a settlement, a clinic and a screening program. The soldiers on post got neither a registry nor a remedy. (VA Fort McClellan page)
Contested — VA’s position, in VA’s words
VA acknowledges the training exposures on the base — radioactive compounds cesium-137 and cobalt-60 used in training exercises and radiological surveys; chemical warfare agents, mustard gas and nerve agents, used for decontamination training; fog oil and hexachloroethane (HC) smoke, with pre-1986 fog oils containing “potentially harmful ingredients” — and maintains: “the available data suggests that any exposures would have likely occurred at low levels,” and “there is no clear evidence of exposures at Fort McClellan to levels that would lead to adverse health effects.” (VA Fort McClellan page)
2015 — The assessment behind the position. The ATSDR assessment VA’s position rests on, covering airborne PCBs in Anniston, concludes the concentrations were “not expected to result in an increased cancer risk or other harmful health effects in people living in the neighborhoods outside the perimeter of the former PCB manufacturing facility.” Note its scope: neighborhoods outside the plant perimeter. VA concedes “there is limited data on PCB exposure levels for Fort McClellan personnel.” (ATSDR 2015 assessment, as quoted in BVA Citation Nr. 22001561)
Agent Orange at McClellan — contested, and the finding in hand is against it. A November 2018 Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision found that herbicide agents, including Agent Orange, were not stored in or used at Fort McClellan. The June 2021 Joint Motion that vacated that decision faulted the Board only for failing to address the appellant’s PCB exposure — not for the herbicide finding. This page prints that plainly: on herbicides at Fort McClellan, the only adjudicative finding in hand goes the other way, and advocacy that ignores it is not documentation. (BVA Citation Nr. 22001561)
The concession — partial: a study, not a presumption
August 10, 2022. PACT Act §801, “Epidemiological study on Fort McClellan veterans,” requires an epidemiological study of veterans who served at Fort McClellan between January 1, 1935 and May 20, 1999. VA confirms it is planning the study with federal partners and has begun “an extensive review of historical documentation” to design it. There is no presumptive list and no registry. The standalone Fort McClellan Health Registry Act, introduced repeatedly since 2015, has never been enacted.
What this timeline is — and what it is not
The discipline of this series, stated plainly: this timeline destroys the “nobody knew” excuse. It does not, by itself, prove any one man’s claim — and at Fort McClellan the distinction does more work than anywhere else in this series. What is documented is the ground: the plant, the releases, the ban, the blood levels, the judgment. What is contested is the dose. A study may close that gap or confirm it. Until it reports, this page holds both halves exactly as they are — the record, and the position maintained against it.
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