Oceana Activists Submit Op-Eds to their Local Papers

The Olin Retirement Benefit: A Mercury Parachute?

Special to the Mobile Register
Op-Ed by Sharon Adams
June 13, 2005
The Register’s series of stories on mercury pollution that continues to escape from the now shuttered Olin chlorine production facility in McIntosh brought back many painful memories. It is refreshing, however, to know that the spotlight is finally being shed on the plant’s toxic legacy. I was also delighted to read the sound rebuttal of Olin’s “defense” of its policies by Oceana’s Jacqueline Savitz in the June 8th edition. At long last, someone is standing up to this company.
My father worked in the mercury-cell building at Olin for more than 26 years, until he retired due to health problems in the mid seventies. Years ago he was tested, and his doctors determined that he had excessive amounts of mercury in his brain cells, likely the result of working in such close quarters with the mercury used to produce Olin’s chlorine. All of the gentlemen my father worked with are now deceased, and my father now resides in a nursing home and suffers from severe Parkinson’s Disease. Though his body has been ravaged by the disease, his mind remains lucid and he often talks to me about the horrible conditions under which he labored at the Olin plant. My dad’s cousin died last October from a neurological disorder which his wife attributes to his long-term exposure due to living and working in proximity to the Olin and Ciba plants...
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