50th Anniversary Conference

May 18-20, 2023

The PBB Disaster at 50

A Conference to Commemorate & Learn from The Poisoning of Michigan

On May 18-20, 2023 @ Alma College in Alma, MI more than 200 people came together for this conference

In 1973 Michigan Chemical Company (owned by Velsicol) in St. Louis, Michigan, accidentally shipped a flame retardant,  polybrominated biphenyl  (PBB), to a livestock feed mill, where it was mixed into animal feed. Despite the destruction of over 30,000 contaminated animals and food products, PBB entered the human food supply exposing an estimated 8.5 million Michiganders. The impact of this contamination, one of the largest in American history, continues to this day.

This conference commemorated the 50th anniversary of Michigan's PBB disaster by bringing together scientists, artists, policy makers, and community members to explore the history and legacy of this large-scale contamination. Through this multidisciplinary experience we brought the critical lessons of the disaster back into public discussion and consciousness, with the hope it will inspire continued action to address long-term environmental and human health outcomes merely along the Pine River but help other communities with similar contamination learn from our experience.

This conference was funded by a Humanities Grant from the Michigan Humanities Council and generous support from Alma College, Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health and the Michigan PBB Registry , Central Michigan University,  The Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force , the PBB Community Advisory Board, and US Environmental Protection Agency.

Conference General Schedule

Thursday, May 18th (starting at 7:00 pm)

  • Welcome from Senator Gary Peters, a graduate of Alma College during the time the clean-ups began.

  • Keynote Address by Dr. Elena Conis, historian of medicine, public health, and the environment. She is the author of How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT; Vaccine Nation: America's Changing Relationship with Immunization; and, with Aimee Medeiros and Sandra Eder, Pink and Blue: Gender, Culture and the Health of Children.

Friday, May 19th (starting at 9:00 am)

  • Morning Sessions

    • Policy Panel Discussion

    • Community Panel Discussion

  • Lunch Break

  • Afternoon Field Trip, 1:00-4:00 pm

    • Tour of St. Louis, Michigan

    • Tour of Velsicol Superfund Site

    • Tour of formerly PBB Quarantined Farm

  • Dinner Break

  • 7:00 pm Screening of The Poisoning of Michigan (1977; run time 60 mins)Dr. Tom Corbett.

    • Bus Spaniola served in the Michigan House of Representatives longer than any other democrat or republican in Michigan history, from 1975 to 1990. Bus played a critical role in the enactment of legislation that reduced PBB levels, provided funding for the long-term health study established by the state (now known as the  Michigan PBB Registry ), and provided loans to quarantined farms. 

    • Dr. Michele Marcus is an environmental epidemiologist and lead scientist for the Michigan PBB Registry, which is now maintained by the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.

    • Dr. Tom Corbett is one of the featured heroes shown in the film. He helped push the process forward and launch the PBB Cohort stury.

Saturday, May 20th (starting at 9:00 am)

  • Morning Sessions

    • Philosophy, Art, Law, and the Environment

    • A Public History of the PBB Disaster: Community Archives  

  • Lunch Break

  • PBB Heroes Recognition Event (see more about nominations below) and  Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force  Hall of Fame Inductees, beginning at 1:00 pm

  •   Michigan PBB Registry   Community Meeting with Dr. Michele Marcus, environmental epidemiologist and lead scientist, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health

Members of the organizing committee:

  • Brittany Fremion, PhD, Associate Professor of History at Central Michigan University, Michigan PBB Oral History Project director, conference cultural advisor, and PBB community partner

    • fremi1b@gmail.com

    • 989-774-1094

  • Benjamin Peterson, PhD, Lecturer in Political Science and History at Alma College, conference organizer and cultural advisor, and former lobbyist and political organizer

    • petersonbl@alma.edu

  • Edward Lorenz, PhD, Reid-Knox Professor Emeritus of History and Political Science at Alma College, Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force Vice Chair, conference cultural advisor, and PBB community partner

    • lorenz@alma.edu

  • Our organizing committee also includes:

    • Tom Corbett, MD MPH, author, and PBB Community Advisory Board member

    • Robert Hood, PhD MPH, Postdoctoral Trainee Fellow in the Department of Epidemiology working with the Michigan PBB Registry in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University

    • Alexander Montoye, PhD FACSM, Associate Professor of Integrative Physiology and Health Science at Alma College, conference organizer, and PBB community partner

    • Catherine MacMaster, MFA, MEd, RYT, Lecturer in Dance for the Department of Theatre and Dance at Alma College

    • Sheryle Dixon, PhD, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Director of Grants and Sponsored Programs at Alma College

    • Diane Russell, Community Involvement Coordinator for U.S. EPA Region 5 and the Velsicol Superfund Site in St. Louis, Michigan

    • Jim Hall, Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force Executive Committee member, PBB community partner, and former resident of St. Louis, Michigan

    • Norm Keon, epidemiologist, Mid-Michigan District Health Department, Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force Executive Committee member, PBB community partner, and resident of the Pine River watershed

Thoughts about the Conference of Debra Shore, EPA Regional Administrator (for the region of which Michigan is a part):

Debra Shore, attended the PBB 50th Commemoration conference and these are her reflections following the conference, which she shared with her staff in a newsletter.

“Shared Space – Never forget”

I didn’t know. Until I began preparing for a visit to the former Michigan Chemical Company site in St. Louis, Michigan along the Pine River, I didn’t know this plant was the genesis of one of the worst chemical disasters in US history. Yet it seems to have been forgotten. I didn’t know that nine million people in Michigan had drunk contaminated milk or eaten contaminated meat and dairy products, after the highly toxic fire-retardant chemical known as PBB (for polybrominated biphenyl) had been accidentally mixed into cattle feed. I didn’t know that 30,000 head of cattle had to be killed; that a few dogged farmers insisting that something was wrong with the feed were instead blamed for poor management of their herds; that state and federal agencies were catastrophically slow to act commensurate with the damage. I didn’t know that the parent company, Velsicol, declared bankruptcy and ultimately paid a fraction of the costs of cleaning up the contaminated soil and sediment caused by its careless, unknowing, and persistent release of toxic chemicals into the Pine River and at its plant.  I didn’t know that the contamination of food and the people who consumed it would cost more than $480 million– so far – and that the cleanup of the Superfund site and Burn Pit are still underway. 

“Why do we remember what we remember and why do we forget what we forget?” asked UC Berkeley Professor Elena Conis, keynote speaker at a conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the PBB disaster in Michigan hosted by Alma College in Michigan. An historian of medicine, public health, and the environment, Professor Conis told of searching through a trove of documents made public during the tobacco litigation and finding a memo proposing a new campaign to resurrect DDT (which had been banned in the US in 1972) for use against malaria in Africa. The author, she discovered, cared less about malaria than about launching a subversive effort to challenge regulations governing harmful chemicals. This led to her book, titled How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT (New York: Bold Type Books, 2022). 

I had been invited to provide opening remarks at the conference and – in preparation – watched a 1981 movie about the PBB disaster called Bitter Harvest, starring Ron Howard as the Michigan dairy farmer Rick Halbert, who saw the first damage of PBB consumption on his herd of dairy cows and who latched on and wouldn’t let go until he found out what was wrong. I also began reading The Poisoning of Michigan (East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 2009 [1980]) by Joyce Egginton, which thoroughly documents the tragedy that unfolded in 1973 and 1974 in Michigan. 

The PBB disaster in Michigan, following the publication of Rachel Carson’s indictment a decade earlier of DDT and other synthetic chemicals that caused devastating environmental damage, eventually led to the passage of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) – otherwise known as Superfund – enshrining the foundational principle that the company (or person) responsibly for polluting the environment must pay for cleaning it up.  

Now I know. It's all here. Embedded in Region 5. In our fatty tissue. In our DNA. In our history, our narrative, our purpose, and our mission. We’re cleaning it up. ________________ 

Debra Shore

Regional Administrator & Great Lakes National Program Manager

US EPA Region 5