A Place Beyond the Mountain
2022-23
A Place Beyond the Mountain is a photographic story about earthly beauty and unearthly chemicals. It is a reminder of the consequences of our industrial past and the effects it has had on our planet. The greed, selfishness and shortsightedness of humankind, continues to affect rivers and ecosystems everywhere.
Large amounts of Polychlorinated Biphenyls are present in the Housatonic River.
This is the legacy of the now abandoned General Electric facility in Pittsfield. For over 50 years, the odorless, colorless, tasteless toxins leaked from the factory, flowing downstream to the Southern Berkshires. PCBs do not exist in nature. They were a series of man-made chemicals used for lubricating the GE transformers until they were banned in 1979 when it was concluded they were human carcinogens. Fish and small organisms can absorb PCBs from the water and sediments in their habitat and the chemicals accumulate in the food chain. The contamination is passed up and can reach levels a thousand times higher than the actual levels in the water.