Three children of the youth choir before the service. The child on the left is partly hidden; the child in the centre looks straight at the camera; the child on the right has her eyes closed. Blurred bodies stand between the camera and the group.

One Battle After Another: Living Beyond Disaster in Tallevast

Tallevast, Florida  ·  Concluded

They recruited the community, and killed them slowly through poison.

Beginning in the 1960s, the American Beryllium Company recruited workers from Tallevast, Florida — a small, historically Black community — to machine beryllium components for Cold War nuclear arsenals, with minimal protection. Solvents from the plant leached into groundwater, which roughly half the community drew from a nearby well. Lockheed Martin bought the site in 1996 and reported contamination to the state in 2000. Residents were not informed until 2004, when one of them found monitoring wells in her own backyard.

Residents were initially told the contamination plume covered five acres. By 2009, it had reached nearly 200. The remedial action plan now spans 50 to 100 years. Residents count cancers, miscarriages, and children they did not keep. Last year's hurricanes lifted the water table by roughly five feet, pushing contamination further south onto land zoned for housing. Corporate encroachment is closing in from the other direction.

I spent a month in Tallevast in January 2026, living alongside a descendant of one of the four founding families. I learned about the community alongside a cohort, consulted archives, conducted interviews, and took photographs. The outrage over what has been done here is real and justified. So is the strength that has met it.

Tallevast, Florida
A woman gesturing at the front of the church; men at the pulpit with microphones and instruments.
A child in mid-air above a garden fence, other children below, a palm to one side.
02 The children were told to get ready to go to the Sarasota fair. They carried smiles and some pocket change for snacks. It is not every day they have a third space designated for play; spirits were high — some literally.
A boy's face at a window, curtains drawn back around him.
The white front of the chapel, columns either side of the doors, bushes at the steps.
A man bending over his work, seen from outside through a window screen.
A young person in the doorway of a car, arms raised over their head, holding a cap.
06 Since the closure of the community center, children have found new ways to play. Jemina opens her house and yard, and many neighborhood kids congregate here on sunny days and Sundays after church.
Five people on a sunlit street. Two men meet mid-greeting with arms outstretched; a young man stands smoking at the right of the frame; a child looks down at something in his hands beside an adult at the left. A pickup truck is parked beyond a low wall behind them.
07 Cousins greet each other on the neighborhood block in Tallevast, Florida. Many families share blood and marriage ties — their roots deeply intertwined with the neighborhood's foundation.
Religion
Three children in matching pale collared shirts stand close together during a service. The child on the right has his eyes closed; the child in the centre looks straight at the camera; the child on the left is partly hidden. Blurred adult bodies stand between them and the camera.
08 Children pray in Bryant Chapel, Tallevast, Florida. They wear matching uniforms on the second Sunday of each month to help run the service.
A figure passing close to the camera, blurred; beyond her a man at the front with his hand raised.
An elder standing to read from a book. A young woman sits beside him, reading from her own.
10 Reading.
A woman standing in the aisle of the empty church.
A girl standing at the lectern, framed by a dark doorway.
12 With the help of Marva Dillard and Jemina, the children take turns leading parts of the sermon. They celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. and read to the congregation about his dream — one where Black children could live healthily with white children.
A roadside sign reading Bryant Chapel Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, 1807.
13 Bryant Chapel Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
The congregation seen from the back of the small church, silhouetted, a draped cross at the front.
14 Members of Bryant Chapel stand during Sunday service in Tallevast, Florida. Tallevast is the church, and the church is Tallevast; the community operates, finances, and worships in the churches.
A cross on the chapel roofline against an open sky.
Seen between the silhouetted heads of the congregation: people standing with hymnals, a banner reading Faith.
The Contamination
A hand resting on papers spread across an outdoor table in dappled light, two dark vessels beside them.
A woman seated on a chair before a small clapboard house, facing the camera directly, a phone in one hand and a towel draped over the chair back; tree shadows fall across the wall behind her.
18 Odessa Pinder sitting in front of her house.
A long row of plants, every one of them in a pot, standing on the grass in front of a large panel and a ceiling fan fixed to a frame above. A dark shed stands at the right.
19 Potted plants and a shed in Jemina's backyard garden. Residents were told not to grow plants in the soil because of groundwater contamination. They have found other ways to grow.
A man seated at a table indoors beside a curtained window, dominoes in front of him.
A wellhead of black pipe and valves standing waist-high on two legs in a mown yard, a low pale building and palms behind it.
21 A groundwater monitoring well stands in the churchyard near Odessa Pinder's home in Tallevast, Florida. For her, the wells are an aching reminder of the past and proof of its ongoing damage.
Children gathered behind the pulpit, a figure crossing the frame in front of them.
A person in a dark shirt holds open a ring binder of newspaper clippings, the top one headlined “Report confirms Tallevast fears.” Large crayon drawings of faces cover the opposite side of the open binder.
23 Jemina holds open a binder of newspaper clippings, one headlined “Report confirms Tallevast fears,” from 2007. Children’s crayon drawings of faces lie on the flipside of the binder.
People and Places
A woman standing on her porch after dark.
A single-story house with a porch and white lattice skirting. A bicycle leans against the front.
An elderly man in a striped shirt sitting on a couch, light through the blinds behind him.
26 Clarence, 75, husband of Jemina, lives in front of the Beryllium Plant and has dementia. Perhaps it is better not to remember some parts of this violent tragedy; I wasn't able to ask him.
A woman standing in the doorway of her house, one hand raised to her face, dark cloth hung behind her.
A woman and a child leaning together over an open photograph album.
28 An album, opened.
A phone propped on a stand showing a woman on a video call, seated at a table.
A woman leaning on the back of a pew in the empty church, the aisle running away behind her.
30 Marva Dillard's role in Tallevast is usually on the other side of the camera, as the photographer. More importantly, she is one of the Sunday School teachers. Now in retirement, she devotes her time to serving the church and its children.

Plates

  1. 01—
    2026-01-18 · Tallevast, Florida
  2. 02—
    The children were told to get ready to go to the Sarasota fair. They carried smiles and some pocket change for snacks. It is not every day they have a third space designated for play; spirits were high — some literally. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  3. 03—
    2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  4. 04—
    2026-01-21 · Tallevast, Florida
  5. 05—
    2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  6. 06—
    Since the closure of the community center, children have found new ways to play. Jemina opens her house and yard, and many neighborhood kids congregate here on sunny days and Sundays after church. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  7. 07—
    Cousins greet each other on the neighborhood block in Tallevast, Florida. Many families share blood and marriage ties — their roots deeply intertwined with the neighborhood's foundation. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  8. 08—
    Children pray in Bryant Chapel, Tallevast, Florida. They wear matching uniforms on the second Sunday of each month to help run the service. · 2026-01-25 · Tallevast, Florida
  9. 09—
    2026-01-18 · Tallevast, Florida
  10. 10—
    Reading. · 2026-01-18 · Tallevast, Florida
  11. 11—
    2026-01-21 · Tallevast, Florida
  12. 12—
    With the help of Marva Dillard and Jemina, the children take turns leading parts of the sermon. They celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. and read to the congregation about his dream — one where Black children could live healthily with white children. · 2026-01-25 · Tallevast, Florida
  13. 13—
    Bryant Chapel Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. · 2026-01-21 · Tallevast, Florida
  14. 14—
    Members of Bryant Chapel stand during Sunday service in Tallevast, Florida. Tallevast is the church, and the church is Tallevast; the community operates, finances, and worships in the churches. · 2026-01-18 · Tallevast, Florida
  15. 15—
    2026-01-21 · Tallevast, Florida
  16. 16—
    2026-01-18 · Tallevast, Florida
  17. 17—
    2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  18. 18Odessa Pinder
    Odessa Pinder sitting in front of her house. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  19. 19—
    Potted plants and a shed in Jemina's backyard garden. Residents were told not to grow plants in the soil because of groundwater contamination. They have found other ways to grow. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  20. 20—
    2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  21. 21—
    A groundwater monitoring well stands in the churchyard near Odessa Pinder's home in Tallevast, Florida. For her, the wells are an aching reminder of the past and proof of its ongoing damage. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  22. 22—
    2026-01-25 · Tallevast, Florida
  23. 23—
    Jemina holds open a binder of newspaper clippings, one headlined “Report confirms Tallevast fears,” from 2007. Children’s crayon drawings of faces lie on the flipside of the binder. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  24. 24—
    2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  25. 25—
    2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  26. 26Clarence
    Clarence, 75, husband of Jemina, lives in front of the Beryllium Plant and has dementia. Perhaps it is better not to remember some parts of this violent tragedy; I wasn't able to ask him. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  27. 27—
    2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  28. 28—
    An album, opened. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  29. 29—
    2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  30. 30Marva Dillard
    Marva Dillard's role in Tallevast is usually on the other side of the camera, as the photographer. More importantly, she is one of the Sunday School teachers. Now in retirement, she devotes her time to serving the church and its children. · 2026-01-21 · Tallevast, Florida

Photographed 5–25 January 2026.

Some names have been changed at the request of those photographed.

Further reading