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.

From the 1960s, the American Beryllium Company recruited workers out of Tallevast, Florida, a historically Black community, to machine beryllium components for Cold War nuclear arsenals, with minimal protection and knowledge of what they were working with. Through improper handling of the waste, solvents from the plant leached into the groundwater that roughly half of the community drew from the nearby well. Lockheed Martin bought the site in 1996 and reported contamination to the state in 2000. Residents were not told until 2004, when one of them found monitoring wells in her own backyard.

They were told the plume covered five acres. By 2009 it had reached nearly 200, and the remedial action plan now runs 50 to 100 years. Residents count cancers, miscarriages, and children they did not keep. Last year's hurricanes lifted the water table roughly five feet and pushed the contamination further south, onto land zoned for housing. Corporate encroachment is closing in on the community 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, and conducted interviews, while also taking 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.
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.
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 Greetings between cousins on the neighborhood block in Tallevast, Florida. Everybody is enthralled in their own actions: the child on the phone, the man with the blunt, and the greeting in the back.
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 in the midst of prayer in Bryant Chapel in Tallevast, Florida. The children wear matching uniforms on the second Sunday of every 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.
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. Community worship and gatherings are their resistance.
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. The residents were informed not to grow plants in the soil because of the groundwater contamination.
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 yard of the church near the home of Odessa in Tallevast, Florida. For her, the wells are an aching reminder of the past, and proof that it is not over.
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 lie on the table beside it.
23 Jemina holds open a binder of newspaper clippings, one headlined “Report confirms Tallevast fears,” in Tallevast, Florida. Children’s crayon drawings of faces lie on the table beside the binder.
People and Places
A woman standing on her porch after dark, beside the house number 1511.
A single-story house with a porch and white lattice skirting. A bicycle leans against the front.
25 1511.
An elderly man in a striped shirt sitting on a couch, light through the blinds behind 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 The church, empty.

Plates

  1. 01—
    2026-01-18 · Tallevast, Florida
  2. 02—
    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—
    2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  7. 07—
    Greetings between cousins on the neighborhood block in Tallevast, Florida. Everybody is enthralled in their own actions: the child on the phone, the man with the blunt, and the greeting in the back. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  8. 08—
    Children in the midst of prayer in Bryant Chapel in Tallevast, Florida. The children wear matching uniforms on the second Sunday of every 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—
    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. Community worship and gatherings are their resistance. · 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. The residents were informed not to grow plants in the soil because of the groundwater contamination. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  20. 20—
    2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  21. 21—
    A groundwater monitoring well stands in the yard of the church near the home of Odessa in Tallevast, Florida. For her, the wells are an aching reminder of the past, and proof that it is not over. · 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,” in Tallevast, Florida. Children’s crayon drawings of faces lie on the table beside the binder. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  24. 24—
    2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  25. 25—
    1511. · 2026-01-17 · Tallevast, Florida
  26. 26—
    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. 30—
    The church, empty. · 2026-01-21 · Tallevast, Florida

Photographed 5–25 January 2026.

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

Further reading