PCBs stands for polychlorinated biphenyls. I forget the name of the
movie but Ron Howard starred in it, about a farmer that had to kill
all his cattle because the cattle feed was polluted with PCBs.
BZZZZZZTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!
Sorry, Watty, old bean, but that's an incorrect response.
That movie you mention (whose title I also can't recall... "Bitter
Harvest" is coming to mind, but I'd bet that's *WAY* wrong) was about
the mid-to-late 70's incident where a bulk-truck that was supposed to be
loaded with vitamin and mineral supplement for use in mixing animal feed
somehow (to this day, I haven't heard a coherent explanation for it) got
loaded with *PBB* - Polybrominated Bipheynl - a flame-retardent that's a
close chemical cousin of PCB, and was (then) frequently used on kids'
pajamas, furniture, and draperies, among other things - and then got
dumped into the Michigan Farm Bureau's main supply bunk, where it got
stirred into cattle and chicken feed, most of which got shipped out and
used across the state (and to a much lesser extent, into Wisconsin and
Ohio) before anyone had any idea anything was wrong.
The resulting mess essentially wiped out Michigan's beef and dairy
industry, and had a severe impact on poultry as well.
I remember it well... I grew up in Northern Michigan, and it's hard to
forget the images (seen over and over on the TV news every night, later,
in the movie which you're talking about, and first-hand with my own
glassy little peepers) of farmers watching Michigan National Guard units
digging trenches in their fields, herding what was left of their stock
into them, then gassing or machine-gunning them by the hundreds and
filling in the hole. And I'll cheerfully call *ANYONE* who wants to
claim that such things didn't happen a liar to their face... I watched
it happen with my own two eyes just outside Petoskey. And Traverse City.
And Charlevoix. And I have *NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER* that similar scenes
could be found happening all over the state during those days. More than
one of those farmers sucked off a shotgun afterwards, unable to live
with the fact that their entire life's work, and in some cases, several
generations worth of family effort, had to be destroyed due to
somebody's screwup at a feed mill they'd never even laid eyes on, and
wouldn't have recognized if they'd been taken on a guided tour.