San Diego sues Monsanto over PCB pollution

Source: St Louis Business Journal

The City of San Diego has filed a lawsuit against Monsanto Company and two related companies over long-standing chemical pollution in San Diego Bay.

San Diego, together with the San Diego Unified Port District, filed the suit Friday in U.S. District Court in California's Southern District. Listed as defendants are Monsanto along with Solutia Inc., a chemical company spun off from Monsanto, and Pharmacia Corporation, a New Jersey-based company that inherited Monsanto's pharmaceutical business and is now owned by Pfizer Inc.

San Diego and the port argue that the companies are liable for contamination of the bay by polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, manufactured by Monsanto from the 1930s through the late 1970s. San Diego and the port say that Monsanto continued making and pushing PCBs even knowing they were an environmental hazard. The lawsuit requests a jury trial and seeks punitive damages, compensation for cleaning up the bay and damages relating to San Diego's decreased use of its natural resources.

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PCBs have been found in the San Diego Bay sediments and water and have been identified in the tissue of fish and other marine life, according to the complaint. In 2014, the City of San Diego agreed to pay $949,634 in fines for permitting the dumping of hazardous chemicals into the bay, according to the San Diego Reader. The city also allocated $6.45 million to clean the area's Shipyards Sediment Site.

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Read more: http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2015/03/17/san-diego-sues-monsanto-over-pcb-pollution.html