Contra Costa County and 17 of its cities are suing Monsanto Co. to force it to clean up pollution from a chemical coolant the former agriculture giant produced for decades that seeped into the bay waters and led state officials to advise against eating striped bass and other types of fish.
The lawsuit accuses Monsanto — now synonymous with environmental hazards thanks to litigation stretching back to the 1980s — of producing toxic chemicals that are harmful to human health and the environment.
At issue are polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which Monsanto began using more than 50 years ago in a “breathtakingly wide range of commercial, household, and industrial products,” according to the lawsuit. The company produced 99% of all PCBs used in the U.S. until the chemicals were banned in 1976.
A long line of court cases has documented that many of Monsanto’s employees knew the risks associated with PCBs but did not curb production, warn the public or protect industrial workers who handled the coolants used to treat electrical transformers.
Nearly all of Contra Costa’s prominent central and west county cities — including Richmond, Martinez, Walnut Creek, Concord, Danville, Lafayette and Pittsburg — joined the lawsuit filed by San Francisco law firm Sher Edling LLP. Monsanto has not responded to the suit but has settled several similar suits.
“Monsanto and the other defendants knew their products were harmful to human health and the environment, but chose to mislead the public about that in order to maximize their profits,” former county Supervisor Karen Mitchoff said in a statement included in the firm’s press announcement of the lawsuit. “Our lawsuit will hold them accountable for their actions, and for the massive costs of cleaning up the contamination. They should pay to clean up their mess, not our taxpayers.”
They argue that the PCBs produced by Monsanto seeped into the ground, eventually finding their way into both the San Francisco Bay and the western Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, cropping up at various “hotspots” in estuaries that provide habitat to a diverse array of marine life.
“Because buildings, roadways, infrastructure, inland waters, flora, and fauna” in Contra Costa County’s cities are contaminated with PCBs, “inflows of water and sediment to the Bay and the Delta Waterways often contain (the chemicals),” states the lawsuit, which was filed in late December at the county’s court but only publicized this week.
Consuming the chemicals can lead to health problems in humans of all ages and harmfully affect pregnancies, health officials say, and they’ve led them to advise against eating such fish as striped bass and white sturgeon from local waters. Beyond PCB concentration in a variety of fish skin and fatty tissue, the chemicals have also turned up in herons and terns that prey on the fish during their annual migrations across the Pacific Ocean.
The plaintiff jurisdictions want Monsanto to pay for cleanup of contaminated areas and prevent further PCB seepage.
“Monsanto foresaw, or should have foreseen, that regulations curbing such discharges would require local governments … to take a wide range of actions and bear associated costs,” the lawsuit states.
The filing follows a settlement agreement last month that awarded $36.5 million to San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, Alameda County and other jurisdictions — including Antioch, another Contra Costa city — in a separate lawsuit against Monsanto, which German pharmaceutical company Bayer acquired in 2018.
The settlement for that lawsuit, a class-action claim by more than 2,500 cities and counties, totaled $648 million in payouts.
Marin County and its cities also filed suit against Monsanto last fall over PCBs. This most recent filing requests a jury trial and seeks unspecified damages. Last year, a jury in Washington state ordered Monsanto to pay $185 million to three teachers who claimed PCBs at their school led to brain injuries.
Representatives for Bayer have said they was “pleased” by the $35 million Bay Area settlement last month. The company has downplayed backlash against “legacy” Monsanto products that used PCBs.
“Under the proposed agreement, Bayer does not admit to any liability or wrongdoing, and the court’s final approval fully resolves the claims of class members,” the company said at the time.
