The lawsuit accuses Monsanto of polluting Los Angeles waterways with releases of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) until 1979.
Chemical firm Monsanto on Monday added a new lawsuit to the long list against it, as the city of Los Angeles said it was suing it for knowingly polluting its waters for decades with the family’s chemicals. PCBs.
The city’s complaint, one of the largest in the United States, targets three companies including the Bayer group, a German giant which bought Monsanto in 2018 and is facing a series of legal actions around the world. for the pesticide Round’Up.
The lawsuit accuses Monsanto of polluting Los Angeles waterways with releases of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) until 1979.
These chemicals, which are toxic and degrade very little in the environment, were used in paint, inks, papers or even as lubricants and sealants.
“It’s time for Monsanto to clean up and pay up,” Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said. “The health and environmental impacts of PCBs – impacts that the city is working hard to reduce throughout Los Angeles – are simply jaw-dropping,” he insists.
“We claim that Monsanto knew for decades that PCBs were toxic and would inevitably lead to widespread contamination (…) It is intolerable that Monsanto has continued to produce and sell them and, we argue, to mislead the public about them”, continues the prosecutor.
The complaint recalls that exposure to PCBs can cause cancer, damage the liver, thyroid and eyes, and even have adverse effects on development.
The city of Los Angeles, which wants to obtain financial reparations from Monsanto for the depollution of water, says that the company had known since the 1950s of the toxicity of PCBs for human beings.
The complaint cites three companies spun off from a division of Monsanto in the 1990s: Monsanto Company, now owned by Bayer; Solutia, owned by Eastman Chemical Company, and Pharmacia, acquired by Pfizer.
None of the three companies had reacted Monday afternoon.
Bayer has been undermined since the acquisition of Monsanto by a salvo of procedures, collective and individual, which have been launched concerning the pesticide Round’Up and its active substance, glyphosate.
The German group disputes this characterization but the substance is classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
Bayer is also facing a complaint from shareholders in Germany, who are claiming no less than 2.2 billion euros in damages, accusing it of not having sufficiently informed them of the financial risks caused by these legal proceedings. .