LOS ANGELES - Today, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto announced that, as part of her ongoing efforts to protect the environment, her office has settled its lawsuit with agriculture conglomerate, Monsanto Company (“Monsanto”), and two related companies for $35 million over its decades-long manufacture and sale of polychlorinated biphenyls (“PCBs”), man-made chemical compounds that have contaminated numerous local waterways. The $35 million settlement will be used to pay for the abatement and monitoring of waterways impacted by PCB contamination and to reimburse the City for costs already incurred.
The City Attorney’s Office sued Monsanto in 2022 alleging that, despite knowing about the myriad risks PCBs posed to the environment, public health and wildlife, the company continued selling them while claiming they were safe.
“With this settlement, Monsanto is being held accountable for the damage its dangerous PCBs have inflicted upon Angelenos for decades,” said Hydee Feldstein Soto, Los Angeles City Attorney. “This is a significant step towards cleaner, safer waterways and justice for our City’s residents.”
According to the 2022 lawsuit, the original Monsanto Co. knew that its PCBs were highly toxic, harmful to human and wildlife health and dangerous for the environment, and advised its employees against having lunch in the PCB department. Despite this knowledge, Monsanto denied that its PCBs were harmful, and defended them in a decades-long campaign of misinformation to prolong their manufacture, sale and use.
PCBs were used in electrical and industrial equipment, including electrical transformers, capacitors and electric motors, and in household products such as paint, caulk, coolant, cable insulation and fireproofing from the 1920s until the late 1970s, when they were largely banned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) due to a variety of very serious health effects. PCBs do not readily break down once in the environment, and have continued to drain into local waterways, including Ballona Creek, Marina Del Rey, Santa Monica Bay, the Los Angeles Harbor, Machado Lake, and Echo Park Lake.
Humans are exposed to PCBs primarily from eating contaminated food, breathing contaminated air, or drinking or swimming in contaminated water. The major dietary sources of PCBs are fish, meat, and dairy products. Fetuses in the womb are also exposed to PCBs through their mothers.
Health effects associated with PCB exposure include liver, thyroid, dermal, and ocular changes, immunological alterations, neuro-developmental and neurobehavioral changes, reduced birth weight, reproductive toxicity, and cancer.
The $35 million settlement is being paid as compensatory restitution and remediation for the alleged harms.
The original Monsanto’s businesses became three separate businesses in the 1990s and early 2000s, each of which was named in the complaint. The three defendants are Monsanto Company, Solutia Inc., and Pharmacia LLC. Monsanto is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bayer AG, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. Pharmacia LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pfizer, Inc. Solutia Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eastman Chemical Company.
Attorneys in the Public Rights Branch managed this litigation with assistance from outside counsel at Seeger Weiss LLP and Grant & Eisenhofer.
Case #22STCV07958: Settlement
The People of the State of California vs. MONSANTO CO., a corporation, SOLUTIA INC., a corporation, and PHARMACIA LLC, a limited liability company.
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Hydee Feldstein Soto is the 43rd Los Angeles City Attorney, elected in November 2022 and sworn into office in December 2022. Her team of nearly 1,000 legal professionals, including more than 500 attorneys, carries out legal work for the City of Los Angeles at her direction and under her supervision. She is the first female City Attorney in L.A. history.