(The Center Square) — Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has secured an $80 million settlement from American corporation Monsanto Co., a producer of chemical, agricultural and biochemical goods, for “environmental contamination” resulting from its use of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.
“Monsanto produced 99% of America’s PCBs from the 1930s to 1977,” according to a press release from Miyares’ office.
A paper in the Journal of Public Health Policy in 2018 calls PCBs the “close carcinogenic cousin” of harmful chlorinated hydrocarbons such as DDT. Despite PCBs noticeably affecting the health of Monsanto workers and early studies confirming their toxicity, Monsanto went on to use PCBs in many of its products until just two years before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned them in 1979.
PCBs made it into households across the country through things like swimming pool paints, protective coatings and certain adhesives used in household items, but polluted the air and waterways.
Virginia isn’t the first state to take legal action against Monsanto for PCB pollution. In December, Oregon reached a $700 million settlement with the company, the “largest pollution settlement” in the state’s history. Vermont’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against the company over PCB contamination in June.
Virginia settled its claims against Monsanto without filing suit, Victoria LaCivita, a spokeswoman for Miyares’ office, told The Center Square.
“[PCBs] have harmed public health, our land, wildlife, fish, and our beloved waterways like the Chesapeake Bay. We have had to bear this burden for decades,” said Attorney General Miyares.
Over 1,300 river miles, 75,000 lake acres, and over 2,000 square miles of bays and estuaries in the commonwealth are affected by PCBs.
The $80 million won will be used for “restitution and remediation,” according to Miyares.
“I’m so proud of the role my office played to help clean, protect, and preserve our environment,” Miyares said.
