San Diego sues Monsanto for polluting the bay with banned carcinogenic chemicals

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San Diego Bay, California

San Diego authorities filed a lawsuit on Monday against the agrochemical giant Monsanto, accusing the corporation of polluting the city's bay with carcinogenic chemicals that are so dangerous to human health they were banned in the U.S. more than 30 years ago.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court by City of San Diego and San Diego Unified Port District and focuses on Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). "PCBs manufactured by Monsanto have been found in bay sediments and water and have been identified in tissues of fish, lobsters, and other marine life in the Bay," the complaint reads.

"PCB contamination in and around the Bay affects all San Diegans and visitors who enjoy the Bay, who reasonably would be disturbed by the presence of a hazardous, banned substance in the sediment, water, and wildlife," the document continues.

As the notes, the city's lawsuit charges that "the risks did not deter Monsanto from trying to protect profits and prolong the use of PCB compounds such as Aroclor, as shown in a report from an ad hoc committee that Monsanto formed in 1969."

This is despite the fact that, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, PCBs "have been demonstrated to cause cancer, as well as a variety of other adverse health effects on the immune system, reproductive system, nervous system, and endocrine system." Dangers to human health led to a domestic ban on the domestic manufacture of PCBs in 1979.

By that time, however, PCBs had already spread through ecosystems, where they have remained to the present-day.

Monsanto was responsible for 99 percent of U.S. production of this dangerous chemical, according to a report from Food & Water Watch.

Comment: PCBs accumulate. PCB levels from Monsanto facilities in adjacent communities reported 940 times the federal level of concern in yard soils, 200 times that level in dust inside people's homes, 2000 times that level in Monsanto's drainage ditches. Fish die of exposure within seconds. There is no safe level. There were several lawsuits filed by schools and even one for PCBs in the chalk used by children. Swedish scientists identified traces of PCBs throughout the food chain, in fish, birds, pine needles, even children's hair. Having moved on, leaving death and destruction behind, Monsanto currently seeks to supply GMOs globally and reaps net sales of $11.8B per year with 404 facilities in 66 countries. We may never know the full extent of the devastation perpetrated on our planet and the life it supports from this company, nor ever, ever see it come to justice. How big a slap will Monsanto receive, if any at all? Untouchable.

See also:

Monsanto Hid Decades of Pollution

Monsanto, a corporate profile (Food and Water Watch PDF--This is mind boggling!)