By Dietrich Knauth<\/p>\n
NEW YORK, May 18 (Reuters) – Bayer\u2019s Monsanto unit on Monday said it would pay at least $133 million to settle Michigan and Rhode Island’s claims that the company contaminated \u200cthe states’ natural resources with toxic chemicals that are known to have dangerous health effects.<\/p>\n
Bayer \u200cis paying Michigan at least $108 million and Rhode Island at least $25 million to address the costs of cleaning up chemicals called \u200bpolychlorinated biphenyls, the latest in a series of settlements with other U.S. states. Bayer has now reached settlements with a dozen U.S. states over legacy PCB contamination, recently settling with Illinois and West Virginia in December.<\/p>\n
Bayer’s Monsanto, which produced PCBs from 1935 to 1977, said the settlements will address legacy liabilities with no admission of wrongdoing. \u200cPCBs were once used widely to \u2060insulate electrical equipment, and were also used in such products as carbonless copy paper, caulking, floor finish and paint. They were outlawed by the U.S. government in \u20601979 after being linked to cancer and other health problems.<\/p>\n
The settlement value could rise if Bayer is successful in a lawsuit that it filed in 2023 against six businesses that bought PCBs from Monsanto. Bayer alleges the companies \u200bhave breached \u200bagreements to indemnify Monsanto for the cost of the \u200bPCB-related liabilities, and the lawsuit remains pending \u200cin Missouri federal court.<\/p>\n
Rhode Island could receive up to an additional $50 million while Michigan could be paid up to an additional $176 million in contingency payments.<\/p>\n
Attorneys general for Michigan and Rhode Island said Monday that the states will use the funds to address PCB contamination in water, soil and wildlife.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis settlement directly supports our efforts to hold corporations accountable for the pollution caused by their products and ensures that we have the \u200cresources needed to remove these chemicals from our state,\u201d Michigan \u200bAttorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Bayer \u200bacquired Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018. Since \u200bthen, the company has battled lawsuits over PCBs, as well as thousands of lawsuits \u200cclaiming that its weedkiller Roundup causes cancer, which it denies.<\/p>\n
The \u200bcompany said in a \u200bstatement that Monsanto conducted and participated in studies on PCB safety, and provided appropriate warnings to its customers “based on state-of-the-science at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company has faced lawsuits from municipalities and states over \u200benvironmental impacts of PCBs; from schools \u200cand building owners over property damage; and from individuals claiming PCB exposure caused their illnesses. \u200bIt has settled some of the litigation, but other cases have resulted in significant jury verdicts.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bDietrich Knauth, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Aurora Ellis)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Dietrich Knauth NEW YORK, May 18 (Reuters) – Bayer\u2019s Monsanto unit on Monday said it would pay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21161],"tags":[21182,535,7897,21903,9149,21904],"class_list":["post-18901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bayer","tag-bayer","tag-michigan","tag-monsanto","tag-pcb-contamination","tag-rhode-island","tag-toxic-chemicals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}