Los Angeles settles with Monsanto for $35 million over PCBs in waterways

Contamination of key Los Angeles waterways such as the Santa Monica Bay, Los Angeles Harbor and Echo Park Lake due to the spread of toxic chemicals is at the heart of a $35-million settlement between the L.A. City Council and agriculture giant Monsanto and two smaller companies.

The City Council on Tuesday announced the payout by the companies to settle a lawsuit filed in 2022 over damage from long-banned chemicals called PCBs, which have been linked to health problems including cancer.

The City Council approved the settlement at Tuesday afternoon’s meeting, voting 13 to 0 after a closed session. Councilmembers Imelda Padilla and Nithya Raman were absent.

A call to the office of City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto was not immediately answered, nor was a call to Monsanto’s representation.

In March 2022, then-City Atty. Mike Feuer sued Monsanto, which was swallowed by the German corporation Bayer in 2018, and smaller chemical companies Solutia Inc. and Pharmacia.

The complaint sought compensation for the cost of past cleanups — and for future abatement of — polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. The chemicals tainted and continue to pollute many Los Angeles waterways, including the Dominguez Channel, Ballona Creek, Marina del Rey and Machado Lake.

“The city has expended millions and millions of dollars so far and is going to continue to expend millions and millions of dollars to remediate this issue,” Feuer said at the time.

PCBs are human-made organic chemicals that have no known taste or smell and range in consistency from oils to waxes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

They had several commercial uses, including in transformers and capacitors, oil used in motors and hydraulic systems, cable insulation, oil-based paint, caulking and plastics.

PCBs were produced and used domestically from roughly 1929 until they were banned in 1979, according to the EPA.

From the 1930s through 1977, Monsanto was the sole producer of PCBs in the United States, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Exposure to PCBs increases the chances of a person developing cancer while diminishing the effectiveness of the immune system and damaging reproductive organs and the nervous system, according to the EPA.

The lawsuit alleged that Monsanto knew that “its commercial PCB formulations were highly toxic and would inevitably produce precisely the contamination and human health risks that have occurred.” Instead of informing public officials, the company “misled the public, regulators, and its own customers about these key facts.”

The lawsuit alleged that, as early as 1937, Monsanto acknowledged internally that PCBs produced “systemic toxic effects upon prolonged exposure.”

Many of Los Angeles’ waterways had been impaired by PCB contamination, according to the lawsuit.

The city has said that it continues to shoulder the cost and responsibility of cleaning these locales along with monitoring and analyzing samples.

People face PCB exposure, according to the lawsuit, by eating contaminated food, breathing contaminated air, or drinking or swimming in contaminated water. Fish captured in contaminated waters and eaten also provide an avenue for PCB exposure.

The settlement avoids a court trial, which presented some risk to the city.

Seattle claimed a $160-million settlement with Monsanto in July over PCBs in the city’s drainage system and rivers.

In May, however, an appeals court in Washington state overturned a $185-million verdict against Monsanto in a lawsuit brought by three teachers who claimed brain damage due to PCB leaks.