Monsanto has agreed to clean up one contaminated site of hundreds that need to be cleaned up. The toxic site cleanups have been in limbo because of a recent bankruptcy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber explains:
Transcript
Monsanto has agreed to clean up one contaminated site of hundreds that need to be cleaned up.
The toxic site cleanups have been in limbo because of a recent bankruptcy. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:
Monsanto contaminated this one site in southern Illinois with dioxins, PCB’s and other toxic
chemicals for 40 years.
Legal questions arose because Monsanto created a company called Solutia in 1997. Solutia took
responsibility for Monsanto’s chemical clean ups. But Solutia went bankrupt last year. And it
refused to clean any of the 300 sites across the country while in bankruptcy.
Glenn Ruskin is a Solutia spokesman. He says Solutia can’t clean up the site, but Monsanto’s
decision to do so offers hope for people who live at the other sites.
“It just indicates that there are parties out there who are still in existence that are willing and able
to do that clean up.”
The matter is even more complex because much of Monsanto was bought by Pharmacia. Pfizer
then bought Pharmacia.
A bankruptcy judge will ultimately decide who has to clean which sites.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.