Arkansas to receive at least $32M through settlement with Monsanto in contamination case

Arkansas is set to receive between $32 million and $80 million to resolve claims that now-banned industrial chemicals known as PCBs manufactured by Monsanto Company caused environmental contamination, state Attorney General Tim Griffin announced Friday.

Griffin said the state reached the settlement with Monsanto and affiliates Pharmacia LLC and Solutia, Inc. Griffin said the state could receive up to $80 million total depending on the outcome of separate litigation.

“I am pleased that this case is resolved and that Monsanto is doing right by Arkansans,” Griffin said in a news release. “Although the company stopped manufacturing PCBs in the late 1970s, before the federal government banned them in 1979, Monsanto’s PCBs had been in circulation for nearly half a century.”

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are mixtures of compounds manufactured by Monsanto Co. that were used as coolants and lubricants in electrical equipment. They were banned in 1979 and have been associated with adverse effects to aquatic life and humans when found in waterways.

Monsanto was the sole manufacturer of PCBs in the U.S. from the 1930s through the 1970s. A message left with Bayer, Monsanto’s parent company, was not immediately returned Friday afternoon.

The settlement with Arkansas was one of four announced this week by Baron & Budd, a Dallas law firm. The firm also announced settlements between Monsanto and Arizona, Hawaii and Mississippi. Settlements have been announced in several other states in recent months.

Arkansas’ settlement funds are restricted in nature and will be spent in furtherance of water quality, Griffin said in the news release.