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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/illinoisnews/story/B5D3D29881A9C72C8625763F000A7FCA?OpenDocument

Monsanto, cousins face series of suits in Sauget

SEPT. 24, 2009 -- A variety of chemical companies that do business in  
Sauget, Ill., including Cerro Flow Products, Inc., Pfizer Inc.,  
Pharmacia Corporation, Solutia Inc. and Monsanto AG Products, LLC, are  
involved in a series of lawsuits filed in St. Clair County Circuit  
Court for allegedly polluting surrounding air and property, causing  
cancers and other medical illnesses to nearby residents. This  
photograph, taken late Thursday afternoon, depicts several chemical  
companies set against the St. Louis skyline. (Erik M. Lunsford/P-D)
By Nicholas J.C. Pistor
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/28/2009

SAUGET — This village was born under the name "Monsanto" more than 80  
years ago as a company town, where the chemical behemoth could hold  
sway over local taxes and regulations.

The smokestacks have gushed ever since.

Now, Andrea Brown, who has lived nearby her entire life, suspects the  
fumes from the village's variety of heavy industries caused her brain  
aneurysm and lung ailments.

"Look around," Brown, 39, said in an interview. "Everyone here looks  
old. These people are not that old, and they look as old as hell  
around here."



Along with her mother and brother, Brown is working with a group of  
lawyers suing several companies that operated in Sauget, alleging that  
decades of dumping and burning caused health complications for people  
who live within two miles.

Seven civil lawsuits have been filed so far this year in St. Clair  
County Circuit Court that name four of the original Monsanto's  
corporate relatives — Pharmacia, Solutia, Pfizer and Monsanto AG  
Products. The suits allege environmental and health abuses involving  
the release of toxic PCBs and dioxins.

Cerro Flow Products also is named as a defendant for allegedly  
mishandling wastewater at its copper recycling facility in Sauget.

While the government has previously sued for cleanups in Sauget, these  
cases represent the first major private litigation seeking redress for  
cancer and other health complications, according to the lawyers  
involved.

One of those lawyers had previous battles with the companies that led  
to a big settlement in Alabama.

Bob Peirce, a spokesman for Monsanto, said the new lawsuits are just  
about money.

"The first lawsuit, which attempts to be certified as a class action,  
was filed in Illinois by a group of Alabama plaintiffs' lawyers  
seeking to enrich themselves by making unsupported allegations,"  
Peirce said.

The lawsuits allege that the defendants knowingly "misled the public  
about the dangerous and hazardous nature" of the substances being  
released.

Monsanto, the village, was incorporated in 1926 and became a magnet  
for a variety of industries. At the time, local jurisdictions  
generally made their own environmental regulations, and the ruling  
Sauget family was considered business friendly.

Today, Rich Sauget Jr., mayor of the village that was renamed long ago  
for his grandfather, scoffs at claims his town's big businesses have  
made people sick.

"I live here and I have no health problems," Sauget said. "Everything  
seems fine to me."

The companies insist they are not responsible.

They also say that some of them never even had operations in Sauget.  
That's because the old Monsanto, which was involved in much of the  
alleged past contamination, spun off most of its chemical business in  
the last decade, which led to the complicated evolution of the four  
companies named as defendants.

The family tree began when Monsanto spun off its chemical business  
into Solutia in 1997. The remnants of old Monsanto merged with  
Pharmacia in 2000, which is now part of Pfizer. Pharmacia spun off the  
new Monsanto, an agricultural business based in Creve Coeur, as a  
separate company in 2002.

Despite the merging, name changing and spinning off, the plaintiffs'  
lawyers say, all of the companies are responsible.

"For decades, all defendants have known or should have known about the  
health risks and real property contamination," the suits claim.

For years, the Monsanto facility in Sauget was one of two in the  
United States that produced polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which  
were chemicals used as coolants. Used in pesticides, electrical  
transformers and paint, PCBs later were banned as a suspected  
carcinogen.

The other facility was in Anniston, Ala., where about 20,000 residents  
reached a nearly $700 million settlement with Solutia, Monsanto and  
Pharmacia in 2003 over similar claims. In April, however, five  
Anniston residents who chose to press a case separately took Monsanto  
to trial and lost when a jury rejected their claims.

James L. "Larry" Wright, a Texas-based lawyer who was involved in the  
Alabama litigation, said the health consequences in the Sauget area  
could be worse than in Anniston.

"There's a higher population density than in Alabama," Wright said.  
"And, they incinerated PCBs (in Sauget) using a cheap process that  
took the PCBs and made them into something worse."

Monsanto countered with a statement saying: "To believe these claims  
that a manufacturing plant's historical operations are responsible for  
plaintiffs' alleged injuries, or potential future injuries, it would  
also require one to believe that without the manufacturing operations,  
nobody would ever develop any disease or illness. There is simply no  
connection between the plaintiffs' alleged injuries and the plants in  
the Sauget area. We look forward to proving that at trial."

The companies have agreed to pay for cleanup costs in Sauget, but  
lawyers say there has never been an agreement to compensate residents.

The lawsuits allege Monsanto's Sauget facility produced more PCBs than  
"any other site in the United States, and perhaps even the free world."

Monsanto said the "chemicals being complained about haven't been made  
in Sauget for over 30 years."

There are other points of stark disagreement. Monsanto said in its  
statement that residents "have been solicited through billboard ads,  
the Internet, and by other means to file suit even though they have no  
injury."

But Wright said his group of lawyers did not advertise and got most of  
the clients through word of mouth, largely through churches.

Some see it as surprising that St. Clair County, an area derided by  
critics as being lawsuit-friendly, hasn't seen major private  
litigation regarding Sauget until now.

"That has baffled me," Wright said. "I just think the lawyers up there  
have been focused on other things, particularly asbestos litigation."

The companies, meanwhile, have sought to move the lawsuits into  
federal court, where they can employ a so-called government contractor  
defense. They say they are being "sued for actions they took under  
contract with or direction of the United States and various federal  
agencies."

"Old Monsanto produced products for the federal government under  
reasonably precise specifications approved by the federal government,  
the products conformed to those specifications and the federal  
government knew at least as much as Old Monsanto about the potential  
dangers of such products," wrote Bernard J. Ysursa, a Belleville  
lawyer defending the companies.

Ysursa said in a court document that the federal government urged  
Monsanto to produce PCBs to help keep "the national power grid in  
operation during the 1970s." He wrote that a government report in 1972  
said the continued use of PCBs in capacitors and transformers was  
"necessary."

The defendants did get one of the Anniston suits moved to federal  
court but ended up settling anyway.

Some residents near Sauget say that in the end, industry needs to take  
responsibility.

"They always come to an area where people are poor and have no voice,"  
said Darius Brown of East St. Louis, whose mother is a plaintiff in  
the suit. "I just want it to stop, and the people who are sick should  
be taken care of. We're not looking for handouts, we're looking for  
change."