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posted by
janrinok
on Tuesday July 29 2014, @05:56PM
from the big-wins-can-happen-in-small-places dept.
from the big-wins-can-happen-in-small-places dept.
Natural Society reports
The West Virginia State Supreme Court finalized a big blow to the biotech giant Monsanto this month, finishing a settlement causing Monsanto to pay $93 million to the tiny town of Nitro, West Virginia for poisoning citizens with Agent Orange chemicals. The settlement was approved last year, but details were worked out only weeks ago as to how the funds were to be spent.
The settlement will require Monsanto to do the following:
- $9 million will be spent to clean dioxin contaminated dust from 4500 homes.
- $21 million will be spent to test to see if people have been poisoned with dioxin.
- Citizens will be monitored for such poisoning for 30 years, not just a few months.
- An additional $63 million is to be allotted if additional tests for dioxin contamination testing is necessary.
- Anyone who lived in the Nitro area between Jan. 1, 1948, and Sept. 3, 2010 will be tested for dioxin. Although they must show proof they lived in the area, they will be eligible for testing even if they no longer live in Nitro.
- Former or present employees of Monsanto are not eligible for any of these benefits.
- An office will be set up to organize testing for Nitro citizens. The registration of participants is to be overlooked by Charleston attorney Thomas Flaherty, who was appointed by the court.
- Residents have a right to file individual suits against Monsanto if medical tests show they suffered physical harm due to dioxin exposure.
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Monsanto Ordered to Pay $93M to Small Town for Poisoning Citizens
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There is an old time toast which is golden for its beauty.
"When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend."
-- Mark Twain
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:07PM
"$9 million will be spent to clean dioxin contaminated dust from 4500 homes"
Hmmm $2K per house. From tangential involvement with remediation companies, that means they'll barely sweep the floors. That's like one asbestos removal team working one day, or so.
Is there a typo and they meant $9B or $90M? That'll get some serious remediation work done.
My wife had a rather large piece of family furniture stripped because of century (centuries?) old lead paint and the EPA certified whatever to strip it was about $500 so I'm not thinking 4 times as much will help. So you can't even strip contaminated paint off the outside walls for that. And thats only maybe a fifth of a roof, although that varies.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Alfred on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:19PM
Given that the company didn't have issue with using agent orange stateside, for who knows what reason, they will probably clean the dust with compressed air blowing it to the neighbor, get it certified clean, just to blow it back from the neighbor the next day. You could do that for under 2k each.
Still why use agent orange here? Was this like that carcinogen dispersion in St. Louis thing? Massive scale experiments?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:08PM
Monsanto's net income in 2013: $14.86 billion
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:09PM
Why would the employees not be eligible? Not all of them worked on the stuff, so i think that's not fair.
(Score: 2) by Sir Garlon on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:24PM
I'm guessing, maybe their medical screening has already been taken care of under another agreement or policy.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @10:28PM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by dbe on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:10PM
>>Former or present employees of Monsanto are not eligible for any of these benefits.
So I guess there was no employee leaving in Nitro town?
Gotta love your legal right to poison your employees.
-dbe
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bziman on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:12PM
This is a drop in the bucket for a company the size of Monsanto, and they'll just pass the cost on to their customers. If I poisoned a city, I'd go to jail. Where are the jail sentences for the people who allowed this? Corporations are people, right, until it comes to accountability.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:28PM
Not only that, they pay nothing to individuals and 2/3s of it isn't going anywhere yet.
That is a very big portion resting on a very big conditional and it only goes to more testing. The whole thing is chump change to a big corp and they can probably weasel out of most of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 30 2014, @01:47AM
This can only be the beginning for the money roll.
Watch how scary it gets when they figure out it actually pays to poison cities.
How much is that testing equipment going to cost?
Who is providing it?
What affiliations to government do they have?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 30 2014, @09:08AM
Here a good rule of thumb: Any time you're thinning about writing or saying "they'll just pass the cost on to their customers" stop and think for a bit. Because it's almost always a really dumb thing to say. If a company could successfully raise prices they almost certainly would have already done so, without the need to "pass along" some cost. Cost does not determine pricing. It doesn't have much influence at all unless everybody has the same costs.
(Score: 1) by bziman on Wednesday July 30 2014, @06:04PM
Advice: if you're going to call someone "dumb", make sure you spell check your post before hitting submit.
(Score: 1) by Max Hyre on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:24PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @08:16AM
Good point. Because a typo that resolves to another English word is the important part of the post. Well spotted!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 08 2014, @10:14AM
You weren't called dumb, you said a dumb thing. The two are not the same. Take the opportunity to learn from it, not merely feel insulted.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by subs on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:16PM
Shouldn't they be suing the US military who developed it and contracted Monsanto (among others) to produce this crap? Or is because this particular factory somehow released harmful byproduct in the course of production when this was avoidable? If it's the former, then theoretically every weapons manufacturer in the US could be liable for how its products are used. If it's the latter, then it's pretty obvious they should have been smacked down by the regulatory agencies much earlier for environmental pollution.
(Score: 5, Informative) by kaszz on Tuesday July 29 2014, @07:46PM
Monsanto will perhaps feel the pain from this too soon..
Monsanto’s Glyphosate + Heavy Metals = Fatal Kidney Disease [cellularinnergy.com]
Karma is a bitch..!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @09:44PM
Another Monsanto article?
Do you want this site to be another InfoWars, or an actual tech site?
Cue the 9/11 inside job articles in 5..4..3...oh wait, I have an appointment to go play hacky sack.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Wednesday July 30 2014, @12:48AM
Cue the hacky sack articles in 5...4...3... oh wait, I have time to (try) to play Settlers of Catan!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Wednesday July 30 2014, @02:24AM
Better living through chemistry was the motto if I.G. Farbin, you know, the German company that made chemicals to get rid of infestations! Monsato is guilty of equal crimes against humanity, only more indirectly, resulting in Indian farmers selling kidneys to afford intellectual property in seeds. I say copy the buggers! Seeds are not copywriteable! Food? Merde, I could live forever without any of the crap that the RIAA claims to own, but you mess with food, who do you think actually has the pitchforks, and knows how to make torches? (Oh, Hi, Nabi!)
(Score: 2) by nightsky30 on Wednesday July 30 2014, @11:53AM
If we were smart we'd focus on engineering the plants to withstand insects and harsher climates versus just engineering them to withstand larger amounts of pesticides. Those toxins gets absorbed, and we're eating it. Monsanto poisons more than just WV city of Nitro.