Monsanto to pay $6 million to end Lay Lake suit

An Anniston chemical plant has agreed to pay $6 million to settle a Shelby County class-action lawsuit by Lay Lake property owners.

Lawyers Clay Ragsdale and Gusty Yearout had sued Monsanto, alleging property damage from the pollution of Lay Lake by PCBs that had drifted down the Coosa River through its tributaries after being discharged into Snow Creek by the company.

Monsanto acknowledged no liability in agreeing to settle the case.

The representative plaintiffs in the case are Ben Payton, Thomas Edwards and Cliassa Edwards. Ragsdale said the actual class could include 3,000 people.

PCBs are polychlorinated biphenyls, a chemical considered a cause of cancer. The lawsuit, filed in 1997 and settled this week, claimed that the owners' property values had been damaged by the chemical's impact on recreational uses of Lay Lake.

Because a previous class action in 1993 resulted in a settlement for PCB damage, this case was limited to those who paid property taxes since July 26, 1993, on waterfront property in the four counties bordering the lake: Shelby, Coosa, Talladega and Chilton.

The lawsuit contends that fishing, swimming, boating and other recreation on the lake have been adversely affected by the presence of PCBs.

A fairness hearing in the class-action case is scheduled for 10 a.m. Nov. 3 before Shelby County Circuit Judge Dan Reeves. Reeves will hear from any Lay Lake property owners who object to the terms of the settlement.

PCBs were used in electrical appliances for insulation and became a big business.

Monsanto in 1935 bought the Theodore Swann Co. in Anniston, where PCBs had been produced since 1929. PCBs were manufactured at the plant until Monsanto suspended Anniston's PCB production in 1971.

Cancer, asthma and other ailments have been linked to the chemical. By 1979, the federal government outlawed production of PCBs.

Monsanto spun off its chemicals business as Solutia in 1997. Pharmacia & Upjohn bought Monsanto in 2000 and later spun it off as an agricultural products company.

Ragsdale said the $6 million settlement releases Monsanto from any future claims of PCB damage to property, "but it has no effect on any claims for personal injury."

According to filings in the case, Monsanto continues to deny that PCBs harmed any property. Monsanto, through its lawyers, stated that it agreed to the settlement from a "desire to avoid the expense, burden and diversion of protracted litigation."

The company and others under the same corporate ownership in 2003 agreed to pay a $600 million settlement in a federal case and a Calhoun County case. That agreement settled two PCB-related cases with more than 20,000 plaintiffs.

Those cases involved numerous allegations of personal injury, including cancer.

E-mail: nwilstach@bhamnews.com