$36.5 million from Monsanto water pollution settlement headed to Bay Area cities, Alameda County
One of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies is set to pay Bay Area cities tens of millions of dollars after settling a class action lawsuit involving PCBs, a toxic chemical compound manufactured by Monsanto that seeped for decades into storm water, sediment and the area’s rivers, streams and lakes. German-based Bayer, which acquired the now defunct Monsanto in 2018, will dole out $36.5 million in total to 13 Bay Area cities and Alameda County. The recipients include large cities — San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco — and smaller ones, including Antioch, Alameda, San Leandro and Vallejo. The lawsuit, which stretches back to March 2015 in the U.S. District Court for Central California, centered around the chemical compound polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.