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Bayer Proposes $7.2 Billion Settlement to Resolve Roundup Weedkiller Cases
Bayer said on Tuesday that its Monsanto chemical subsidiary has proposed a $7.25 billion settlement to resolve lawsuits by customers alleging that its Roundup weedkiller product caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma. If the settlement wins court approval, Monsanto would make annual payments for up to 21 years.
People diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma who were exposed to Roundup before the proposed legal remedy was announced on Tuesday can file a claim to receive payments, according to Reuters. Bayer said in a statement that the agreement does not include any admission of liability or wrongdoing. Bayer said these resolutions will increase its litigation liability from 7.8 billion euros ($9.2 billion) to 11.8 billion euros ($13.9 billion).
Bayer, a German agricultural and pharmaceutical company, also said Tuesday that it had reached agreements to resolve other Roundup-related cases. Those additional settlements, whose exact terms were not disclosed, would amount to about $3 billion, Reuters reported. Roundup is still available for sale online and from other major retailers. Bayer maintains that Roundup products are safe and that their ingredients have been thoroughly tested and reviewed.
Salty, Oily Drinking Water Left Sores in Their Mouths. Oklahoma Refused to Find out Why.
In the summer of 2022, months after Tammy Boarman and her husband, Chris, moved into their newly built “forever home” 30 miles from Oklahoma City, the plants in their yard began to turn yellow. The shrubs wilted, though Tammy watered them often. And the couple began to notice a salty taste in their drinking water. The water came from a private well, drilled the year before, and they hoped that the bad taste would fade with time and with the help of a water softener.
But the problem grew worse. Their ice maker expelled large clumps of wet salt, which, when rubbed, dissolved into an oily, foul-smelling substance. The couple knew that some oil and gas extraction took place nearby. Down dirt roads and behind stands of oak trees in their neighborhood, pump jacks nodded up and down, pulling up oil. This is a common sight in Oklahoma. Several studies estimate that about half the state’s residents live within a mile of oil and gas wells.
By the following summer, Tammy and Chris Boarman had been in touch with the state agency overseeing private water wells and began to fear these nearby oil operations had tainted their water, which they had largely stopped drinking after developing sores in their mouths. The couple submitted a complaint to the oil division of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry and is responsible for addressing related pollution.
Residents Along Louisiana’s Cancer Alley Have a New Worry: Blue Ammonia
From her home in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, less than 3 miles from the world’s largest ammonia plant, Ashley Gaignard says the air itself carries a chemical edge. The odor, she said, is sharp and lingering.
Years ago, when her son attended an elementary school about a mile from the massive CF Industries ammonia production facility, he would begin wheezing during recess, she recalled. His breathing problems eased only after he transferred to a school several miles farther away. “I’m not against progress,” Gaignard said. “We are against development that poisons and displaces and disregards human life.”
Now, along Louisiana’s Mississippi River corridor, fertilizer giant CF Industries and other companies are placing multibillion-dollar bets on “blue ammonia” — a product made from fossil fuels but with extra technology to capture planet-warming gases and pipe them underground for storage.
The Oil Industry’s Latest Disaster: Trillions of Gallons of Buried Toxic Wastewater
A cache of government documents dating back nearly a century casts serious doubt on the safety of the oil and gas industry’s most common method for disposing of its annual trillion gallons of toxic wastewater: injecting it deep underground. Despite knowing by the early 1970s that injection wells were at best a makeshift solution, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) never followed its own determination that they should be “a temporary means of disposal,” used only until “a more environmentally acceptable means of disposal [becomes] available.”
The documents include scientific research, internal communications, and talks given at a December 1971 industry and government symposium. And they come from multiple federal agencies, including the EPA, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The documents show there may be little scientific merit to industry and government claims that injection wells are a safe means of disposal — putting drinking water and other mineral resources in communities across the country at risk of contamination, and jeopardizing local economies and public health.
Jury Finds Johnson & Johnson Liable for Cancer in Latest Talc Trial
A jury in Pennsylvania state court on Friday awarded $250,000 to the family of a woman who sued Johnson & Johnson alleging its talc-based baby powder was to blame for her ovarian cancer. The jury in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas sided with family members of Gayle Emerson, who claimed that Johnson & Johnson knew for years its talc-based products were dangerous but failed to warn consumers.
Jurors awarded Emerson’s family $50,000 in compensatory damages and $200,000 in punitive damages. In a statement, Erik Haas, J&J’s worldwide vice president of litigation, said the company plans to appeal.
“This token verdict reflects the jury’s appreciation that the claims were meritless and divorced from the science,” Haas said. Leigh O’Dell of the Beasley Allen Law Firm, who represented Emerson’s family, said in a statement that the jury “found J&J’s product and corporate conduct directly responsible for the death of Ms. Emerson.”
“While the jury’s award is less than we hoped, and significantly less than the amount necessary to punish J&J for their outrageous conduct, we are moving forward,” O’Dell said.
NM Environment Officials Issue Nearly $16 Million Fines to Los Alamos National Lab Over Legacy Waste
New Mexico environment officials this week unveiled close to $16 million in fines, along with other enforcement actions intended, they said, to hold the U.S. Department of Energy accountable for failing to clean up legacy nuclear waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
A broad category of hazardous waste from activities dating from the 1940s to the 1990s is scattered across the canyons around lab property and poses threats to New Mexicans and a neighboring Pueblo’s drinking water, state authorities say. New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney told Source NM the state needed to take “bold action” to create urgency and force the clean up. “I think it’s been necessary for a long time, he said, noting that the Department of Energy has had a “history of failing to clean up legacy waste” at the lab.
The Department of Energy disputes Kenney’s characterization. In an email response to a request for comment from Source, Valerie Gohlke, a DOE communications manager, wrote that the federal agency “is advancing legacy environmental cleanup at LANL and remains committed to public safety, efficiency, and transparency.”
