Nearly every school district in Vermont has signed on to a lawsuit against agrochemical manufacturer Monsanto, alleging that the company was responsible for contaminating hundreds of school buildings.
The suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Burlington, alleges that PCBs the company made were used in myriad school building materials including caulking, sealants and flooring adhesives. Those materials released chemicals into the air for decades, leading to a hazardous indoor environment, the lawsuit states.
Vermont is in the midst of an ambitious, first-of-its-kind program to test all schools in the state built before 1980 for the airborne chemicals and remediate problems.
Attorney Pietro Lynn filed the suit on behalf of 93 school districts across the state. Lynn’s firm, Lynn, Lynn, Blackman and Manitsky, already provides legal services to almost every Vermont school district.
In an interview earlier this week, Lynn said his firm had affiliated with two out-of-state firms who are experts on PCBs to bring the case. The suit alleges that the presence of PCBs in schools “will require certain districts to make alternative arrangements to provide adequate educational facilties.” PCB contamination will also result in remediating, replacing and demolishing facilities at a cost of “many millions of dollars, and in the aggregate hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars,” the suit says.
In a written statement, Monsanto said the claim lacks merit.
“The PCB-containing products that likely are alleged to be the source of any impairment claims were produced by third party companies, not Monsanto,” it says in part. The company also takes issue with Vermont’s stringent action levels for airborne PCBs and the common practice of school districts deferring maintenance on buildings.
“We believe the evidence in this case will show that the school districts’ inaction combined with the state’s unprecedented and scientifically unsupported PCB screening levels has cost the state and its taxpayers millions of dollars that they are now trying to recoup by shifting blame to Monsanto,” the statement says.
One district notable for not being on the list of plaintiffs is Burlington, which filed its own lawsuit against Monsanto in December as it prepared to demolish the PCB-contaminated campus of Burlington High School. Earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions denied Monsanto’s motion to dismiss that lawsuit.
The State of Vermont has also filed a suit, alleging that Monsanto should pay damages for contamination of both the state’s environment and schools.
Lynn said he supports the AG’s lawsuit and that his firm would “collaborate with the state in any way we can.”
You can read the suit here:
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This article appears in Jun 28 – Jul 4, 2023.
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