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Portland Sue Monsanto For Poisoning City’s Water

The city of Portland are suing GMO giant Monsanto for poisoning the city’s water supply with PCBs.  City Attorney Tracy Reeve has filed a suit claiming that traces of cancer causing PCB chemicals were found in Portland’s waterways. Kgw.com reports: Reeve says the city has already spent a significant amount of public money to clean up the PCB contamination in the Willamette River and Columbia Slough and will continue to do so. It has known for years of the contamination. “In our case there are PCBs widely distributed throughout Portland Harbor and that’s one of the main reasons it was listed as a superfund site back in December of 2000,” said Travis Williams, executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper. According to the city attorney, Monsanto was the sole U.S. manufacturer of PCBs and manufactured over 1 billion pounds of PCBs between the 1930s and the 1970s, when Congress banned PCBs. Reeve says Monsanto’s own documents show the company continued to sell PCBs long after it knew of the dangers they presented to human health and the environment. “Monsanto was the only manufacturer of PCB’s in the United States from 1939 until PCBs were banned in the late 70’s,” said Reeve. “During [...]