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Nation’s Largest Private Water Utility Joins Lawsuit Against Herbicide Maker
The nation's largest private water utility company has joined a federal lawsuit that aims to force the manufacturer of atrazine, a widely-used herbicide, to pay for its removal from drinking water.
The communities in the lawsuit are alleging that Swiss corporation Syngenta AG and its Delaware counterpart Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. made billions of dollars selling atrazine while local taxpayers were left "the ever-growing bill for filtering the toxic product from the public's drinking water." (photo by flickr user scienceheath) As the Investigative Fund reported two weeks ago,
the class action lawsuit was originally filed in U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of Illinois by 16 cities in Kansas, Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, and Iowa. The communities are alleging that
Swiss corporation Syngenta AG and its Delaware counterpart Syngenta
Crop Protection, Inc. made billions of dollars selling atrazine while
local taxpayers were left "the ever-growing bill for filtering the
toxic product from the public's drinking water."
American Water Company joined the lawsuit in five of those states yesterday, representing 28 additional Midwestern communities.
A spokesman for American Water, Terry Mackin, said in a written statement that the company's state subsidiaries are joining the case to recover past and future "costs of treating their raw water supplies for atrazine which they all have done in meeting or exceeding the federal and state drinking water standards."
Syngenta spokesman Paul Minehart told the Investigative fund that the company had not yet been served with a federal lawsuit. He re-emphasized that "the EPA re-registered atrazine in 2006, stating it would cause no harm to the general population."
We reported in a series of articles last fall that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency failed to notify the public that the weed-killer had been found at levels above the federal safety limit in drinking water in at least four states. The EPA recently announced that it would be undertaking a re-evaluation of the chemical's potential to cause harm to humans and animals.
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9 Comments so far
Show AllAs an American Water ratepayer myself, this is the first good thing I've heard about American Water. Hopefully Pennsylvania-American will also consider suing the Marcellus gas drillers upriver from their intakes too.
This is sort of "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". It may not be equal but the upshot is that the atrazine was to increase food production, and the side effect of atrazine seems to be reducing the population of living things that eat food. In the small town in which I was raised, this was known as "what comes around goes around". This might be considered ecological justice, or least a way to control overpopulation.
Now that American Water Company has been mentioned, I would like to state my opinion that public water supply should not be a privately owned and controlled by a for profit corporation.
Exactly duocaninej. psyops70 mentioned Penn American. I've had some experience with them in Western Pa. as a development professional and when information was required from them, finding anyone in their organization and getting that information was like pulling wisdom teeth. Not like publically owned municipal water authorities that were readily available and only too glad to help.
Notice also that American Water Company joined the suit and did not initiate it. Also it should be noted that American Water Company is anything but. Most of the private water investors' capitol is European. Also, in most cases where these investors come charging to the rescue to help out financially stressed comunities by privatizing their water supply they promise better service at a lower cost. The reality is that the opposite is almost universally true.
Who is filing the class action lawsuit for the atrazine in our bodies?
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Very moving account.
But it isn't the water company that is putting atrazine in the water. It is in the watersheds or wells the water utility draws their water from. It is farmers, who in turn have been convinced to use it by Syngenta a Swiss company whose product would be illegal to use in their own country.
"My point..are we so blind that we think our government cares about the individual?"
Are you so blind as to believe your god does?
atrazine? Does an American company now make a replacement? Get the Swiss corporation out of the way. Call in the EPA!
Sorry, but understand that the USA the 'Land of the Free', has dropped so low anything is possible. The English language is being actively destroyed by American interests. Every day there is evidence to show that not even Americans can understand it anymore. Every day there is evidence to show that Americans allow this to happen as long as they can profit by it. 'Win!' they say. 'Those who don't are failures'.
Has this not always been the case?
Yet, still, the truth is failure has nothing to do with winning.