Monsanto, Pharmacia to Conduct New Toxin Study in West Virginia River

By Ken Ward Jr., The Charleston Gazette, W.Va. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Mar. 19 - Monsanto Co. and a related company agreed Thursday to a new study of dioxin contamination of the Kanawha River. State and federal regulators said the deal could finally lead to a concrete plan to clean up the pollution in the river.

Monsanto and Pharmacia Corp. signed a formal consent order with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Under the order, a formal work plan for the study is due to EPA and DEP within 45 days.

A concrete time frame for completing the study -- and any resulting cleanup -- won't be known until then, EPA officials said Thursday evening.

In a news release, DEP Secretary Stephanie Timmermeyer said that the deal "lays the groundwork for cleanup of a problem that has persisted far too long."

Donald S. Welsh, EPA's regional administrator, said that his agency "is very pleased that these companies have stepped up to do the work to assess the contamination of the Kanawha River site.

"This work will provide EPA and the state the necessary information to determine what needs to be done with contamination resulting from past manufacturing," Welsh said in the news release.

Since 1985, state public health officials warned against eating Kanawha River fish because of elevated dioxin levels in fish tissue sampling.

But dioxin has likely been a pollution problem in the area far longer than that.

At its former plant in Nitro, Monsanto made the herbicide Agent Orange from 1948 to 1969. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military used Agent Orange to defoliate Southeast Asia jungles. But making the herbicide created the toxic chemical dioxin as a byproduct.

Dioxin has been linked to cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities, endometriosis, infertility and suppressed immune functions. The chemical builds up in tissue over time, so even small exposures can accumulate to dangerous levels.

For years, Monsanto disposed of wastes containing dioxin in dumps at Heizer and Manila Creeks, north of the company's Nitro plant.

In 1985 and again in 1988, Monsanto signed agreements with EPA promising to clean up those dumps. Today, the dump sites remain contaminated.

In August 2000, a group of area residents sued Monsanto to try to force the company to pay for this pollution. The suit is still pending in Putnam Circuit Court.

The Monsanto plant is now operated by Flexsys, a joint venture of Solutia and Akzo Nobel. But, the facility is scheduled to close.

In December, Solutia filed for bankruptcy, in part to avoid the costs of Monsanto's pollution cleanups. After spinning off Solutia in 1997, the remaining portion of Monsanto merged with Pharmacia. Monsanto's agriculture division was later spun off from Pharmacia.

Over the last five years, EPA has issued several versions of a report that said the Kanawha contained too much dioxin and should be cleaned up. But, federal officials never said how that should be done, or ordered anybody to actually start a cleanup.

Two years ago, in March 2002, DEP inspectors spotted dioxin seeping from a waste pile at the former Monsanto plant. That discovery may have jump-started action by regulators on the decades-old problem.

Randy Sturgeon, a senior EPA project manager, said that agency experts have traced "a vast percentage -- maybe 95 percent" of the dioxin in Kanawha River sediment to the type of dioxin created by Monsanto's Agent Orange factory.

"There can be a number of sources out there, but we believe the Monsanto site was a large contributor," Sturgeon said.

Under the order, the companies will examine sediment, river water and fish samples.

"EPA will then determine whether cleanup of the river is necessary and technically feasible and will compare the available technologies to determine which is most likely to be effective," the EPA news release said.

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