Overview
- Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced the agreement resolving a 2022 lawsuit that accused Monsanto of concealing PCB hazards and illegally discharging waste from its Sauget plant.
- Chicago and nine suburbs — Evanston, Lake Forest, North Chicago, Zion, Beach Park, Glencoe, Lake Bluff, Winnetka and Winthrop Harbor — will share the municipal allocation.
- Monsanto, now part of Bayer, denies wrongdoing under the settlement.
- PCBs were widely sold in Illinois in the 1960s and were banned in 1979 after links to cancer and other health harms.
- Heavily contaminated Sauget is not slated to receive initial funds, and Illinois’ total recovery could reach about $280 million, with $80 million due by March 31.