SEATTLE (AP) - A judge says he won’t throw out Washington state’s lawsuit against Monsanto over pervasive pollution from PCBs.
In a ruling Thursday, King County Superior Court Judge Jim Rogers declined a request by the agrochemical giant to dismiss the case. Rogers said Monsanto had waived its right to bring the motion to dismiss by not filing it sooner and that Washington had stated a plausible case against the company.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson in 2016 made Washington the first U.S. state to sue Monsanto over its manufacture of PCBs, the toxic industrial chemicals that have accumulated in plants, fish and people around the globe for decades. Ferguson alleged that Monsanto long hid what it knew about the harmful effects of PCBs.
Oregon has also sued, and a judge there declined to dismiss that case last January.
Monsanto was the sole U.S. maker of PCBs until it stopped producing them in 1977. The chemicals, which have been linked to cancer and other health problems, were banned two years later.
The company has said the case lacks merit, and it noted that Washington and other government entities were among the users of PCBs.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were used in many industrial and commercial applications, including in paint, coolants, sealants and hydraulic fluids.
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