Hawaiʻi has locked in a settlement worth up to $45 million from Monsanto, Solutia Inc. and Pharmacia LLC over decades of PCB contamination in the state's waterways and natural resources. The deal guarantees the state an initial $10 million payment by October 31, with the rest contingent on how a separate corporate lawsuit plays out thousands of miles away in Missouri.
A National Deal With a Local Payoff
According to Kauai Now, the settlement resolves claims against Monsanto for PCB contamination across Hawaiʻi's waterways and natural resources, with an initial $10 million payment guaranteed before the end of the month and up to $35 million more potentially on the way. Attorney General Anne Lopez said Monsanto manufactured and sold PCBs for decades, and that the chemicals' environmental consequences have continued long after production stopped. The settlement, she said, holds the company accountable while securing significant resources for the state.
The Hawaiʻi deal did not happen in isolation. Law firm Baron & Budd, P.C. announced on the same day that it had negotiated four simultaneous structured PCB settlements with Monsanto, Pharmacia and Solutia on behalf of Hawaiʻi, Arizona, Arkansas and Mississippi, totaling roughly $132.3 million in collective guaranteed payments. Under that structure, Hawaiʻi is guaranteed $21.55 million in combined up-front and backstop payments, with the full $45 million only reachable depending on Monsanto's separate legal recovery efforts.
The Missouri Lawsuit Holding the Extra $35 Million Hostage
That contingency hinges on a pending federal lawsuit in Missouri, where Monsanto is pursuing its own historical PCB buyers to recoup cleanup costs. Bayer Global has identified the targets as the company's top six historical purchasers, including General Electric, Paramount Global and Gillette, which together bought more than 90% of Monsanto's PCBs before production ended in 1977. In July 2024, Monsanto retained high-profile trial attorney Mark Lanier to enforce 1970s-era indemnity agreements requiring those bulk industrial purchasers to cover Monsanto's legal liabilities and cleanup costs tied to PCB pollution, per Bayer Global's own account of its litigation strategy.
Since acquiring Monsanto in a $63 billion deal in 2018, German conglomerate Bayer AG has paid nearly $2 billion in settlements resolving PCB-related environmental claims brought by U.S. states, counties and local governments, according to the Insurance Journal. Hawaiʻi's agreement joins a growing list of state deals struck this year: ecoRI News reported that Monsanto reached similar structured settlements in May with Michigan, guaranteed at least $108 million, and Rhode Island, guaranteed at least $25 million, bringing the company's total settled state actions to 12 before Hawaiʻi's deal was announced.
Decades of Contamination in Hawaiʻi's Waters
PCBs were manufactured, marketed, sold and distributed by Monsanto and its affiliates in the United States from roughly 1929 to 1977, with the company serving as the sole domestic manufacturer of the chemical through the 1930s into the 1970s, per Kauai Now's reporting on the settlement. The compounds were released into water, soil and air, can persist for decades, and accumulate in plants and animals, before the federal government prohibited their production and most uses in 1979 under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Hawaiʻi has documented the fallout from that era firsthand. The Hawaii State Department of Health issued an advisory in December 2017 warning against eating fish or shellfish caught near Kaneohe Marine Corps Base because of elevated PCB levels found in marine life. Sediment testing across major Oʻahu waterways, including Pearl Harbor and the Ala Wai Canal, has historically turned up elevated concentrations of PCBs and organochlorine pesticides, as reported by Honolulu Civil Beat, prompting long-standing state fish consumption advisories that remain in place in those areas.
The Attorney Behind the Case
Wade H. Hargrove III, the lead attorney representing the state in the Monsanto matter, said PCBs can bioaccumulate and persist long after their release, affecting health and natural resources in ways that are difficult to remedy. Kauai Now described the settlement as part of an ongoing effort to undo that environmental harm, continuing Attorney General Lopez's stated priority of protecting Hawaiʻi's environment and natural resources through enforcement of state law.
The Monsanto settlement is not the state's only active environmental enforcement effort. The Department of the Attorney General filed a lawsuit in 2023 against 25 manufacturers of products containing PFAS, seeking to hold those companies responsible for alleged contamination of Hawaiʻi's groundwater and soil. Officials describe the Monsanto settlement as a continuation of that broader push to hold companies accountable for environmental contamination affecting the islands.
Bigger Settlement Isn't Guaranteed
For now, Hawaiʻi's guaranteed take stands at $21.55 million, with the $10 million installment due by October 31 and the rest of that guaranteed figure structured as backstop payments. The additional $11.55 million to $35 million that could push the total to $45 million remains tied entirely to how and when Monsanto's indemnity action against its historic PCB purchasers resolves in Missouri federal court — an outcome state officials have no control over and cannot yet predict.
It's a case echoed in Monsanto's broader legal history. In 2020, the company agreed to a $650 million nationwide class-action settlement resolving PCB contamination claims brought by roughly 2,500 local government entities managing municipal stormwater systems, a precedent that underscores just how widespread PCB liability has become for Bayer in the years since it absorbed Monsanto's legacy chemical business.
