Document rponBEj1wagYRKwYop6RnJ1rJ

Smith. Moore Smith Schell & Hunter Attorneys and Counsellors at Law BEVERLY C. MOORE ' , ' VANCE BARRON, JR. MCNEILL SMITH ' CHARLES ROBIN BRITT JULIUS C. SMITH, m MICHAEL' E. KELLY - ' BYNUM M. HUNTER V, THOMAS S. STUKES, ' BRAXTON SCHELL' - ' ROBERT A. WICKER STEPHEN,R MILUKIN . ' ' GERARD H. DAVIDSON, JR. . JOHN J. DORTCH : ` FRANKJ.SIZEMORE.m - RICHMOND BERNHARDT, JR. E: GARRETT WALKER , CHARLES E. MELVIN, JR. JAMES L.GALE , ' HERBERT O. DAVIS . STEPHEN C. HASSENFELT JACK W. FLOYD . . KENNETH C. DAY ' ' ' DORIS R. BRAY " ' STEPHEN W. EARP LARRY B. SITTON ' ' ' JERI L. WHITFIELD MARTIN N; ERWIN ' SUZANNE REYNOLDS' RICHARD W. ELLIS , ' KEITH C.-LONG . HAROLD N. BYNUM . WILLIAM L. YOUNG ' DAVID M. MOORE, n jo ann t: HARLLEE WILLIAM P AYCOCK.n- - THOMAS C. WATKINS MICHAEL R. ABEL ` . DOUGLAS WILLIAM EY, JR. BEN F. TENNILLE , , BENJAMIN F DAVIS] JR.. ALAN WILLIAM DUNCAN CAROLE W. FEE JAMES A. MEDFORD ` ' , . PETER J. COVINGTON RICHARD A. LEIPPE MAUREEN J. DEMAREST J. DONALD COWAN, JR. . Greensboro, North Carolina April 21, 1981 . JULIUS C.SMITH (1889-19681 MAILING ADDRESS 1 R O. BOX 21927 ' . GREENSBORO ` .. . NORTH CAROLINA 2 7420 TELEPHONE . . ' - ,,(9i 9) 37S-I450 ` TELECOPIER . ' (919)379-9558 OFFICES . 500 NCNB BUILDING- IOI W. FRIENDLY AVENUE ..'Mr.'`Dan Bishop ' , ' Public Relations Department, Monsanto Company A3NB .,. 800 North Lindbergh Boulevard St. Louis, Missouri 63166 . . ' . : . , - ''Re: , PCB Publicity. ;V' ' ' ' ' : ' ' ' bear Dan: . ' . v ' i . ' . ` ' ' . Here is another recent newspaper clipping from the Hayward, California, Review which I thought you might want to add to your growing collection of articles indicating the "gathering storm" with regard to polychlorinated biphenyls. This one seemed particularly "saber-rattling" in its ddonisday predictions. .' ' - ' ' ,. . ." r . ' ' Very truly yours,;'. . ; ; - ; GHD:es ' ' ' . Gerard H. Davidson, Jr. : '! ' Enclosure ' .' , ' . cc: / Mr. Jay R. Gentry Orti 2 ; ... COPY ' EX P-2185 Page 1- of 4 PCB-ARCH-EXT0380089 Monsanto : QM,^oc.T,,M, : ... -e; ^::' LAW DEPAR1 n _T p ^ o*te, ' SUBJECT: April 21,1981 : . . ........ : ' reference: PCB Litigation ; :. ..v ; . - TO D. R. Bishop - A3NB C. F. Callis - B3CA J. H. Craddock - A2SA . , r. T. Berendt - E2ND R. A. Stohr - B3NJ ' Enclosed is a newspaper article which appeared in the Hayward, California Review on March 10, 1981. This will further support the points Dan Bishop made in his memorandum relating to Binghampton, New York and Cincinnati PCB situations. ' Dan Bishop may wish to circulate this article as he sees fit. /mjf Enclosure shtry Ortiz EX P-2185 Page 2 of 4 PCB-ARCH-EXT0380090 PCB-ARCH-EXT0380091 Hayward, CA (Alameda Co.) Review (Cir. D. 43,161) (Cir. S. 43,456) MAR 10 1981 Jlllen i P. C. B list. 1888 Staff writer OAKLAND -- Two $100 million lawsuits filed in Alameda -County Superior Court over a PCB. spill last year in Stockton may "Ge the tfp of a legal iceberg of litigation over the controversial 'substance banned from manufacture but still wide spread in everyday surroundings. PCBs -- polychlorinated biphenyls -- were banned.from manufacture two years ago after evidence proved them to be among the most dangerous of all toxic chemicals. But aftpr exactly, 50 years of manufacture. PCBs were virutally everywhere -- in electrical capaci tors hanging on- power poles all around the nation, in color tele vision sets and in industrial prod ucts ranging from ink to plastic. Pacific Gas and Electric Co., be cause it was one of the utility's capacitors that exploded and sprayed the yards of two Stockton homes with PCB on March 7. 1980. was named as the lead defendant in the huge suits filed by Oakland attorney Philip H. Knudsen. But the suits, among the first and the largest to date in Alameda County,-also name Monsanto Co., the chemical firm that in 1929 in troduced PCBs -- a heavy oil-like substance used in electrical insulat ing- .' . A third defendant is General- Electric Co. because it manufac- tured"tliV'capacitor. about 120.000 of which were dangling from Northern California utility poles when PG&E announced last year it was mounting a crash program to replace them all within three years. But perhaps the most significant legal aspect of the embryonic legal bat'tle is the naming of Monsanto, as Knudseri Monday compared the issues to those that have triggered massive lawsuits against asbestos manufacturers since links were found between that once-revolutionary substance and cancer. Asbestos litigation -- with more than 3.000 multi-million dollar suits .pending nationwide -- has been called one of the biggest, if not the biggest, product liability legal battle in American history. ' It is part of an increasing 1n- dustrial time bomb as man-made products whose manufacture, was not suspected -- at least publicly -- of causing widepsread human in jury are turning out to be highly' dangerous substances with long term effects in the environment. The courts are being asked to untangle the knotty problem of who is ultimately responsible for paying the tab when products long in use become identified as dangerous. Knudsen said in an interview that PCBs may be the newest front of such voluminous litigation, just like that plaguing the asbestos manu facturers. Similar issues have been raised in litigation over Dow Chemical Co.'s manufacture-ur"k ceattaJ-mgredient of Agent Orange, the defoliant used extensively by the U.S. military in Vietnam. "It is really the tip .of the iceberg." he said. "It is something that is just beginning. It is very similar to the asbestos cases. These things are everywhere. This stuff is very dangerous." , The Alameda County lawsuits stem the explosion of a PG&E ca pacitor in a quiet single-family home neighborhood in Stockton. The oily PCB sprayed onto the lawns of Mr. and Mrs. George Hamblin and their next door neigh- TxTrsTiVlr. and Mrs. Matsami Matsuo. ' '"rs.nlldsen said his clients knew of no dangers from the oily stuff, but were surprised when work- crews started digging up their lawns with no explanation and Environmental Protection Agency officials arrived in ` their space costumes," a refer ence to protective suits. "This thing goes off," he said, "and the next thing they know there are people out tearing up their yards with no explanation, no apology." In -the days that followed the Hamblin's yard, which was most heavily contaminated, was literally- torn out -- the lawn, their sprinklers, the water meter and the contaminated power pole, which was hauleci to a PG&E laboratory- in San Ramon for study. The Hamblin's pet Pomeranian, Gidget. walked through the PCB, their attorney said, and died 18 days later. Knudsen said both, the Hamblins [ ....... " ; f -f ' and Matsuo still suffer from bronchitis-type disorders, which he described as "classic" symptoms of exposure to PCB. . ' Doctors, he said, are still trying to determine the long-range effects of exposure. Research studies going as far back as 1936 have linked PCBs to disorders ranging from still-births to liver cancer. - The daggers became more alarming in the late 1960s when.it. was discovered more than 1,000' residents of a city in Japan had accidentally eaten PC ~~n- taminated rice..Over the n< ve years the liver cancer rate ollvl. to six times normal. Monsanto, in 1971, voluntarily halted manufacture with the excep tion of-enclosed electrical compo nents. Production was totally banned in 197 as part of a phaseout started with passage of the Toxic Substances Control 'Act of 1976. Knudsen said he may soon file additional lawsuits, one involving the explosion of a PG&E capacitor in' Oakland and the other involving industrial exposure of a now.retired man who he said may be suffering long-t<Ex P-2185 ' ' s '-page. 4-of_A_,,, ' ' {? PCB-ARCH-EXT0380092