Document zzg938GGY4o07y0m7113q1390

I j % i. ` (Alameda Co.) . Review (Cir. D. 43,161) (Cir. S. 43,456) : t-;. B ... | ' ; ; ' >HftR 10 1981 fci f - 5i t . - ' ' .; -. \ | ,/ ) "\ . ii. i i fel i: ~ I f.'. ! : ' H . v : 5F - ; ; ; : a it.' te 1? ' G ' OAKLAND - Two $100 million lawsuits filed in Alameda-County Superior Court over a PCg.spjjJ last year in Stockton ma"y'SeTh'e tip 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 after exactly, 50 years of , manufacture, PCBs were virutally l everywhere -- in electrical capaci; tors hanging orr power poles all around the nation, in color tele- j vision sets and in industrial prod- 1 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 - dustrial time bomb as man-made the largest to date in Alameda products whose manufacture- was County, - also name Monsanto Co., not suspected -- at least publicly -- the chemical firm that in 1929 in , of causing widepsread human in troduced PCBs -- a heavy oil-like 1` jury are turning out to be highly substance used in electrical insulat- dangerous substances with long . ing. f . term effects in the environment. A third defendant is General The courts are being asked to Electric Co. because it manufac- untangle the knotty problem of who turedTHecapacitor. about 120,000 is ultimately responsible for paying of which were dangling from the tab when products long in use Northern California utility poles become identified as dangerous.- when PG&E announced last year it Knudsen said in an interview that was mounting a crash program to PCBs may be the newest front of replace them all within three years. such voluminous litigation, just like But perhaps the most significant legal aspect of the embryonic legal battle is the naming of Monsanto, as Knudsen MondayHompared'tlTH~ issues to those that have triggered massive lawsuits against asbestos manufacturers since links were that plaguing the asbestos manu facturers. Similar issues have been raised in litigation over Dow Chemical Co.'s manufacture-mf-h cenUabmgredient of Agent Orange, the defoliant used extensively by - the U.S. military in Vietnam. found between that once-revolu- "It is regally the tip . of the tionary substance and cancer. . iceberg," he said. "It is something Asbestos litigation -- with more than 3.000 multi-million dollar suits .pending nationwide -- has ' been called one of the biggest, if not that is just beginning. It is very similar to the asbestos cases. These things are everywhere. This stuff is very dangerous." . the biggest, product liability legal The Alameda County lawsuits battle in American history. stem the explosion of a PG&E ca It is part of an increasing "in- 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- 'fTors/wlr. and Mrs. Matsami Matsuo. .. ""FTnucfsen 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 hauleo 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 and Matsuo still suffer from bronchi tis-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 dafrgers became more alarming in the late 1960s when,it. ' was discovered more than 1,000` residents of a city in J?"3" had accidentally eaten P :on- . taminated rice. Over the____five -years the liver cancer rate shot 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-term effects. . ' TZS ' if k M ' -4 PCB-ARCH-EXT0376227