Environmental and health record
Solutia and its parent company Monsanto agreed in 2003 to pay $700 million to settle claims by 20,000 Anniston, Alabama residents over PCB contamination.[9] Monsanto documents indicate that the company routinely dumped PCBs in the land and water supply of Anniston and covered up its behavior for more than 40 years.[10] In 2008, PCBs were found outside Anniston High School.[11]
Solutia's Springfield, Massachusetts plant ranks as #4 on the EPA's top five facilities that reported the largest quantity of on- and off-site environmental releases in Massachusetts under the Toxics Release Inventory for 2007.[12]
Solutia's Delaware River Plant is responsible for contaminating the soil and the groundwater with three old hazardous-waste disposal areas, a phenol equalization lagoon, two sludge lagoons, a raw-waste lagoon, a process sewer system, a storm-water drainage ditch, and a closed Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulated hazardous waste landfill.[13]
The Solutia AES Property Site near the Kanawha River in Nitro, West Virginia, was found by the EPA to have 18 buried, deteriorating drums containing dioxin. EPA determined that a threat to public health or welfare or the environment existed due to the release or threat of release of dioxin at the site.[14]
The Solutia facility in Sauget, Illinois is responsible for emitting PCBs, benzene, chlorobenzene, lead, and mercury. Solutia completed an interim remedy in 2004 to contain, intercept, and collect contaminated groundwater discharging and causing environmental impacts to the Mississippi River.[15]
In 2006, the EPA filed suit against Solutia, Shell Oil, and Mallinckrodt over hazardous materials found at the Great Lakes Container Corp. in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1995, a fire alerted officials to the potential dangers of the 11 acre site, and environmental investigations turned up buried drums of hazardous materials, asbestos and high levels of lead and polychlorinated biphenyls. According to the consent decree, 61,650 tons of soil contaminated with PCBs and lead was removed from the site as were more than 800 buried drums.[16]
Solutia's Chocolate Bayou Alvin facility ranked #1 in the EPA's top ten facilities in Texas for total on-site and off-site releases of all chemicals in 2009.[17]
In May 2009, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved a penalty of $117,048 assessed against Solutia for 14 air violations that occurred over a year and a half period.[18]
