- AP
- Firefighter conduct search and rescue of an apartment destroyed by an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas
By Alexandra Berzon
As details emerge about the Texas fertilizer plant that was the site of Wednesday’s fatal explosion and fire, a few tidbits can be gleaned from a 2007 lawsuit that the plant’s owners filed against agribusiness giant Monsanto Co.
The suit, filed as a potential class action in U.S. District Court for the western district of Texas, claimed that Monsanto had artificially inflated prices for its herbicide Roundup through anti-competitive actions. The suit did not relate to storing fertilizer, believed to be at the root of Wednesday’s blast.
The suit was filed by Texas Grain Storage Inc. The company now calls itself West Fertilizer Co.
In the suit, the company said that it was started in 1957 as a grain-storage business by the Plasek family in the town of West, Texas. It later built a small fertilizer-blend plant and started selling fertilizer to area farmers.
Zak Covar, executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, told a news conference Wednesday that the fertilizer storage and blending facility had been there since 1962.
In 1970 it started selling other agricultural products, including some from Monsanto, and by 1997 it had struck a deal with Monsanto to directly purchase Roundup each year.
A court filing in 2008 indicated that Texas Grain Storage recently had been sold. Emil Plasek is listed as a former owner.
Texas Grain Storage said it monitored the Roundup, stored in a stainless steel tank, through a telephone connected to the tank, the company said.
Many documents in the case are sealed, and the public documents don’t reveal the names of the plant’s then-current owners. Texas corporation records list the president of the company as Donald R. Adair, and show a business operating as Adair Grain Inc. at the same address.
Texas Grain Storage was represented by roughly 30 lawyers at 12 firms, according to court records. One lawyer who represented Texas Grain said the suit stalled in 2010 after a magistrate judge denied a request to certify the case as a class action. The lawyer said Texas Grain appealed the ruling, and that a district judge has yet to rule on the appeal. The last public filing in the case was in 2010.
Monsanto responded to Texas Grain’s complaint by saying the company didn’t have standing to bring the case and was barred by the statute of limitations. Thursday, a Monsanto spokesman said, “The long dormant lawsuit filed by Texas Grain had nothing to do with fertilizer or the operation of the West, Texas plant.”
See also:
Full Coverage of the Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion – WSJ Streams
how come that no legal aid from them are being extended to the victims of the blast considering that they have inflicted damages to this farmer (low to middle class) town. The victims need to know their legal rights.
I just thought the older comments were interesting, and a bit half informed. I am currently studying environmental science and read up about these things in my spare time and study these topics in my classes.
Concerning Monsanto, I don’t know where to start…. A good way to “scratch the surface” would be to watch the movie Food Inc. It will give a nice into to the mechanics of the new way food is currently produced.
Monsanto started out as a chemical company years ago. Like most chemical companies during the earlier time period in America (around WWII) most chemical companies were researching for the government chemical warfare weapons which would help with the war efforts. After WWII they discovered that it would be very profitable to sell these poisons as insecticides after the war efforts ended. This is where the base for numerous insecticides originated (See Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring).
Monsanto made their first large profits from creating and selling Round Up. The company kept researching agriculture related products they could sell (because Round Up would not selectively kill certain pesky weed, unlike the other herbicides at that time).
With biotechnology crops there were several companies competing in the beginning, but Monsanto shined the most with their Round Up Ready crops. The crops involved gene splicing with a gene which was found (in a Round Up Ready contaminated pond outside one of their plants) which was resistant to Round Up with a common variety high yielding corn’s genes (Dan Charles’s Lords of the Harvest).
This gene and variety was spliced and created a new crop which made farming easier concerning weeding crops.
Farmers buy the patent for these seeds from Monsanto to grow these Round Up Ready crops every year. If a farmer does not pay for these seed patents every year, Monsanto will take them to court for patent infringement. If a neighboring conventional/ organic farmer to a GMO farm has his crops cross pollinate with Monsanto crops, they will also be charged with patent infringement by Monsanto.
I can see where the statement of poison food and corruption is coming from, the question is which aspect would you like to focus on. I have several qualms with GMO crops (Monsanto being the biggest offender):
Most enraging and less known is: Monsanto is taking over the seed supply chain for numerous third world countries (forcing locals to only be able to buy Monsanto). This is a problem in an economic standpoint of being a monopoly; but worse is that the original crops grown in these countries have a long lineage to that region and are very resilient. Monsanto is replacing these robust seeds with a monoculture which is not resistant to much of anything, causing the farmers to have numerous crop failures. If that wasn’t bad enough, these farmers still have to pay for patent rights for their failed crop (Monsanto has patented all the crops in third world countries as well). In these countries they also have the problem of cross pollination with native varieties which causes numerous problems including the ones I listed above.
Concerning the poison aspect of GMO foods, we honestly do not know very much because it is hard for this type of research to be published against a multinational company, and expensive to fund.
The following documented occurrences I have read about:
Bacillus Thuringiensis is a major component to the GMO industry. This bacterium is found in nature and for years was used in organic farming (sprayed or dusted on crops). This bacterium when ingested by a pest insect causes the insect to usually die (unless resistant). BT while being sprayed on crops in organic farming is harmless, however when ingested little is known about the effects on humans. However it has been shown to kill Monarch butterfly larvae (when BT pollen contacts larvae) and also believed to be killing honey bees.
Another example (more related to humans) occurred when biotechnology was first developing. CalGene created the Flavr Savr tomato which was infused with the Flavr Savr gene. During this time CalGene did lab testing comparing conventional tomatoes to this GMO tomato by testing on rats. The study found that the GMO feed rats had numerous health problems compared to the conventional feed rats.
I can go on and on, with toxicity, but I will end here.
Another major point I am trying to get across here however is a for profit company should not be allowed to patent life (seeds), especially life that can cross pollinate when put into a real life scenario.
This is because in essence, Monsanto owns food. Thinking more into this, the food that Monsanto owns is cross pollinating with natural varieties, making that also covered by their patent.
In essence Monsanto owns the majority of the food supply by mainly having cash crop varieties such as corn, soy, and canola being their main focus. Which is pretty scary if you think about it because they control the prices (no competition).
The European Union has already banned GMO crops recognizing the possible negative outcomes, along with Mexico banning GMOs to preserve their plentiful corn heritage varieties.
I can keep discussing the different aspects of GMO foods or Monsanto, but I don’t know which information the forum would find pertinent.
[...] WSJ [...]
[...] WSJ [...]
Joe Smoe (how much they paying you to sell out Joe?) and some others are possibly representatives of the terrorist Monsanto trying to discredit the article which is just trying to bridge a possible connection between the “accidental” explosion and the failed lawsuit against Monsanto in 2007, Monsantos revenge?