ALABAMA RESIDENTS TO RECEIVE OVER $600 MILLION IN PCB SETTLEMENT.

St. Louis-based Solutia and its former owner, Monsanto Co., which has been purchased by Pharmacia of Pfizer, agreed Aug. 20 to pay over $600 million to settle two class action suits brought by thousands of residents of Anniston, AL, over the dumping of polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs.

Under the settlement, Monsanto, which spun off its chemical unit in 1997, creating Solutia, is to pay $390 million; Solutia is to pay $50 million over a 10-year period; the companies' commercial insurance carriers are to pay $160 million, and Pfizer is to provide community health initiatives valued at $75 million for low-income residents of Anniston and Calhoun County over the next 20 years.

Solutia also agreed to issue Monsanto warrants to purchase 10 million shares of Solutia common stock if the stock reaches a certain price target or if control of Solutia changes.

The payments are to be paid by Aug. 26 and are to be divided equally between the State Circuit Court of Calhoun County and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, with U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon and State Circuit Court Judge R. Joel Laird deciding how the payments will be disbursed among the claimants.

Last year, Monsanto and its corporate successors were found liable by a jury in Calhoun County for the PCB contamination. So far, however, the jury had overseen only about 500 property-damage and mental-anguish award claims because it has limited itself to hearing 20 plaintiffs' claims at a time. Personal-injury and punitive-damage claims still had not been tried.

Judge Clemon had scheduled a federal civil trial involving thousands of claimants in the federal class action to begin this fall.

In announcing the settlement, Solutia Chairman and Chief Executive John C. Hunter praised both Judge Clemon and Judge Laird "for their professionalism and even-handedness in bringing about a resolution of these cases. We share their vision that by solving these matters, it will allow the community to begin a healing process."