Chemical Companies Slapped with Multimillion Dollar Class Actions for Poisoning Fields, Farmers; Suits contend companies sold fertilizer laced with dangerous levels of arsenic, mercury and other toxic wastes.

YAKIMA, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 20, 1997--Eastern Washington farmers whose crops were ruined by fertilizer laced with heavy metals filed suit today against two major suppliers of agricultural fertilizer. The suits, filed in U.S. District Court in Yakima and Grant County Superior Court by Seattle attorney Steve Berman on behalf of farmers, growers, ranchers and others, claim Cenex Supply & Marketing Inc. and Quincy Farm Chemicals Inc. (QFC) knowingly foisted products laden with toxic industrial waste.

According to the suits, Cenex and QFC regularly contracted with hazardous-waste producers and brokers to ship wastes -- including such potentially dangerous heavy metals as arsenic, beryllium, chloride, lead, and mercury -- with fertilizer. Farmers then purchased the adulterated product from Cenex and QFC to disperse on their fields -- but were left in the dark about the products' poisonous contaminants.

"What Cenex and QFC put in their fertilizer products is enough to make your skin crawl," says Berman. "The companies flat-out lied to the farmers about what the fertilizer contained. The farmers used the fertilizer according to the defendants' instructions, and it killed the crops. The land that was ruined by their toxic products won't recover for years, while the farmers and others who poured their hearts and souls into that land may never recover. Some have lost everything."

The suits also take issue with the symbiotic and highly profitable "recycling" arrangement Cenex and QFC enjoyed with toxic waste suppliers. By accepting hazardous materials as fertilizer ingredients, Berman says, Cenex and QFC were able to generously supplement the income of their fertilizer businesses. Meanwhile, by off-loading waste to Cenex and QFC, waste producers avoided millions of dollars in disposal fees each year. By law, waste producers must classify their toxic byproducts as a federal hazard and haul them to landfill sites designated for hazardous materials -- unless those materials are processed into fertilizer.

Among the biggest victims of the toxic fertilizer devastation is Paul Giraud -- the named plaintiff in the lawsuit against QFC. With thirty-five years of farming experience on land near Quincy, Wash., Paul says that industrial waste from QFC fertilizer has threatened his health, poisoned his land, caused multiple crop failures worth millions of dollars and put two generations of Girauds in financial ruin. Paul's son, Duke, also a Quincy-area farmer and witness to the devastation, is a potential member of the class. However, because Duke is already involved in a separate legal action against QFC in Grant County, he could not be a named plaintiff.

"Quincy Farm Chemicals sold us a poisoned product," says Paul Giraud. "After our crops were wiped out, we tested the company's fertilizer several times with independent labs. The results proved that QFC fertilizer was not what it was advertised to be. But even when we told the company of our test results, they just laughed at us -- saying we didn't know what we were talking about."

Tom Witte, one of the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Cenex, has suffered a fate similar to the Girauds. "What these chemical companies are doing to their fertilizer makes farming a hazardous occupation," says Witte. "Not only has Cenex poisoned my fields and crops, but the company has poisoned me as well." Tests of hair samples from Witte and thirty other Quincy-area farm workers conducted by Doctors' Data Lab in the summer of 1996 showed extremely high levels of lead, arsenic, mercury and other heavy metals present in their bodies.

Berman's multimillion-dollar lawsuits against Cenex and QFC are filed amidst a flurry of activity lawmakers and others have begun to take on the issue of toxic fertilizer. The Environmental Protection Agency announced in August it has begun an examination of health hazards related to using fertilizer made from recycled industrial wastes.

Two days after the EPA announcement, the national Association of Plant Food Control Officials named a panel of regulators and fertilizer executives to craft a new label for fertilizers that would disclose fertilizer's "toxic tag-alongs." And just last week ICM Global, the world's largest phosphate producer, announced an exhaustive survey of its raw materials that are sold as fertilizer. The company cited concern that it doesn't know enough about the materials it buys from waste suppliers as reason for the survey.

Attorney Steve Berman, a partner in the Seattle firm of Hagens & Berman, recently gained national attention as legal counsel for 13 states in the landmark tobacco settlement, and for filing suit on behalf of 1.9 million pay-per-view fans who paid to watch Mike Tyson fight Evander Holyfield. -0-

Note to Editors: A comprehensive electronic media kit concerning this issue is available for recognized media outlets online at www.hagens-berman.com/fertilizer or by calling 206-443-9357 or by emailing [e-mail] .

CONTACT: MEDIA:

Mark Firmani, 206/443-9357

[e-mail]

or

PLAINTIFF:

Steve Berman, 206/623-7292

[e-mail]