Merck Agrees to $20 Million Chemical Spill Settlement

Pharmaceutical giant Merck has agreed to pay $20 million in assorted fines, environmental improvements and cleanup costs to make up for killing untold fish, fouling drinking water supplies and spoiling a season of recreation on the Wissahickon Creek in Pennsylvania with a toxic "liquid mustard gas," the Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting.

The massive impact came from an old-school problem: Dumping toxic chemicals down the drain at a vaccine plant, from which they reacted with chlorine disinfectants and washed into the creek, wreaking havoc downstream for miles. That's the sort of thing the Clean Water Act put an end to, for the most part, way back in the 1970s, when the United States stopped viewing its streams and rivers as open sewers.

While it sounds high, $20 million is a drop in the chemical profit bucket for Merck, which raked in revenues of $22.6 billion in 2006, according to critics of the deal. Still, the deal not only penalizes Merck, but requires it to improve the handling of chemicals at its plant, and it requires the company to invest in environmental projects, like the restoration of wetlands that might well do as much good on the watershed as its original sin did harm.

COMMENTS ()