Jasper Municipal Utilities receives $110,466.33 from Atrazine Class Action Settlement

atrazine map — Click on the map to make it larger. The map depicts the municipalities involved in the lawsuit and the magnitude of their recovery.

Jasper– The Jasper Municipal Utilities has received $110,466.33 as a result of the $105 million settlement of a class action lawsuit over atrazine.

The Jasper Water Treatment Facility removes the chemical from the city’s water supply and the settlement funds are intended to help reimburse the costs of removing the weed killer from the Jasper community water system. Atrazine is sprayed on corn and other crops and frequently runs off of fields and into waterways used as drinking water sources.

“The City of Jasper, through its water utility, has constructed and maintained a cutting edge water treatment system designed to protect and provide clean drinking water to its customers,” said Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP attorney Bill Kaiser, who represented Jasper Municipal Utilities in the suit. “This settlement will help defray some of the costs associated with the future maintenance of this system.”

The St. Louis law firm of Korein Tillery and the Dallas law firm of Barron & Budd have represented water providers across the country against Syngenta, the world’s largest atrazine manufacturer, based in Switzerland. Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP served as the local counsel for Jasper Municipal Utilities. The local utility was one of 1,085 water systems, providing water to nearly 37 million people, to benefit from this settlement. Individual amounts were calculated based on the contamination history of the claimants.

Settlement facts:

1,085 cities and towns across America filed settlement claims.
Settlement amounts were determined by past atrazine detections.
The case was originally filed in Illinois in 2004, but expanded to other states in 2010.
The law firms involved were Korein Tillery of St. Louis, Baron & Budd of Dallas, and Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP of Jasper.
On October 23, 2012 a federal judge in Illinois approved the $105 million settlement.
About 37 million people live in the areas served by the claimants in this case.

The judge ruled that it is up to the water providers and the local governments to determine how these funds are used.

For more information about the Atrazine settlement visit www.atrazinesettlement.com.

Jasper Municipal Utilities manager Bud Hauersperger was unavailable for comment when this report was published.