The report states that Campbell’s admitted to violating the Clean Water Act at least 5,400 times between April 2018 and December 2024, with the incidents occurring at the canning factory located in Napoleon, Ohio.
“Campbell’s admission that it committed these violations will speed this case toward a trial that will decide what steps the company must take to curb its pollution and how large a civil penalty should be imposed. That’s great news for the people who live along the Maumee River and Lake Erie, who want prompt action on reducing sources of the toxic algae in their local waters,” said John Rumpler, Clean Water Program Director for Environment Ohio. “We appreciate Campbell’s willingness to work cooperatively with us and the federal government to solve its compliance problems, rather than spending time and effort contesting clear-cut violations of the Clean Water Act.”
Every goddamned business in the world will fuck over the world for their “money”. Fuck capitalism. That shit needs to stop right now. We need to make billionaires and trillionaires meaningless. I’m tired of the “opportunities” for earning money, such as the unemployed fire fighter who gets his job back after starting a bunch of wildfires. Let’s base the economy on ecology, not on a fake value added to a paper thing.
Let’s clarify some things:
- This is criminal, not civil. The board of directors and executive leadership should be held criminally liable.
- polluting waters directly leads to suffering and death on a mass scale. It would not an exaggeration to compare it to a weapon of mass destruction.
- the board of directors and executive leadership are, therefore, mass murderers and should be prosecuted as such.
- the business should be dissolved and sold off. Major shareholders should be on the hook to repair all the damage done by the company.
Until we all start internalizing this way of thinking, nothing will ever change. Fines will not fix anything. The corporate shield is a lie. When your company kills people at this scale, your liability shielding is irrelevant.
bUT tHeN cOMpaNiEs wOuLd LeAve!!
I’m starting to believe now that the majority of people would be more upset about not having their Campbell’s soup than their waterways being polluted.
People aren’t that stupid. Americans are chronically underinformed and misinformed - we can inform them properly.
https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/
…and so forth. I’m sure the vast majority of people have no idea the reality, even the most informed of us. I’m learning new details regularly - despite the media’s, the EPA’s, and various expert’s effective silence on this subject.
The current state of affairs is completely unsustainable - and the kicker is that we only regulate and test for around 100~ chemicals out of many thousands.
Status Coup News regularly puts out on-the-ground, original journalism on the pollution crisis in America - while the rest of the media effectively covers it up.
Roseland, Louisiana is the latest corporate sacrifice zone that you likely haven’t heard of. <- it’s more outrageous than you’d imagine.
Polluting our freshwater is the most anti-human and anti-Earth thing one can do. I think most people would agree.
You can’t even trust soup anymore
5400 times in 6 years is almost 2.5 time a day. EVERY DAY they violated the law.
And that’s just what they were willing to admit to. I can guarantee their lawyers did a cost analysis to see how much the regulators would care about the remainder. Basically “we did it 10k times, but if we admit to 5.4k they won’t bother with the rest.”
Basically “okay, you caught us. We’ll take our lumps without complaining, so you won’t dig any deeper.”
Damn, I hadn’t even thought of that.
It’d be against their goal to maximize shareholders value to do anything but this unless there’s a smoking gun very obvious proof otherwise on the quantity.
So how many people are going to jail?
/s (this is capitalism no one will be held accountable in any meaningful way)
None. This was just a good business decision. I’m sure their stock will go up tomorrow because of this news.
this, like so why are the owners not going to jail now? And the executives?
always only responsible for the success, but never for losses or crimes somehow.
if they can steal all the value created by the workers, claiming they own it, then they should also be the very first judged for what they do with their property and held accountable.
But they’ll dismiss Hector from canning because he took an extra 3 minutes on his break for the 3rd time. Fuck these corps.
Only 5400 times?
There are 2466 days between 1 April 2018 and 31 December 2024. That works out to dumping a hair more than twice a day.
And doing some more math at it, there are 1762 weekdays between those dates. Regulators probably rounded up to 1800 to account for the occasional weekend operation. Then the math comes out to three dumps per day, one for each work shift.
Regulators most likely found evidence of regular dumping, and then did the math backwards to the statue of limitations.
I would have just put the extra soup in another can but I guess it was more economical for them to dump it
- E. coli bacteria
- Oil
- Grease
- Suspended solids
- Other unnamed pollutants
“Importantly, the facility has had minimal, if any, adverse effects on the Maumee River or Lake Erie.”
Sure, we’ll admit to some pollution, but just look how big the river is, can’t blame us!
They spent more to redesign their cans than this lawsuit will penalize them in the end.
Not going to be as deadly as DuPont and Chemours which is still dumping pfas into rivers today.
And 3M.
“One violation of the law is a crime. A thousand violations of the law is just business”
“Our commitments to trusted food, vibrant communities, thriving people, and a healthy environment are among the ways we deliver on the promise of our purpose: Connecting people through food they love.”
https://www.thecampbellscompany.com/our-impact/reports-and-policies/
Ironic that they’d launch a lawsuit for pollution against Campbell’s about dumping into a river, when they have cow flesh in their soups that are SIGNIFICANTLY more polluting than dumping into a river.
Morally reprehensible I think you mean, not ironic. Raising livestock for food is not illegal. Dumping wastewater into a river is.
Hyberbole doesn’t help your agenda.
Wut??
What flavor?
Hopefully Just Fucking Dumb canoed through it.
