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.”
- 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.
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.
This is more elegant and detailed than my usual “hang them”.
Still down for that though.
Ya I’m with you tho, I do long religious tied speaches, but “string them up” really rouses the peoples
You know in a world where our government is throwing around “terrorism” accusations poisoning a large water supply seems pretty terroristic to me
Our government? It certainly isn’t my government. I am one of those fools who actually believe in the bill of rights, in human decency, in preserving our lands for the future, in that all (hu)mens are created equal, and in the decent treatment of all life as our technology allows.
This corporate fascist government is not my government. My government believes in human compassion & dignity, love as the basis of leadership, care as the basis of policy, and defense of true freedom as a basis of force.
Government should maximize our ability to enjoy life, liberty, and happiness. It should simplify our life, not consume it. It should enrich us, not drain us. It should serve us, not enslave us.
No, what we have is not “our government”. It is the same demon which time and time again rises within the collective hearts of man.
The leaders of government today are pedophiles and mass murderers who worship greed & ignorance. They are avatars of the greatest evils found in every sacred tradition. Whether you are Christian, Hindu, Atheist grounded in the pursuit of physical mastery, or anything in between, if you have any thirst for truth, you can recognize what they are.
Calling them terrorists is a disservice. Terrorists are at least principled. Their objective is causing terror to bring attention toward some cause.
The objective of these “leaders” is to enrich themselves and maximize their own pleasures at the cost of this entire planet. They will lie, cheat, steal, rape, kill, and consume anything they wish. They do not see humanity, all they see is power, all they recognize is strength. They are predators. You cannot speak to the heart of a predator, your only option is to overpower it.
So there are some old names for what they are:
Demon. Great Evil. Mara. Shayṭān. Ahriman. The Devil.
Call me old fashioned, but I personally prefer calling them what they actually are. Those who have an aversion to spiritual terms due to the trauma of their malpractice, or the rejection of them for whatever surely valid reason, consider this:
These words are not for describing a specific being, but a pattern of thought that dwells within the hearts of man. The thought has names that have been twisted into something separate, but they are a part of each of us, and we have a choice on whether or not to follow it. This pattern has the following shape:
- pursuit of greed
- maximizing selfishness
- spreading ignorance
- personal pleasure at any cost
- selective, opportunistic compassion
- egomania
- seeing others as lesser
Ignorance and greed are the chief characteristics of this pattern of thought.
A bit long winded, but long story short, my government dwells primarily in the spirits of the land now. What “people” have right now is the government of demons. It is their government, not mine :)
Yes our government is fundamentally flawed, corrupt and broken. But until we the people change that we are under their control. You can try to separate yourself from it but that’s unproductive at best and at worst you start diving into that sovereign citizen insanity.
We can’t really deny if you live in the country, follow its laws, and pay its taxes that it’s not your government. It may not represent you, but it does have authority over you and your home.
It’s fucked up. But here we are
We are not under their control.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
Based
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.
bUT tHeN cOMpaNiEs wOuLd LeAve!!
Until
Never in your lifetime
This is small potatoes. Idk if any person even died from this, but they sure have from dow, dupont, chemours, monsanto, syngenta, oil and gas up and down supply chain, big ag, etc.
They are untouchable in courts somehow.
If they are untouchable in the courts, then our courts have failed us. What should the people do once their justice is not being carried out?
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.
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.
The way their soup tastes, I had assumed they were dumping river water into the soup and not the other way around.
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.
“One violation of the law is a crime. A thousand violations of the law is just business”
Not going to be as deadly as DuPont and Chemours which is still dumping pfas into rivers today.
And 3M.
You can’t even trust soup anymore
You could never trust big soup in the first place. These are the people that advertise a can of soup loaded with meat and vegetables, but then the can has a quarter sized piece of sausage and like three wet stringy things that vaguely resemble a familiar vegetable. 95% water, 0% honesty
Funny enough, Campbell was actually really good about that. At least for the chunky line which basically became the normal over the decades.
Not soup related… but I used to enjoy Classico pasta sauces.
They started doing shrinkflation making the bottles so small that it wasn’t quite enough now for the size of meal I’d make, but when they were on sale I got some since the price was good.
The sauce seemed really watery compared to before.
I checked the ingredients. The top ingredient was water.
I found an old bottle I still had, the top ingredient was tomato paste.
Fuck this making products shittier for money ugh.
Haven’t bought it since.
My favorite thing about Campbells was when they came out with their low-sodium soups. The cans were slightly smaller than regular soups, cost twice as much, and they weren’t condensed so you didn’t add water when you made them. That means you’re paying more than 4X the normal price just for them to not add fucking salt in the first place.
That’s why I always add my own vegetables and protein. I ‘deluxe’ it up!
This is another reason to boycott and make our own.
This is my philosophy with Jack’s pizza lol.
Fuck yeah. Jacked-up Jack’s pizza FTW!
nah you’re thinking of the bean people, I’ve not been let down by soup in that way. or you mean stews, in which case, carry on
It’s a good thing the USA has a functioning government and EPA…right?
I remember the good old days when Tricky Dick Nixon was the worst Republican imaginable. And that motherfucker started the EPA!
If you want a good joke, watch the Ravens game from tonight; it was pure comedy.
I don’t watch football, but guessing it was some ad like this?
I sure do hope that nominal fine will teach Campbell’s.
Well it will be a nominal fine + donation to trump. But still nominal
Payoff in addition to campaign donations and the usual under the table protection money.
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
“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/
This is one of the most flagrant and reprehensible environmental crimes in quite awhile. What will come of it? And because it’s not in my state, there’s not much I can do to make it worse for them. I expect a small fine and business as usual.
You know the fines were factored into the price too by some actuary. That’s what’s so asinine about fines. The consumer literally pays for them.
https://slrpnk.net/comment/18417992
See my comment above. Status Coup News calls them corporate sacrifice zones.
What will come of it
Usually the rich get richer and the people get sicker, while experts and environmental organizations downplay the crisis and gaslight everyone.
Campbell’s soup is so bad that dumping it into the river is an environmental hazard?
Yes, I know it’s about quantities and such. And likely some chemicals used for cleaning. Though the E. Coli is rather concerning.
