BERKELEY — Cleaning up long-term PCB contamination to San Francisco Bay is the focus of a lawsuit filed by the city against manufacturer Monsanto Co.

The City Council voted 6-0 in closed session Jan. 5, with members Jesse Arreguin, Max Anderson, and Linda Maio absent, to file the complaint in San Jose’s Northern District Court alleging the company and its descendant firms are responsible for the contamination.

PCBs or polychlorinated biphenyls, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies as “probable human carcinogens,” are man-made chemical compounds produced in the United States uniquely by Monsanto between 1935 and 1977. Congress outlawed PCBs in 1979.

They were used in the manufacture of paint, caulking, transformers, hydraulic fluids, inks, lubricants, lighting ballasts and other products.

PCBs get into the Bay via water entering storm-drain systems and degrade very slowly. “All segments of the Bay have been identified as impaired due to elevated levels of PCBs in sport fish,” the lawsuit states.

The complaint condemns the company’s behavior, arguing that “Monsanto’s conduct was malicious, oppressive, wanton, willful, intentional, and shocks the conscience, warranting punitive and exemplary damages, because Monsanto callously decided to increase sales and develop new ways to promote PCBs, knowing PCBs are toxic, cannot be contained, and last for centuries.”

Councilman Kriss Worthington, who was among those bringing the issue to the City Council, called Monsanto’s behavior “a classic example of a corporation externalizing costs and the public getting stuck with paying the bill.”

Oakland, San Jose, San Diego and Spokane, Washington have filed similar lawsuits. Berkeley’s complaint was filed by City Attorney Zach Cowan and lawyers involved in the other four lawsuits from Gomez Trial Attorneys, San Diego and Baron & Budd, P.C., Dallas, Texas.

The cities suing Monsanto want reimbursement for funds spent cleaning up the toxins in accordance with increasingly stringent government mandates.

Neither city spokesman Matthai Chakko nor Public Works Director Phil Harrington were able to comment on Berkeley’s efforts to reduce the levels of PCBs entering the Bay.

According to the lawsuit, the original Monsanto Company was spun off into three separate corporations in 1997 — Monsanto, Solutia and Pharmacia. Solutia and Pharmacia LLC are also named as defendants in the lawsuit.

Monsanto spokeswoman Charla Lord explained the company’s position in a Jan. 11 email to this newspaper. “The former Monsanto was involved in a wide variety of businesses including the manufacture of PCBs,” Lord wrote. “PCBs were industrial chemicals, which were sold to sophisticated companies who incorporated them as safety fluids into … thousands of useful construction and building material products.”

The email continues: “Monsanto is not responsible for the costs alleged in this matter. PCBs sold at the time were a lawful and useful product that was then incorporated by third parties into other useful products.

If those companies or other third parties improperly disposed of products or improperly used any material which created the need for the cleanup, then they bear responsibility for the costs.”