Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-01075/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-01075-18/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 893
Nature of Suit: Environmental Matters
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Fed. Question

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

GEERTSON FARMS INC, et al.,

Plaintiff,

 v.

MIKE JOHANNS, et al.,

Defendants, and

MONSANTO COMPANY, et al.,

Intervenors–Defendants. /

No. C 06-01075 CRB

ORDER RE: MOTION TO AMEND

JUDGMENT

On May 3, 2007 the Court entered final judgment and issued a permanent injunction. 

In particular, the Court barred the future planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa seed and hay, but

declined to enjoin the harvesting of already-planted seed and hay. In order to reduce the

likelihood that organic and conventional alfalfa will be contaminated by the already-planted

seed and hay, the Court imposed the following conditions that were taken directly from the

government’s proposed judgment:

[W]ithin 45 days of this Judgment, the federal defendants shall issue an administrative

order imposing the following requirements:

I. Pollinators shall not be added to Roundup Ready alfalfa fields grown only for

hay production.

II. Farm equipment used in Roundup Ready alfalfa production shall be properly

cleaned after use.

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United States District Court

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A. Cleaning procedures for harvesters, tractors and tillage equipment shall

be submitted to and approved by APHIS prior to implementation.

B. Cleaning procedures shall be designed to minimize the risk of Roundup

Ready alfalfa seed and hay movement from authorized production sites.

C. All equipment shall be cleaned in accordance with the approved

procedures before it leaves the farm on which in came in contact with

Roundup Ready alfalfa.

III. Roundup Ready alfalfa shall be handled and clearly identified to minimize

commingling after harvest. Immediately after harvest, growers or seed

producers shall store Roundup Ready alfalfa in specifically designated and

clearly labeled containers.

Monsanto, Forage Genetics and APHIS shall work together to ensure that all Roundup

Ready alfalfa farmers are aware of the above requirements. 

The Court also imposed the following condition, which was not proposed by any of

the parties:

Within 30 days of the judgment, Forage Genetics shall provide APHIS with

GPS or plat mats identifying the location of all Roundup Ready alfalfa seed

production acreage as well as the field size and GPS locations of Roundup

Ready alfalfa hay fields for the 17 Western states in which Forage Genetics

collects such information. APHIS shall make such information publicly

available as soon as practicable, including, but not limited to, making such

information available on the appropriate government website. Forage Genetics

shall also use its best efforts to obtain field size and GPS locations of Roundup

Ready alfalfa in the remaining states and provide such information to APHIS

for public disclosure.

The government and intervenors now move pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 59(e) to modify/correct the above judgment. They raise concerns with four

requirements: (1) that all Roundup Ready alfalfa hay be stored in specifically designated and

clearly labeled containers; (2) the prior approval of cleaning procedures; (3) that the

intervenors provide the government with the location and acreage of Roundup Ready alfalfa

seed and hay fields within 30 days of the date of the judgment; and (4) that APHIS “make

public” on an appropriate government website the location of all Roundup Ready alfalfa hay

and seed fields.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

“Amendment or alteration is appropriate under Rule 59(e) if (1) the district court is

presented with newly discovered evidence, (2) the district court committed clear error or

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made an initial decision that was manifestly unjust, or (3) there is an intervening change in

controlling law.” Zimmerman v. City of Oakland, 255 F.3d 734, 740 (9th Cir. 2001).

DISCUSSION

As a preliminary matter, plaintiffs complain that defendants could have raised some, if

not all, of these issues in the earlier proceedings. The Court disagrees. With respect to

remedy each party took a somewhat extreme position and the Court eventually adopted a

middle course; as a result, when the parties briefed the remedy issue they did not have the

Court’s proposal in mind. 

A. Storing Roundup Ready Alfalfa in Clearly-Labeled Containers

The government and intervenors do not object to storing Roundup Ready alfalfa seed

in labeled containers; however, they contend that the Court made an initial decision that was

manifestly unjust or clear error by applying that requirement to Roundup Ready alfalfa hay. 

Most forage hay is used for livestock and is never stored in containers of any sort; the

Court’s order appears to require farmers create containers for the hay.

The Court intended to adopt the condition originally proposed by the government and

it read the government’s proposal as applying to seed and hay; however, as the container

requirement for hay is impractical, and as the government and intervenors do not object to

the labeling of Roundup Ready hay once and if it leaves the farm of origin, the Court agrees

that paragraph III of the judgment should be amended to eliminate any requirement that

Roundup Ready alfalfa hay be stored in containers and to limit the labeling of hay to hay that

has left its farm of origin.

B. Cleaning procedures

The Court adopted verbatim the “cleaning procedures” requirement proposed by

APHIS. The government nonetheless now contends that this was in error because it had

proposed only that such procedures be adopted for new plantings of Roundup Ready alfalfa. 

In particular, it challenges the requirement that “Cleaning procedures for harvesters, tractors

and tillage equipment shall be submitted to and approved by APHIS prior to

implementation.” APHIS complains that the Court “is imposing these cleaning procedures

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mid-season after approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of the 2007 hay crop has been harvested. 

Implementing these procedures mid-season will be difficult, confusing, and will result in

unanticipated additional costs.” APHIS also complains that it does not have the resources to

approve the cleaning procedure applications all at once. As an alternative, the government

proposes that “it could prepare a best practices document and distribute it to Roundup Ready

Alfalfa growers with regard to procedures for cleaning farm equipment. This would be in

lieu of requiring that, within a 45 day period, 3,000 growers submit individualized protocols

for APHIS’s approval.” Third Declaration of Neil Hoffman at ¶¶ 4-6.

The Court is satisfied that the publication and distribution of a best practices guide is a

remedy tailored to address the Court’s concern with limiting the possibility of contamination

from the already-planted Roundup Ready alfalfa hay. The government has represented that it

has already completed such a guide for hay, and that the seed guide will be available for

distribution by July 13. Accordingly, the Court will amend the judgment to require the

publication and distribution of a best practices guide on or before July 13, 2007, rather than

the government’s prior approval of each farmer’s specific cleaning procedures. 

C. Deadline for providing field information to the government

FGI and Monsanto represent that they have already provided the government with the

required field location information for Roundup Ready alfalfa seed crops, and that for the

hay crops in the west they have provided approximately 95 percent of the required

information. Despite diligent efforts, Monsanto has only been able to collect approximately

10 percent of the information for hay crops in the eastern United States. Monsanto’s

collection effort is hampered by the fact that its licensing agreements for the eastern crops do

not require seed distributors and others to collect information as to GPS coordinates and

acreage. Monsanto therefore asks the Court to allow them to report in 60 days on the status

of their efforts to gather the remaining information.

Monsanto’s request is reasonable. The judgment recognized that Monsanto did not

have the information as to the non-western hay crops readily available; accordingly, the

judgment merely requires Forage Genetics/Monsanto to “use its best efforts to obtain field

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size and GPS locations of Roundup Ready alfalfa” in those states for which such information

is not routinely collected. Accordingly, Forage Genetics and Monsanto shall continue with

their best efforts to gather and provide to APHIS all the information required by the

judgment and in 60 days shall report in writing to the Court on the status of their efforts.

D. Public disclosure of the location of all Roundup Ready alfalfa seed and hay fields

Defendants also challenge the judgment’s requirement that the location of all

Roundup Ready alfalfa seed and hay alfalfa fields be “publicly disclosed” on a government

website. They argue that such widespread dissemination of the crop locations will make

these farmers subject to vandalism and would amount to disclosure of FGI’s and various seed

dealers’ proprietary customer lists. Defendants thus seek to modify the judgment to permit

the government, working along with Monsanto, “to develop a system to inform alfalfa

farmers who seek information regarding the proximity of their fields to Roundup Ready

alfalfa fields–without disclosing private information about farming operations to the general

public (and opponents of the technology), by website or otherwise.”

APHIS recommends “making available on its website the counties where [Roundup

Ready alfalfa] is planted. If a farmer seeks more specific information, that farmer could

contact APHIS and APHIS would, in turn, provide Monsanto/Forage Genetics with the

farmer’s locations. Either APHIS or Monsanto/Forage Genetics would then be able to

convey back to the farmer the distance of the nearest RRA field.” Third Declaration of Neil

Hoffman ¶ 9.

The injunctive relief ordered by the Court must be designed to address the concerns

raised by the claims on which plaintiffs succeeded in this lawsuit. See Califano v. Yamasaki,

442 U.S. 682, 702 (1979) (stating that “[a]n injunction “should be no more burdensome to

the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to plaintiffs.”). The permanent

injunctive relief ordered the disclosure of the location of the Roundup Ready alfalfa seed and

hay crops because, in light of the Court’s ruling on the merits of the NEPA claim, “[i]t is . . .

important that the organic and conventional alfalfa farmers learn where Roundup Ready

alfalfa is grown so that they can test their own crops to determine if there has been

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G:\CRBALL\2006\1075\orderreamendmentofjudgment.wpd 6

contamination.” May 3, 2007 Memorandum and Order at 14. Defendants’ proposed

modification addresses the Court’s concerns; it provides a mechanism for advising farmers if

their crops are in danger of contamination from Roundup Ready alfalfa.

In so ruling the Court does not intend to express any opinion as to whether such

information is discoverable under the Freedom of Information Act or whether public

disclosure creates a credible threat of vandalism. Regardless of such issues, the injunctive

relief should not be more broad than necessary. The Court is not persuaded that public

disclosure on a website is necessary to ensure that those farmers who are genuinely

concerned about contamination from Roundup Ready alfalfa can effectively and efficiently

learn if any such alfalfa is being grown in the vicinity of the farmers’ crops or proposed

crops.

Any modification to the Court’s judgment, however, must provide specifics as to the

process: how can farmers make inquiries; what information do the farmers have to provide;

what precise information will the government disclose in return; and how quickly will the

government provide the response. The judgment should also include a date by which the

process will be in effect. Finally, the government–rather than Monsanto or Forage

Genetics–must provide the information to the farmers. The government shall develop these

specifics in consultation with plaintiffs.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons explained above, defendants’ motion to amend/modify the judgment is

GRANTED. The parties shall meet and confer and submit to the Court within 14 days of the

date of this Order a proposed amended judgment that conforms with this Order.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: June 25, 2007 

CHARLES R. BREYER

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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