(Bloomberg) -- Bayer AG’s Monsanto unit must pay $185 million to three teachers who blamed the company’s PCBs for brain injuries they blame on exposure to the chemical at a Washington state school.

A Washington state jury awarded $50,150,000 in actual damages, and $135 million in punitive damages to the teachers following a trial.

The teachers claimed they were exposed to PCBs in building products, including PCB-light ballasts, in the Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe, Washington. They claimed the Snohomish Health District knew of the presence of PCBs at the school long before it took remedial action.

Bayer AG has agreed to pay $650 million to hundreds of U.S. cities, counties and ports that sued over toxic PCB contamination. The proposed deal has faced pushback from a federal judge in Los Angeles. It’s part of a broader $11.6 billion settlement to resolve Roundup lawsuits from about 125,000 consumers and farmers in the U.S. who claim the weed killer causes cancer. That also awaits approval of a federal judge.

The litigation over both Roundup and PCBs remains a lingering obstacle for Bayer from its purchase of Monsanto as the settlement process drags on.

PCBs -- or polychlorinated biphenyl -- were made exclusively by Monsanto and used to cool heavy-duty electrical equipment for more than 40 years before being banned in the 1970s. The non-biodegradable chemicals sometimes fouled manufacturing areas and the pollutants ended up in the soil. The PCBs would also run into major water bodies when it rained, killing fish and making the water a health hazard.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.