Department of Justice, environmental groups sue Campbell Soup for polluting Lake Erie

The U.S. Department of Justice and environmental groups filed two lawsuits against Campbell accusing the soup giant of polluting Lake Erie.

Both lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Ohio hours apart alleging similar complaints that Campell's manufacturing plant in Napoleon, Ohio, has allowed wastewater and pollutants to flow unchecked into the Maumee River, which flows into Lake Erie, for years. The two suits are expected to be consolidated into a single case. 

"The toxic algae in Lake Erie is hardly the kind of soup that Ohioans want from a company like Campbell," John Rumpler, the Clean Water Program Director for Environment Ohio, one of the advocacy groups involved in the lawsuit, said in a statement.