Shell sued for $1900M

Press, 14 December 1983, Page 57

Shell sued for $1900M

NZPA Washington The United States Justice Department has sued the Shell Oil Company for nearly $1.9 billion for damage to the environment that the Government said was caused by the company’s pesticide factory near Denver.

This is the largest amount sought by any Federal agency for damage to natural resources, according to Mr Henry Habicht, Assistant Attorney-General in charge of the land and natural resources division.

The Government charged in its suit, filed in the Federal District Court in Denver, that more than 40 hazardous substances produced at the Shell facility, on the grounds of the Army’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal, had spilled and that some had leaked into

underground water supplies used by nearby communities.

Soon after the Justice Department filed its suit, the State of Colorado went into the same court over the pollution at the arsenal, naming not only Shell but also the Army and the United States Government.

While the Justice Department was announcing its Shell suit, it also disclosed that it had filed suit against 50 corporations, including some of the nation’s largest, in an attempt to get them to help pay for the clean-up of a hazardous waste site in Seymour, Indiana. The Environmental Protection Agency also announced that a suit had been filed against the Occidental Chemical Corporation to recover nearly $45 million spent bv the E.P.A.

and other Federal agencies to clean up the hazardous waste site at Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York. The Seymour suit added the 50 corporations to a suit that had been filed in May, 1980, against 24 other concerns. The new defendants include the Monsanto Corporation, Mobil Chemical Company, Phelps Dodge Industries, United States Steel, Ashland Oil, Union Carbide, the Manville Corporation, Superior Oil, Reynolds Metals, and Dresser Industries.

The Government filed its suit against Shell after the Army and the company failed to agree on how much each should pay to clean up the site. The Government said many of the substances made at the arsenal by a Shell subsidiary, . such as

benzene, vinyl chloride and the pesticides aldrin and dieldrin, were toxic and hazardous to human, plant and animal life. The plant ran from 1969 to 1982. Shell said in a statement that it would vigorously oppose the allegations. Mr T. R. Williams, the company’s environmental conservation manager, said a lease agreement required Shell to dispose of its wastes in the Army’s treatment facilities at the arsenal. Mr Williams also rejected the contention that the cost to the Army and Shell of cleaning up the arsenal would cost “anything approaching $1.9 billion.”

The arsenal was a centre for the production of nerve gas and other chemical weapons, including mustard gas and phosgene gas, from

1942 to 1970. The production facilities still exist there under mothballs, according to Mr Robert Duprey, director of air and waste management at the environmental agency’s Denver regional office. Mr Duprey said more than 160 contaminated sites had been discovered.

The Justice Department said Shell was not being held responsible for any environmental damage for which the Army was solely responsible.

The Government suit said Shell’s chemicals continued to leak and otherwise make their way into the environment, contaiminating air, land, groundwater, lakes, fish, and other wildlife at the arsenal. Many of those chemicals cause cancer as well as birth and genetic defects, the suit said.