THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Shell ‘softened’ damning environmental report to break lease
Saffron Howden Friday September 24, 2010
SHELL abandoned an old petrol station in Sydney knowing it was contaminated, then told its health risk assessors to change their report to ”soften” their findings, the Supreme Court has heard.
Yesterday Shell Australia was found to have deceived and misled the new owner of the Cabramatta land, Haissam Assafiri, and to owe him more than $1 million. In his judgment, Justice Robert McDougall said the petrochemical company did not remediate the Hume Highway site, which was a petrol station for 30 years, to the level required under its final ”demolition” lease in 2007. Instead, Shell left a concrete slab that was too ”severely deteriorated” to contain the polluted soil.