By Donna Walter
Friday, 25 August 2006
The federal government and Shell Oil are close to settling a lawsuit related to the cost of cleaning up hazardous materials found at the Great Lakes Container Corp. at 42 Ferry St. in St. Louis.
Under the settlement, Shell would pay $228,630 to the Environmental Protection Agency Hazardous Substance Superfund for past and future costs to clean up lead-related contamination.
The government’s lawsuit against Shell also names Mallinckrodt and Solutia as defendants. The case is pending in U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber’s courtroom.
On Wednesday, the EPA filed a consent decree with the federal court in St. Louis. The government’s next step is to publish the “Notice of Lodging of the Consent Decree” with the Federal Register for public comment. After 30 days, the government will ask the court to enter the consent decree.
Shell has 30 days after entry of the consent decree to pay the EPA. If the company fails to make the full payment in that time period, it must pay interest on the unpaid balance as well as a $2,500 penalty for “each and every day that the full payment owed is late.”
In its consent decree, the government reserved the right to sue Shell for failing to meet a requirement of this consent decree, for criminal liability, for damages to the loss of natural resources, for contamination occurring after the signing of the consent decree and for cleanup costs other than the lead-related cleanup costs. The government may also take administrative or judicial action against Shell for additional lead-related cleanup costs if conditions at the site previously unknown to the EPA are discovered or if information is discovered indicating the cleanup response wasn’t sufficient to protect human health and the environment.
If the government files a suit against Shell, the company will be released from its covenant not to sue to the extent that the company’s claims arise out of the same response action at issue in the government’s suit.
The consent decree provides that Shell and the government each reserve the right to bring claims against, and to defend claims by, anyone that is not a party to the consent decree. In addition, Shell would be entitled to protection from contribution actions for lead- related cleanup costs incurred by the government or any other person.
The cleanup site was used as a drum reclamation business beginning in 1949. In 1975, the facility was bought by Great Lakes Container Corp., which continued the drum reclamation business until 1985, when it abandoned the facility, according to an EPA fact sheet.
In 1995, a fire alerted officials to the potential dangers of the 11-acre site, and environmental investigations turned up buried drums of hazardous materials, asbestos and high levels of lead and polychlorinated biphenyls, according to EPA information.
According to the consent decree, 61,650 tons of soil contaminated with PCBs and lead was removed from the site as were more than 800 buried drums.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Sewer District now owns the property adjacent to the cleanup site. In September 2004, Webber granted a consent decree between the government and MSD requiring MSD, as a passive landowner, to pay $230,000 to the EPA. That amounted to 2.5 percent of the $9,127,244 cleanup costs. Defendant Mallinckrodt objected, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the agreement in March.
In November 2004, the government settled with third-party defendant INDOPCO Inc., formerly known as National Starch & Chemical. That company was required to pay $45,713.12 to the EPA.
In response to the lawsuit, Mallinckrodt and Solutia filed numerous counterclaims as well as claims against third-party defendants. The trial is scheduled for Sept. 4.
(c) 2006 St. Louis Daily Record / St. Louis Countian. All rights Reserved.
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
