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.
Even if the slab had been an appropriate way of ”capping” the soil, it would not stop pollution spreading through groundwater, he said.
Internal Shell emails show the company would save money by vacating the site early, which it owned until 1996 but then leased back through an investment firm.
One internal email referred to a potential saving of “approx $600k!!” for Shell if it met the earlier deadline to clean the land for a future ”best use” scenario.
An August 2005 environmental assessment report found that potentially dangerous chemicals could move off the land.
”The report suggested that this could affect workers undertaking excavation near the site and, perhaps, residential properties to the east of the site,” Justice McDougall said.
But when Shell engaged the consultants URS to carry out an environmental risk assessment at the site in 2007, it ”made a substantial contribution to the final form of that report”.
One Shell employee wrote to URS: ”The way this paragraph is worded gives the impression that groundwater contamination in that area of the site has occurred If you are to include this section, might want to soften it a little ”
Justice McDougall found Mr Assafiri, who sub-leased the land for between the late 1990s and 2005 and then bought the property in 2006 expecting it to be remediated by Shell, was entitled to damages of more than $1 million for misleading or deceptive conduct and breach of contract.
Shell said it may appeal.
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.
