Published: February 9, 1995
The Shell Oil Company has agreed to pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit charging that it has been dumping illegal amounts of selenium into San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
In a settlement filed in Federal District Court here on Tuesday, Shell also agreed to reduce the selenium released in wastewater at its Martinez refinery.
Judge Thelton E. Henderson of Federal District Court had ruled in December 1993 in favor of the California Public Interest Research Group, which argued that the amount of selenium in Shell’s discharges violated Federal law. Arguments on the overall lawsuit had continued after that ruling.