SAN BERNARDINO SUN
REDLANDS – City attorneys entered into a jury trial in early February in an attempt to get Shell Oil Company to clean up a mess the city says Shell made. The city launched a lawsuit against Shell in 2004 over contaminated ground water. The lawsuit began a jury trial Feb. 4.
“The city brought the lawsuit to be proactive,” said Chris Diggs, the city’s water resources manager. “We want to ensure the sufficient supply of safe drinking water.”
Shell manufactured the chemical product D-D that farmers injected into the soil to kill nematodes – tiny worms that can attack root systems and kill crops. The use of D-D is common by farmers, but Diggs said Shell included an uncommon – and unnecessary – chemical.
Shell put another chemical called Trichloropropane, or TCP – a chemical leftover in the manufacturing process – into the D-D compound, Diggs said. Chemical manufacturers are required to incinerate the chemical to dispose of it. But Shell instead hid the TCP in the D-D, Diggs said.
“They would add the TCP to the D-D to get rid of it,” he said.
And the farmers injected the D-D into the ground.
Diggs said city staffers noticed traces of TCP in its groundwater a few years before the city launched its 2004 lawsuit. The city shut down its groundwater wells where the TCP was detected.
Diggs could not be specific on how many groundwater wells have been shut down because of the way the contamination works.
And the city wants Shell to pay for the construction and maintenance of treatment facilities that would allow the city to use the groundwater wells shut down by the contamination.
“We are looking to restore those (water) supplies back to where we can use them,” Diggs said. “We pay for those assets, we should be able to use them.”
TCP is carcinogenic in humans, Diggs said.
City spokesman Carl Baker said city staff is sure that the water Redlanders are drinking does not contain TCP.
“The water that we are delivering to customers is not contaminated and it is safe to drink,” he said.
Redlands is now getting its drinking water from 21 groundwater wells the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health has approved for use, Baker said.
The city has retained the services of attorneys to represent its interests in court, Baker said.
The Shell Oil Company is represented in court by Steptoe & Johnson, LLP, and international law firm.
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