Shell must clean up site where oil leak occurred

IRISH Shell is facing a multi-million-euro bill after the High Court yesterday ordered it to take immediate steps to clean up the site of Meath County Council’s proposed new civic offices at Trim.

The site, at Watergate Street, Trim, had been heavily polluted by the leakage of petroleum products from a Shell filling station in 2001.

Mr Justice Vivian Lavan directed that Shell must clean up the site to the standard sought by the council, which Shell had agreed to in early 2003 but subsequently argued was “impossible” to achieve.

That standard required that groundwater at the site meet drinking water standards for petroleum hyrocarbons.

Mr Justice Lavan said he was satisfied that Shell had not made out its case that remediation on the council’s terms was not achievable.

Shell, he noted, had entered into an agreement with the council in February 2003 to remediate the site to the standard in question after “diligent negotiations” between both sides.

The judge said the clean-up levels agreed in 2003 were based on the “conservative assumption” that groundwater immediately adjacent to the civic office site was required to meet drinking water standards for petroleum hydrocarbons.

Shell was now contending that requirement was not appropriate and was not required to protect the health of the current users of the site, whether construction workers or future occupiers of the civic offices.

Having considered both side’s arguments, the judge said he would direct specific performance of the 2003 agreement and would also grant a mandatory injunction requiring Shell to take immediate steps to remediate the site in accordance with those levels agreed in 2003.