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Supreme Court mulls who pays after toxic spills
Washington (AFP) Feb 24, 2009 The Supreme Court Tuesday heard arguments in a case to determine whether companies can be held financially liable for cleaning up polluted sites even when not directly to blame for the contamination. The US high court heard petitions in two separate, but similar cases: Burlington Northern v. United States and Shell Oil v. United States. In the Shell Oil case, the US government is trying to recover the cost of cleaning up a polluted California site, where Brown & Bryant Inc. stored pesticides until an environmental investigation led to its bankruptcy in 1988. Shell Oil Company, the producer of the chemicals, maintains it should not be held responsible for the cleanup after selling to Brown & Bryant the pesticide called D-D, which leaked into the ground and threatened area water supplies. The petrochemical giant is an affiliate of Royal Dutch Shell PLC. In a separate case, two railway companies, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. and Union Pacific Corp., maintain they played only a minor role in the contamination of a California site they owned. The site was leased by a company selling agricultural chemicals, and the railway carriers said they should not have to pay the full bill for cleaning the polluted area, totaling millions of dollars. At issue is application of the 1996 "Superfund" Law -- formally known as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) -- which could impact any one of numerous highly-polluted Superfund sites around the United States. A US appeals court held each business accountable for the full expense of the clean-up, including the share that would have been borne by the now-insolvent companies responsible for the contamination. The court said the companies had "joint and several" liability, making each responsible for the full cleanup cost. Arguing for the US government, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart said: "Shell had control over the delivery process and Shell knew that (...) leaks and spills were inherent in the chosen method." But making a case for Shell, attorney Kathleen Sullivan refuted the goverment's argument that Shell had a "special responsbility" for disposing of the hazardous material. The US high court is due to issue a ruling by June. Related Links Our Polluted World and Cleaning It Up
Arsenic And Old Toenails
Leicester, UK (SPX) Feb 25, 2009Scientists from Leicester and Nottingham have devised a method for identifying levels of exposure to environmental arsenic - by testing toenail clippings. |
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