Shell vs.The Environment & The Public Trust

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Satish Chopra (This and every page is subject to The Disclaimer)
 

The State Water Board wants the public to believe that there is only one set of environmental laws that are applied evenly across the board. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sometimes the laws aren't applied at all. If you are an individual, you get fined less, if at all. If you are a major oil company, you get fined more severely so that you do not break the law across the board for a large number of locations. I actually agree with this strategy, to a point. Where it goes wrong is when the collective retailers realize what they can get away with. In this case, I allege that Satish Chopra knew that if he left his garage sump with toxic wastes and his hydraulic car lifts with hydraulic fluid no one would know. All he had to do was cover it over with concrete and by the time anyone dug it up he would be gone. That was fifteen years ago. Now enter the law of decay, "everything decays over time." The "2nd Law of Thermodynamics" says the equipment Satish Chopra covered over with concrete will decay and eventually leak. Shell's mass sell off of all its service stations says it will leak after Shell transfers all the environmental responsibility to Chopra, if it isn't found prior to the date of sale. That's the urgency. Shell is to sell the location to Satish Chopra in just a matter of months. Chopra being the person who I am informed and believe maliciously and willfully left it there to begin with and covered it over with concrete, will never clean it up. It will leak. Clean water is only 957 feet away, so a leak will pollute the aquifer and there is no test the Water Board ever does for under the slab pollution. A deep diving plume of toxic waste and hydraulic fluid will go undetected if Shell does not clean it up now (see article here) and if the Riverside District Attorney does not ask Shell to do a definitive GPR test in light of Shell's failed test, that determined absolutely nothing. 

 

Contact Info: Satish Chopra, Lincoln Shell, 230 S. Lincoln Ave., Corona, CA 92882, PH: (951) 735-3638,  Email: satishchopra@aol.com

 

The Big Texaco Probem

Left is a picture of Satish Chopra's Sixth street location. It was a Texaco Station like his Lincoln Street Shell station when he bought it and converted it to a foodmart and quick service restaurant ("Der Wienerschnitzel"). It most likely has the same problem as 230 S. Lincoln Ave. This station should be tested along with Lincoln Avenue. After that, there are 13,000 former Texaco stations Shell purchased that need to be identified and tested in some way (see Random Sampling). This is exactly why Shell does not want to find the buried equipment at Satish Chopra's Lincoln Shell station. Shell does not want to spend the time, manpower and money to even address this problem created by Texaco, let alone clean up what they find there. This is exactly why Shell did a failed GPR test at Satish Chopra's Lincoln Shell station (see More Shell Players, William Spurgeon). This exactly why the Riverside District Attorney cannot give Shell Oil and Satish Chopra a "free pass" from a failed test.

 

Station location: 1610 West Sixth Street, Corona, California

 

The Even Bigger Shell Problem

The bigger problem is now the major oil companies are waking up to the fact they can shed their environmental responsibilities and shift them all to their retailers, and why not, "When retailers get fined they pay thousands, when the oil company gets fined they pay millions." Shell Oil is the first to realize that they no longer have to "own the dirt" and the environmental responsibility that comes with that ownership. The problem is, all the environmental laws passed have been based on the supposition that major oil companies would always own the dirt and be financially responsible (see Problem Defined). In the new era of no competition to sell all the gasoline an oil company can produce at record prices, major oil companies are shedding their franchise retail operations. Shell is doing it because their "UST" gasoline containment systems are failing. Shell acknowledges that fact in their "Retailer Offer to Purchase Agreements," but I am informed and believe not near enough to disclose the full nature of those failures. That Shell would try and cover up the Texaco problems by colluding with Satish Chopra by doing an inadequate GPR test does not speak well for what the public will end up with in the end. If the insult of record prices and record profits are not enough, Shell wants to stick it to the public in not cleaning up environment issues when they have full notice of what those problems are, i.e. the 13,000 former Texaco stations this website brings to Shell's attention.