The urgency in addressing the Corona location(s) is that Shell is required to sell Satish Chopra the land building and equipment under a congressional act called "The Petroleum Marketing and Practices Act" ("PMPA"). Major Oil is one of the few industries congress had to pass legislation to prevent the ongoing abuse of its retail facility owners. Once sold, there will be no incentive by Satish Chopra to clean up the toxic garage sump, hydraulic lifts and hydraulic fluids as he was the one I allege to maliciously leave it there to begin with. That allegation comes from Satish Chopra telling me what he did on July 2, 2005 when he hired me to deal with Shell over its "bad faith offer" to him to purchase his location. I told Mr. Chopra I could not protect the information he gave me and reserved the right to disclose it as it represented a much bigger problem if Shell was dumping all its service stations as a means to shed itself of the environmental liabilities of gasoline retailing.
It was on July 2, 2005 that I first learned of Shell's mass sell off of not only the former Texaco stations, but all the shell service stations as well. Shell is well aware of the timing issue in this matter and is stalling in order to sell the 230 S. Lincoln Avenue Shell location to Satish Chopra so it doesn't have to clean up the location and acknowledge the problem Shell has with some number of the 13,000 Texaco stations it purchased. Shell is doing whatever it can to not be responsible for the environmental problems created by Texaco freely allowing its retailers to do their own conversions from auto repair stations to foodmarts and quick service restaurants, such as Satish Chopra's in Corona at Lincoln and Sixth streets. The issue is now in the hands of the Riverside District Attorney. In light of the failed test, that tells us nothing, the District Attorney needs to insure Shell does a definitive test that either tells us the equipment is there or not there. Anything less than that is worthless. So here's the question the public is asking of the Riverside District Attorney's Office: What would be the rational for not doing the test when, 1) Shell is willing to pay for it and 2) the equipment is less than 33 yards from a clean water aquifer. I am sure Riverside District Attorney is interested in discovering the truth past one failed test Shell Oil arranged and conducted. I have even offered to pay for the test myself if nothing is found. So what can possibly be the downside, when you consider the upside of remediating a contamination source less than 33 yards from a known aquifer?
Update September 2007. Shell did in fact sell both Corona stations to the retailer that created the problem, Satish Chopra. The Riverside County Health Department conducted a test that came up "inconclusive." The same Health Department that has refused all help and assistance from this website, including the refusal to use Rich Soto at IST Labs who claims he can find the equipment non-destructively if two snacks gondolas are simply moved out of the way so a real 3-D GPR test can be done (see
The Right Test).
SeeitReal.com believes it is time to quit being timid about discovering an environmental crime only 33 yards from a Corona aquifer. An investigative reporter in Washington D.C. for the LA Times has been contacted and is now investigating these issues (for her award winning story on the Navajo Indians see
Uranium).