Lodi to sue Shell Oil Company and others over contamination

The City of Lodi is suing four oil and chemical companies to recover costs associated with treating contaminated groundwater in the area.

The Lodi City Council on Nov. 4 directed the city attorney’s office to pursue litigation against Shell Oil Company, The Dow Chemical Company, Dow Agrosciences, LLC, and Occidental Chemical Corporation, which the city claims sold a contaminant to individuals in the area.

“Although this is environmental contamination, our drinking water is safe,” City Attorney Janice Magdich told the council. “There is no problem with the city’s drinking water. This litigation is concerned with a chemical that needs treatment through our wells, and we are seeking to recover the cost of that treatment from the companies that sold the contaminant.”

Magdich said the city will retain the services of Miller and Axline, a legal firm based in Sacramento, to pursue the litigation. The law firm also represented the city of Atwater when it sued Shell Oil for similar circumstances last year.

In August 2019, the city of Atwater was awarded $63 million in damages from Shell Oil after it sued the company for marketing a nematicide without disclosing TCP was present in the chemical, according to www.yourcentralvalley.com.

The chemical was applied to various agricultural lands around Atwater, and the city claimed it led to its water being contaminated with TCP, the website said.

According to the Pasadena Star-News, TCP is typically used as a cleaning and degreasing solvent. In farming, TCP was found in soil fumigants used to kill nematodes, microscopic worms that

attach themselves to plants.

The Star-News reported that in September, the city of South Pasadena sued Shell Oil and Dow Chemical, claiming the firms both willfully manufactured a cancer-causing material for more than four decades that contaminated the city’s water supply.

Specific damages sought by South Pasadena were not disclosed, according to the Star-News.

The City of Clovis was also awarded damages when it sued Shell Oil in 2016 over the cleanup of TCP found in the city’s drinking water wells.

Magdich on Tuesday confirmed the contaminant affecting groundwater in the Lodi area is TCP.

“From the information we have at this time, we believe the chemical companies (Shell, Dow, et al.) sold to agricultural suppliers, who in turn sold to individual farming operations, but we will not have a full understanding of the facts until discovery is conducted,” she said. “We are of course very early in the process, the complaint has not been filed.”