CONSERVATION GROUP LAWSUIT SEEKS $100M IN FINES FOR EXXON

The Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation is calling for more than $100 million in fines against energy giant ExxonMobil in a lawsuit filed in district court yesterday over what it claims is a decades-long pollution of the Mystic River and willful ignorance of the projected dangers of climate change.

“ExxonMobil’s Everett Terminal is at risk of being inundated and destroyed by storm surge and sea level rise, because the facility has not been properly engineered, managed, and fortified or, if necessary, relocated to protect from the impending threat of these climate change-related impacts,” the CLF lawsuit says.

Exxon is disputing the claims and vowing to fight the lawsuit.

“We will fight this in court. This lawsuit is yet another attempt to use the courts to promote a political agenda,” said Todd Spitler, a company spokesman. “This lawsuit is based on discredited and inaccurate claims by activists about ExxonMobil’s nearly 40year history of support for climate research that was conducted publicly in conjunction with the Department of Energy, academics and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To suggest that we had reached definitive conclusions, decades before the world’s experts and while climate science was in an early stage of development, is not credible.”

The Everett terminal stores and transports fuels including gasoline, diesel and oil, which have contributed to oil, carcinogens and other hazardous materials seeping into the Mystic, the lawsuit claims. The suit asks for roughly $110 million in civil penalties, based on guidelines in the federal Clean Water Act.

“Every projection of major storms shows this facility would be underwater and that presents the risk of an additional release of toxins,” said Bradley Campbell, president of CLF. “We think it’s inevitable, and the science shows that it’s inevitable that this facility is going to be inundated.”

CLF says new flood maps released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency show the Everett terminal is at risk of flooding from even moderate storms.

The suit also claims ExxonMobil has known for years climate change would lead to an increased risk of flooding, heavy rains and other severe weather, but has failed to take steps to protect the Everett terminal.

“ExxonMobil scientists and researchers were among the first to grapple with the fact that there might be a connection between the carbon dioxide emissions from humanity’s use of fossil fuels and climate fluctuations,” the lawsuit says. “Despite knowing of the certainty of rising temperatures and rising sea levels since as early as the 1970s, ExxonMobil did not use its findings to prepare its Everett Terminal for such risks.”