In what some observers are calling a landmark environmental ruling here, a federal judge has ordered Shell to undertake remediation work in a coastal area fouled by a 30,000-barrel oil spill in 1999—one of the largest ever in Argentine waters.

The Nov. 28 decision is considered unusual for several reasons. A prime one is that the restoration’s price tag is expected to be large as court-ordered cleanups in Argentina go—about $10 million, government officials estimate.

But more important, experts here say, is that La Plata Federal Judge Julio Miralles viewed the spilled oil as hazardous waste—a key finding given the circumstances of the accident.

The spill occurred on Jan. 15, 1999, when the Shell tanker Estrella Pampeana collided with the Sea Paraná, a vessel owned by the German shipping company Primus, in a channel at the mouth of the River Plate, about 75 miles (120 kms) from Buenos Aires. The tanker lost 30,000 barrels of crude—some of which fouled Buenos Aires province coastline near the town of Magdalena. Magdalena later filed the suit that culminated in last month’s ruling.

Shell denied responsibility, claiming the German vessel, after suffering a power failure, strayed from its lane and broadsided the tanker. But the judge ruled the oil must be considered hazardous waste left by Shell, so the oil company alone is responsible for cleaning it up.

“This is extremely important,” says María Eugenia Di Paola of the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (Farn), a respected non-governmental green group here. “The fundamental aspect of the sentence is that it established that oil, when it must be given up or abandoned and mixes with other substances…becomes a hazardous waste.”

Shell files appeal

Shell has appealed Miralles’ decision. It also is pursuing litigation against Primus on grounds that the German company was responsible for the accident. Meanwhile, Shell contends that appropriate cleanup steps were taken following the 1999 spill.

Immediately after the accident, the company employed 200 workers in a cleanup program lasting 30 days. Shell says it decided not to try to recover some of the spilled oil—1,600 barrels—because doing so would have caused more environmental damage than leaving the oil to break down naturally. Shell also contends the coastline has recovered since the accident. It argues that the environmental studies Judge Miralles drew on in making his ruling date back to 1999 and thus fail to account for natural healing of the area.

The studies Miralles used were conducted by the National Water and Environment Institute and the Environmental Policy Secretariat, an agency of Buenos Aires province. They concluded that after Shell’s cleanup, local waters had metal concentrations ten times higher than the maximum allowable limit, posing a health risk to humans. The studies also reported concentrations of BTEX (petroleum-compounds benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes) 50 times greater than allowable limits, as well as oil concentrations from five to 12 times the allowable limit. They also stated oil contamination was found in over half the onshore soil samples taken and in virtually all the underwater sediment samples.

Mayor: cleanup fell short

Magdalena Mayor Juan Sibetti says his city pursued the litigation against Shell out of a sense that the oil company did not conduct cleanup efforts in good faith. “When Shell told us that the cleanup of the area was over, we believed them. Ours is a small and rural municipality that could not have been prepared for an ecological catastrophe,” Sibetti says. “Not long after, we realized Shell had tricked us; it had hardly washed the area’s face. So we filed suit.”

Magdalena’s attorney, Daniel Silva, stresses last month’s ruling was only the start. “We’re calling for 180 million pesos [US $50 million] in damages. In addition, 500 Magdalena residents have filed suits against Shell.”

In December 1998, Magdalena inaugurated a new road leading from the town to nearby beaches. It was the beginning of a tourism-development program that also called for construction of a sports complex, cabins, restaurants and hotels. The city hosts anglers year-round, and in the summer an estimated 7,000 people visit on weekends.

After the spill, city officials say, the development plans had to be shelved. Today, a sign at the entrance to the local beach reads: “You are entering an area that has been declared an environmental and ecological disaster.”