The legal team that obtained a $300 million settlement for Santa Monica two years ago after its water was polluted by MTBE is taking its case to the public after complaining that the city has failed to pay its legal fees.
Attorney Marshall Grossman, who is representing three environmental law firms that claim they are owed a total of $66 million after reaching the settlement with more than 12 oil companies, plans to argue his case publicly tonight before the City Council.
“We thought it would be a good opportunity to present the Santa Monica City Council with information they may not have and help the residents of Santa Monica better understand how the city is dealing with the lawyers who have cleaned up the city’s water supply and are now being treated shabbily,” said Grossman, a partner at Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan LLP
A city well field that provided more than six million gallons of water per day, about half of Santa Monica’s daily water demand, was shut down in 1996 after it was polluted by MTBE, a chemical added to gasoline to make it burn cleaner. The pollution is thought to have come from leaking gasoline tanks at area stations.
Shell Oil Co., ChevronTexaco Corp. and other companies agreed to pay the city $300 million in compensation and conduct a clean up that has so far extracted more than 346 million gallons of contaminated groundwater.
However, environmental attorneys from the firms Baron & Budd, Sher Leff and Miller, Axline & Sawyer claim the city has stiffed them for legal fees totaling $66 million in a dispute that has resulted in a lawsuit and bitter public acrimony. Grossman even issued a press release announcing that he would address the City Council tonight over the dispute.
The city filed a lawsuit against the firms May 6 in Los Angeles Superior Court disputing the legal bills. According to court files, its legal services agreement calls for contingency fees to rise with the duration of the litigation and cost of the settlement. The settlement also calls for the construction of a treatment facility worth about $300 million a project placed on hold until the lawsuit is resolved.
Assistant City Attorney Joseph Lawrence did not return calls, but in previous interviews he has said the city’s calculation of legal fees is “very, very far apart” from the $66 million derived by the firms.
Grossman said he decided to attend the City Council meeting after the city replaced its lawyers a few months ago with the same attorneys who represented some of the oil companies in the $300 million settlement.
