June 27, 2000

Nigerian court: Shell out, Shell

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Thirty years after a massive oil spill in Nigeria’s Ogoniland, and nine years after a lawsuit for compensation was filed against Royal Dutch/Shell, a Nigerian court has ordered the oil giant to cough up $40 million to the community whose lands were fouled by the spill.

For the reviled Royal Dutch/Shell, $40 million may not seem like much. But for residents of Ebubu, Nigeria, the money will be quite a boon — if they ever get it. According to the ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS SERVICE, Shell plans to appeal the decision. The company still denies responsibility for the spill (which was never cleaned up), claiming it had quit drilling in the region then because of the civil war over Biafra.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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