An Israeli court approved a plea deal on Thursday requiring the Europe Asia Pipeline Company (EAPC) to pay 1.5 million shekels ($415,000) in fines for its role in the country’s worst-ever oil spill.
A burst pipe released five million liters of crude oil into the Evrona Nature Reserve north of Eilat in 2014. The spill left 36 acres of land soaked in oil. More than a decade later, the environmental damage remains largely unrepaired.
The plea deal approved by the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court includes penalties for former EAPC officials. Shlomi Levy, who was the deputy director of operations at the time. He will pay 35,000 shekels ($9,700) in fines, while Haim Bar Sela, the field operations manager, will pay 30,000 shekels ($8,300) and perform 360 hours of community service. Two other defendants who refused the plea agreement will stand trial separately.
Adam Teva V’Din, an environmental advocacy movement denounced the plea agreement given the “magnitude of the damage that has been caused and continues to be caused to the environment, nature and health.”
In 2018, Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry estimated the damage to Evrona at 281 million shekels ($78 million). A civil class action suit in 2019 resulted in EAPC agreeing to pay 100 million shekels ($28 million) in compensation, but environmental groups say it did little to address the long-term ecological damage.
The Evrona Nature Reserve is home to one of the last remaining populations of rare doum palms, a species that thrives in the region’s saline soils and provides a habitat for various desert-adapted wildlife.
EAPC has faced multiple pollution-related convictions.
In 2011, it was fined for contaminating the Zin Stream in southern Israel. In 2018, it was fined for damaging over 2,600 coral colonies in the Red Sea while dismantling construction piles at the Eilat Oil Port.
