Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection is ready to begin distributing its $5 million settlement with the Shell Oil Company to benefit environmental and health-conscious projects in Beaver County.

The settlement, which the state is calling one of the largest in its history, comes as a result of repeated emissions violations at Shell’s brand-new petrochemical facility in Potter Township.

“I applaud the steering committee for ensuring that community feedback was meaningfully integrated and crafting this protocol in a timely and efficient manner,” said DEP Secretary Rich Negrin. “Funds like this one reflect our new commitment to using our enforcement efforts to maximize resources that are returned to communities.”

In April, Shell and the DEP entered into a consent order and agreement in which Shell acknowledged breaching emissions limitations from late 2022 to early 2023. The agreement required Shell to pay a civil penalty of $4,935,023, as well as an additional $5 million toward environmental projects.

Over the course of the plant’s construction beginning in 2017 and opening in November 2022, Shell received 22 notices of violation from the DEP, including eight between April and May. Shell suspended ethylene and polyethylene production altogether on March 25 to perform maintenance at the facility.

Shell has also submitted 44 malfunction reports for the facility to the DEP since January 2022.

Earlier this month, the DEP’s Office of Environmental Justice assembled a 17-member steering committee which would be tasked with developing the protocol for allocating the $5 million for Beaver County. The consent order and agreement with Shell required a protocol to be agreed upon by Sunday, July 23.

The committee settled on the protocol this Friday.

According to the terms of the protocol, projects eligible for funding should provide benefits to the environment, health and/or quality of life in Beaver County. Furthermore, at least one funded project should provide for regular, independent testing of the air quality around the Shell facility, and another should focus on seek to foster civic participation to improve the health of the community near the facility.

No funding will be granted to any project which aims to promote hate, discrimination, or violence, or which aims to engage in lobbying of any kind.

“We still have a lot of work to do, but this process just proved that a community-driven, collaborative process can work if we do it in an open and transparent fashion,” said Fernando Treviño, DEP Special Deputy Secretary for the Office of Environmental Justice.