Chevron Could Pay Billions In Ecuador Suit
A court-appointed expert in Ecuador has recommended that Chevron Corp. pay $7 billion to $16 billion if it loses a marathon lawsuit over oil-field contamination in the Amazon rain forest.
The estimate, contained in a report filed Tuesday in an Ecuadoran court, marks the latest twist in a bitterly fought case that has drawn international attention, with each side accusing the other of deception and dirty tricks.
The lawsuit’s roots go back to the 1960s, when Texaco began pumping oil in a corner of the Ecuadoran Amazon. Area residents allege that Texaco dumped 18 billion gallons of tainted water and built roughly 1,000 open-air, unlined pits to hold oil and toxic waste.
Although Texaco pulled out of the area in 1992, turning over all operations to its partner Petroecuador, residents sued Texaco in 1993, claiming the company’s practices had wrecked their environment and made them sick. Chevron bought Texaco in 2001, inheriting the lawsuit.
Lawyers representing the Ecuadorans hailed Tuesday’s damage estimate, as well as the report that contained it. That report also summed up soil and water tests conducted by Chevron, the plaintiffs and the report’s court-appointed author, Richard Cabrera.
“I think this is almost a complete validation of what the plaintiffs have been saying for 15 years,” said Steven Donziger, an American attorney working on the Ecuadorans’ legal team.
“The most important point I can see is that the court expert is relying on Chevron’s own evidence to make the case that Chevron is responsible for this contamination.”
Chevron, based in San Ramon, says its soil samples prove the exact opposite point - that Texaco sufficiently cleaned up the areas it was legally obliged to clean, under an agreement with the Ecuadoran government.
The company also said that Cabrera had not been authorized by the court to put forth a damage estimate because that responsibility rests with the judge.
“This is a defining moment for the Superior Court of Ecuador,” said Ricardo Reis Veiga, managing counsel for Chevron’s Latin American operations.
“The court’s appointee has knowingly violated the judge’s orders and delivered a report that is biased and scientifically indefensible. No legitimate court in the world would permit such a charade.”
Such heated comments have become common in the case, in which the two sides disagree about everything from court procedure to soil sampling techniques.
Chevron argues that Texaco met all its cleanup obligations when it turned over the oilfield operations to Petroecuador. Any remaining contamination, Chevron says, is Petroecuador’s responsibility. Chevron accuses the local company of shoddy work and frequent oil spills.
The Ecuadoran attorneys argue that because Texaco designed the oilfield operations, the company remains responsible for pollution on any site that used to be part of Texaco’s operations, even if the contamination happened after Texaco left.
“Just because Petroecuador continues to operate a former Texaco site doesn’t mean they (Chevron) aren’t responsible,” Donziger said.
Last year, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa threw his support behind the plaintiffs, prompting Chevron to protest that the company wasn’t receiving a fair trial.
© 2008 San Francisco Chronicle
it’s significant that chevron bought texaco knowing that this suit was pending. it tells me that their victory is already assumed and factored in, whether it’s a result of “shock & awe” or some more subtle pressure. even in the extremely unlikely event that they lose in court, the judgement will barely make a dent in their balance sheets.
I’d like to see Chevronliza clean up this toxic mess with a soda straw.
The picture says it all. I no longer drive a car knowing that people live in these areas while international corporate irresponsibility leads to direct connections woith our secretary of state Conoleza Rice.
Madam Secretary,
This and encouraging and promising greater US tourism in Brazil while indigenous peoples are being used in virtual slave labor to sustain the profit / price differential for biofuels, a conceptual boondoggle, and the oil war in Iraq and Chevron history in Pakistan is heartbreaking. How many lives? How much poison?
Every day, all across the world, multinationals dump countless gallons of toxic sludge in areas full of indigenous and impoverished people. These companies save on environmental costs, which pass from the producer to the people whose natural resources are being exploited, who are left to do the clean-up. Little has changed since the colonial period. This is a reverse Robin Hood which makes the rich in Western nations richer while leaving a toxic legacy for locals. Look at Newmont Mining’s Indonesia mine and its operations in Bolivia where it left arsenic in open pools–allegedly the product of an accident. Well the accidents have become increasingly common and the responsible parties have typically taken flight.
Ecuador is doing the right thing by confronting the multinational Chevron, whose willingness to continue to do business with the Burmese junta is evidence enough of its moral depravity. Until those responsible for the pollution are made to feel the consequences through a boycott of their products, these abuses will continue. I doubt we’d see similar legal accountability in place like Colombia, which has seen the mass murder of trade unionists, including even some on the shop floor of a Coca Cola factory. These countries are supposedly the US’ friends, which makes you wonder who our government really represents as we enter into new free trade agreements devoid of environmental considerations, under the false premise the treaties are in the mutual interest of people of both nations.
I saw the same dastardly criminal action in Oklahoma 50 years ago…..we all just looked the other way. This type of ecological crime has been the norm since day one of the oil booms….remember the gushers? Of Money!!
We humans must now learn to actually Listen to the Earth. We can and will slow down the pace of destruction of our Home. Its just a matter of deciding whether it will be voluntary, or not.
I no longer drive a car, I changed my life so that I would no longer need one.
I can not escape the fact that I use countless other products whose origins begin with petrochemicals. If I would live petrochemical free I would not be able to comment on this article since I would not have a computer.
I can’t be sure if our lives were meant to be tied to petrochemicals, in some oily corporate conspiracy, but it sure seems that way.
The alternatives exist erase petrochemical companies who hoodwink indigeneous rights to valuable raw resources.
Gettting rid of a car is great, and enlightening (i can say). But we must erase these companies who control and regulate our lives to increase their market advantage. We are, literally, market data, to them all. We are all expendable, and replaceable within their economy.
Our connection to these injustices is appalling. The global cycle of our purchases are connnected to the advancement of harms and violations enacted upon these beautiful cultures.
I try to avoid the commercial outlets who advance the product of corporate companies, but they’ve taken over my entire community. Even agricultural entities are unable to grow the demand of consumers around them, because they are in debt to gov’t and chemical companies who, in the campainging for biofuels, have caused these plantations to yeild biofuel energies, not edible ones.
The alternatives are to take back the commercial enterprises by owning, again, the means of communication and production on a local scale. By showing, through articles provided by common dreams and others, the true injustice our consumption causes to others. We as citizens of a responsible nature, are responsible to show others what their negligence produces.
Is there a company around the area that can convert that shit into a non-toxic lamp oil for those without electricity?
Sue the bastards, just fine. Better yet tie them up and pour a few gallons of their own toxic sludge down their bullshitting mouths. Chevron - cancer is as cancer does…
At what point in their lives do nice boys and girls turn into monsters who abuse others so badly? Money does not excuse immoral behaviors. How are kids turned into monsters?