Drilling for oil without adequate safeguards is one of the most destructive industrial activities for both people and the environment. This danger has been particularly stark in the case of oil exploration and exploitation in the forest areas in the Amazon basin.

From 1964 to 1992 Texaco (later merged with Chevron and since then called ChevronTexaco) has carried out these activities in the Ecuadorean area of the Amazon. ChevronTexaco is now facing a multibillion-dollar legal battle, accused of polluting significant portions of the Amazon region. The outcome of this battle will show how far U.S.-based multinational companies may be held accountable for their deeds.

Significant damage

Drilling for oil produces several substances and waste products that are stored in special pits. If these pits are not properly lined, toxic materials can contaminate the surrounding areas, leak into the water supply and pollute rivers and lakes, killing fish and making people and livestock sick, threatening their survival.

Oil activities conducted by ChevronTexaco in the northeast Amazon region in Ecuador have caused significant environmental damage and provoked serious health consequences in the indigenous population living in that region since ancestral time.

ChevronTexaco has spilled more than 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waste into 600 unlined pits over 2,000 square miles. This toxic dumping has affected an indigenous community of 30,000 and has led to the loss of 2.5 million acres of rain forest.

The health damages in the indigenous population have been documented in the village of San Carlos, which contains more than 30 oil wells constructed by ChevronTexaco. One of the first studies on the effects of oil pollution on people's health in that village was carried out by two medical doctors in collaboration with the University of London's Department of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. The study, called the ''Yana Curi'' report (after the local indigenous word for ''oil'' or ``black gold''), found that cancer rates in San Carlos are up to 30 times higher than standard cancer rates.

For several years the residents of San Carlos had been exposed to more than one million gallons of oil and toxic wastewater dumped by ChevronTexaco. Exposure happened through several routes such as absorption through the skin, ingestion of food and water, and inhalation of oil and its gases.

Grave consequences

It is estimated that the water used by local residents for drinking and bathing, as well as for washing clothes, contains nearly 150 times the amount considered safe for substances such as hydrocarbons. The study also found that there is a 2.3-times higher risk of cancer of the stomach, liver, bile duct and melanoma in people living in San Carlos. Chevron-Texaco claims that these results were only preliminary and not worth analyzing.

According to Cristóbal Bonifaz, an environmental lawyer who is now suing ChevronTexaco, the company has used inadequate extraction techniques, in the process spilling waste products into creeks and rivers, rather than pumping it back into the ground, as is common practice elsewhere. Bonifaz states that because of pipe breaks, almost twice the amount of raw crude was pumped into the ground than the Exxon Valdez spilled into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989.

In November 1993, a class-action lawsuit on behalf of residents of the rain-forest area known as Oriente was launched in U.S. District Court in New York, close to ChevronTexaco's world headquarters in Westchester County. Although the plaintiffs wanted the case to be tried in New York, a federal appeals court in New York ruled that it should be conducted in Ecuador. But in an important decision, the court also stated that any judgment against the oil company would be enforced in the United States. U.S. courts will also reassert jurisdiction if ChevronTexaco refuses to cooperate with the litigation in Ecuador.

Lawsuit pending

The suit charges that from 1964 to 1992 ChevronTexaco dumped 18 million gallons of toxic waste into hundreds of unlined open pits, and from there into estuaries and rivers, thus exposing residents to disease-causing pollutants. The plaintiffs want a thorough cleanup of the area, assessment of the long-term health effects of the contamination and damage compensation that could total more than $1 billion.

If ChevronTexaco's eventual liability is determined in a fair trial, it will be a victory not only for the environmental movement but also for the thousands of indigenous peoples whose survival and quality of life has been affected by the careless exploitation of oil in their lands.

César Chelala, MD, is an international public-health consultant, and Alejandro M. Garro is a professor of Latin American law at Columbia University.

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