Ecuador’s Campaign: "The Dirty Hand of Chevron"

[Judi Lynn]

Ecuador’s Campaign: "The Dirty Hand of Chevron"
Source: Truthout
Saturday, September 28, 2013

Ecuador’s president has launched a call for people around the world to boycott Chevron products, in rejection of the company’s evasion of responsibility for oil contamination in the Amazon basin. In recent months, Chevron has targeted Ecuador with a barrage of defamatory publicity questioning the country’s legal system, in an attempt to elude the sentence under which it is ordered to pay out almost $19 billion to clean up the area and provide health care and clean drinking water for the affected population.

Ecuador’s campaign titled, "The dirty hand of Chevron," was presented by President Rafael Correa on September 17, in a visit to a contaminated pit near the Aguarico 4 oil well, operated decades ago by Texaco. The company, which merged with Chevron in 2001, left behind almost one thousand of these pits over three decades of oil exploitation in the Amazon rainforest (1964-1992), covering an area of more than a million acres, where an estimated 18 billion gallons of water, contaminated with oil, has continued to seep from unprotected pits or to overspill during heavy rains. The seepage has contaminated the streams and rivers used by the local population for drinking water, destroyed wildlife and negatively affected agriculture.

Correa estimated the damage to be far greater than either the Exxon Valdez Alaska oil spill or the Mexican Gulf BP spill. "This is one of humanity’s most serious disasters," he announced.

Texaco failed to use adequate technology, available at the time, to seal the pits and clean up another 17 million gallons of direct oil spills. This practice saved production costs of $2 to $3 per barrel, thus increasing the company’s profits. A total of 54 production sites inspected by the trial court of Lago Agrio in Ecuador all showed levels of oil contamination that violate legal norms and international standards. At the time of the Texaco operation, the Ecuadorian norm for total petroleum hydrocarbons in soil and water was 10 times more lax than the US standard, but even so, the average contamination found was 20 times the Ecuadorian norm, and at some sites, up to 900 times.

More:
http://www.zcommunications.org/ecuador-s-campaign-the-dirty-hand-of-chevron-by-sally-burch.html

[Zorro]

1. What is PetroEcuador's responsibility?

I believe they controlled 2/3rds of the partnership and were the site operators.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Oh, do tell us more, Zorro. We surely need to understand Chevron-Texaco's...

...multi-billion dollar "talking points."

[Zorro]

4. So are you saying PetroEcuador has no responsibility

even though they were the controlling entity in the partnership and operated the sites?

[Socialistlemur]

5. Realistically and legally Petroecuador shares a portion of the blame

I understand Petroecuador had either 50 % or larger share of the operations. Texaco had a lousy reputation but Petroecuador did too. It's important to consider history, Texaco was the main producer in Ecuador and thus influenced Petroecuador's culture. There was also a lot of pressure to keep costs down. Don't forget the oil price bottomed at $11 per barrel in 1986. Adding a few cents per barrel to the cost basis was a difficult decision for both companies (I don't buy the estimated cost of $2 to $3 per barrel to keep things clean, that figure is bullshit and it would have been much lower). I love piling on Texaco because they were abusive. But it's true the legal liability is shared by both. This is one reason why the legal case is weak. I'll boycott those guys for other reasons, they have a sorry record. But the legal case is hot air.

[Peace Patriot]

3. I'm glad to see the Correa government taking on the enforcement of this court ruling.

It's one thing for an Ecuadoran court to rule against Chevron-Texaco, but it's quite another to deal with the hurricane of disinformation that Chevron-Texaco is unleashing and the politics, especially the international politics, of defending Ecuador's justice system, and trying to get justice for the 30,000 indigenous who have suffered from Chevron-Texaco's godawful disaster, and for the despoiled rainforest. A court can rule but it takes a sovereign state to enforce the law, and it takes a brilliant and highly popular leader like Correa to challenge Chevron-Texaco's overweening power in these other venues--the venues of enforcement of the rule of law, of international law and diplomacy, of international alliances and of public opinion.

[Socialistlemur]

6. He won't get far, it's a nuisance case

From a legal standpoint the legal case is just a nuisance. But face it, Cristina Fernandez blessed Chevron in Argentina, gave them a huge deal to frack shales. And Maduro went and borrowed a couple of billion usd from Chevron, gave them all sorts of sweeteners ad today Chevron owns shares in THREE giant heavy oil joint ventures in Venezuela. Like my talking parrot says, money talks and sh..t walks.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Nuisance case? The entire world doesn't think so. It's the "Rainforest Chernobyl."

People all over this world have heard about this, seen the evidence for years.

You're not likely to fool anyone here with that wild shot.

We've all been watching the news on this for many years.

One thread not posted by a right-wing disruptor:

Chevron Loses Major Lobbying Battle In Congress Over Ecuador Trade Benefits, Says Amazon Defense Coalition
McCain Finance Chair Had Led Campaign

Effort to Quash Claims of Indigenous Tribes Fails

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x8583

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What has been done to those people, to that life-giving water, to the natural forest animals and livestock is well beyond mere criminality. It's damned evil.

"Nuisance case." Unforgiveable.