Exposed: Chevron's Cover-up of Gross Environmental Abuses in Ecuador

[Judi Lynn]

By Cameron Scott
Exposed: Chevron's Cover-up of Gross Environmental Abuses in Ecuador
Chevron claims it's not responsible for dumping 18 billion gallons of industrial wastewater into the Amazon. A local leader says otherwise.
March 8, 2010

What is a lost culture? Is it just some intangible time before? Is it an economy? Can you inventory a lost culture in the number of lives lost or rivers polluted?

Those questions haunt the lawsuit brought by Ecuadorian indigenous groups against the U.S. oil giant, Chevron, for environmental destruction it allegedly wrought as Texaco in the Amazon rainforest of eastern Ecuador. On paper, the suit asks Chevron (which acquired Texaco in 2001) to pay for the environmental cleanup of an area three times the size of Manhattan, pocked with open oil pits and steeped in 18 billion gallons of dumped industrial wastewater. The damages in the case -- calculated by a court-appointed expert at a record $27 billion -- would also establish a health fund to pay for the estimated 1,400 cases of cancer caused by the pollution -- a number that will likely continue to grow until the site is cleaned up. The rest of the damages fall into the catchall category, "compensation."

Emergildo Criollo is president of the Cofan people, who have been among the hardest hit and are one of the plaintiffs in the case. For Criollo, 52, the case isn't just about what Texaco workers did or didn't do starting in the 1960s. It's about the dissolution of his traditional culture into the modern world as a result of oil workers simply being there and building roads to get there. And no one company can be held accountable for that. But Chevron has used the same prevailing wind of cultural dominance to confuse the facts of the case enough potentially to avoid being stuck with the monstrous bill. The company points to an agreement under which Texaco shared its operations in Ecuador with the state-owned oil company, Petroecuador. It also claims that Texaco cleaned up its work sites before leaving Ecuador in 1992. But the company's legal hedges don't line up with residents' first-hand accounts, as Criollo makes clear.

In the 1970s, it may have been a good bet that indigenous accounts of what happened in the Amazon would never get out -- or, in any case, wouldn't be believed. But even overarching cultural narratives can be subject to unexpected ironies. In 1993 -- one year after Texaco left the Amazon -- Criollo went to Boston to participate in an indigenous people's cultural exchange program. While he was there, he learned Spanish. He also went to New York with 14 other participants and filed suit against Texaco.

More:
http://www.alternet.org/story/145929/exposed%3A_chevron%27s_cover-up_of_gross_environmental_abuses_in_ecuador?page=entire

[flamingdem]

1. A boycott is in order nt

[protocol rv]

2. An area three times the size of Manhattan?

In the 1970's, the Ecuadorian jungle didn't hold that many people. I doubt there were more than say 1000 indians living in an area three times the size of Manhattan. So where did these guys come from so that 1300 could die of cancer? The numbers just don't add up. Regarding the amount, one could buy all of Ecuador for that sum, I think.

[Wilms]

3. Include their offspring.

Extract your head.

[protocol rv]

8. Their offspring?

Their offspring aren't that many. You see, the situation is very complex. When the oil fields were discovered, the oil companies opened roads from the highland into the area. The roads were used by indians from the highland to move into the area. In the early days, there was quite a conflict between the highland indians, coming in waves to settle on the land - and deadly because they had weapons the jungle indians didn't have. This is truly the problem caused by oil developments - they allow an uncontrolled flow of more sophisticated natives with guns to enter the newly opened areas.

I've done quite a bit of research on this matter, and there was some pollution caused by the oil operations. This can be classified into two areas:

Area one, pits dug into the soil, into which they dumped oily residues when the individual wells were drilled. I'm familiar with these because Venezuela is full of them. They usually cover a small area, say about 20 meters by 8 meters. Because the oily residue is eaten by bacteria, after 20-30 years what one finds when digging is a tar-like substance, mixed into a black goo.

Area two, water dumped into local streams, which presumably had the oil removed but which sometimes contained about 100 parts per million of oil residue. This is the "billions of gallons" they mention. The oil in the water is also biodegradable, therefore once the contaminated water moves a few km from the dumping source, it's very hard to see the impact. The water dumped in many of these jungle operations ends in the Orinoco or Amazon rivers, and neither of them show any signs of oil pollution.

To make things even more complicated, the Ecuadorian state oil company and the state gave Chevron the legal documents which indicated the problems caused by the American company had been remedied. The state oil company took over the operations and proceeded to operate in a fashion much worse than the fashion in which Chevron operated. Which means that, if the area is now contaminated, it's impossible to say who is to blame. This makes the case the indians are making impossible to prove in court. And this means the case is a classic one of ambulance chasing lawyers seeking rent from rich companies. The left wing types who proliferate like flies when something like this arises, keep quoting the same sources over and over - ie, the indians who file the complaints and/or "experts" paid to back their case who happen to be on the lawyers' payroll. What can one say? The US needs tort reform, and badly.

My conclusion? Most of this lawsuit is hot air. Those who support the indians and try to discredit me piling insult on insult, always exhibit the same behavior, because they just don't understand the topic. You see, environmental lawsuits aren't always about Erin Brokovich suing the big bad wolf. Sometimes they're about big bad lawyers creating a case where none exists, and dishonest governments like Correa's going along for the ride.

[Wilms]

10. They should pay you. n/t

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[protocol rv]

9. As I said, all those films are not useable in a court

The films they present aren't valid because they are taken after the Ecuadorian oil company operated the oil fields for over 20 years. You see, this is the issue you sidestep every time. You keep showing the propagandistic nature of the stuff you post, a relentless drone over and over of unsupported material. In this case, you would have to procure documents showing there was a complaint filed at the time Chevron left the country, after handing over operations to the Ecuadorians.

At best, this is an example of oil industry abuses (ie, not Chevron in particular, but the industry in general). In Venezuela we're fully aware of the devil's excrement and the problems it brings. It's just that in this case you're pursuing a subject without having anything solid behind it. And the indians who are filing the suit are being played for chumps by shyster lawyers, ambulance chasers. And we know that's a specialty of the legal profession in the USA. As the famous bard said "first thing, let us kill all the lawyers". Or as the devil told god during an argument "If you don't like me, sue me, let's see if you can find a single lawyer in heaven to help you file your case".

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Wilms]

12. Drop the DSM IV, doc.

PRV repeatedly uses such language. It's been pointed out repeatedly. And yet PRV continues. Diagnosis?

[EFerrari]

6. Disgusting.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Just drop it. Your racist comments on "Indians" are not appropriate.

Take them somewhere else.

No one's buying what you're pushing.

[protocol rv]

14. I would like for you to do the math for us, then, please

Tell us what is the population growth rate for a native indian population living in the Ecuadorian jungle, and the numbers you would extrapolate from an original population of 1000 indians, living today. Then explain the cancer rate from "Texaco's pollution" so you can end up with 1300 dead. I tried some figures, and I get something like 6 to 20 potential deaths.

This subject is being hyped in a really funny way. The sad thing is, in the end you lose credibility, and when there's REAL pollution cases, nobody will pay attention.

[Peace Patriot]

5. "We don't want to live in the cities." --Emergildo Criollo, president of the Cofan people

This is a very informative interview! Thanks for posting it!

Among other things, Criollo--an Indigenous who has lived in this "rainforest Chernobyl" all his life, and has observed Chevron-Texaco's activities in this region of Ecuador since he was a child--states that Ecuador's oil company, Petroecuador--was formed 25 years after Chevron-Texaco began this horrendous pollution of the Amazon rainforest. Chevron has tried to blame Petroecuador for its own pollution, when Petroecuador did not yet exist!

I was also impressed by Criollo's ending comment: "We don't want to live in the cities." The interviewer had asked him what the Indigenous tribes want the money to be used for, if they win the lawsuit--in addition to a clean up of this oil disaster and medical help for the 30,000 affected people (who suffer very high cancer and spontaneous abortion rates and other grave health problems). He spoke of how his culture has been nearly destroyed since Chevron-Texaco's arrival in the Ecuadoran rainforest. For one thing, they destroyed the fisheries--by gross pollution of rivers and streams throughout this huge area. Criollo remembers living by fishing and hunting, and his tribe having no money because they didn't need money to live. They were self-sustaining. He says that the 30,000 tribal members (from about six different tribes) are united on the issue of "what next?" They want to RESTORE their culture.

The Indigenous and also campesinos (small peasant farmers--the best food producers) have been driven from their lands throughout Latin America--by multinational corporations like Monsanto and Chiquita, by the U.S. "war on drugs" and by powerful, rich landowners--resulting in millions of skilled fishers, hunters and farmers being driven into urban squalor, where they are unable to feed their families and communities, and thus creating a large pool of desperately poor "cheap labor" for sweatshops and corporate farms. This problem is of catastrophic proportions in neighboring Colombia, where 4 MILLION Indigenous and campesinos have been displaced--the biggest displacement crisis in the world, outside of Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of these displaced Colombians have fled over the borders from Colombia into Ecuador and Venezuela, for refuge against the U.S. -funded Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing death squads, creating a huge humanitarian crisis for these neighbor countries. But displacement is also a problem in virtually every Latin America country--having been greatly exacerbated by U.S. "neo-liberal"/corpo-fascist policies over the last several decades.

So, I am very glad to see the Indigenous tribes of Ecuador understanding what Chevron-Texaco's exploitation and pollution could result in--the complete destruction of their culture and a diaspora like the one in Colombia--and their determination and unity on not letting that happen to them. "We don't want to live in the cities." That is a very powerful statement.

According to Criollo--after clean up, forest restoration and medical help--the money will be used to buy back lands that have been taken from them, and to preserve their cultures, life styles and languages. And let us hope that the tribes not only win this lawsuit but also retain the wisdom that this terrible experience has produced and reinforced--for their own sakes, and because, as we have learned only fairly recently, we are ALL dependent on the Amazon rainforest for the stability of our planet's climate and for retention of our fragile atmosphere and biosphere. In restoring their culture, these tribes will be helping us all.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Found an article referring to the Chevron Ecuadorian Chernobyl

while looking for another Chevron link, remembered a visitor has scoffed at your use of the word "Chernobyl" (in use a LONG time in reference to this grotesque, hellish disaster) and felt I needed to post this article here, too, as an example of the widespread reference to that crime against humanity and the natural world as "Chernobyl":

SPONSORED BY: LOBBYING
A $16 Billion Problem
Chevron hires lobbyists to squeeze Ecuador in toxic-dumping case. What an Obama win could mean.

Eduardo Valenzuela / AP
Toxic: Indigenous workers in western Ecuador
By Michael Isikoff | NEWSWEEK
Published Jul 26, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Aug 4, 2008

Few legal battles have been more exotic than the lawsuit tried over the past five years in a steamy jungle courtroom in Ecuador's Amazon rain forest. Brought by a group of U.S. trial lawyers on behalf of thousands of indigenous Indian peasants, the suit accuses Chevron of responsibility for the dumping (allegedly conducted by Texaco, which Chevron bought in 2001) of billions of gallons of toxic oil wastes into the region's rivers and streams. Activists describe the disaster as an Amazon Chernobyl. The plaintiffs—some suffering from cancer and physical deformities—have showed up in court in native garb, with painted faces and half naked. Chevron vigorously contests the charges and has denounced the entire proceeding as a "shakedown."

But this spring, events for Chevron took an ominous turn when a court-appointed expert recommended Chevron be required to pay between $8 billion and $16 billion to clean up the rain forest. Although it was not the final verdict, the figures sent shock waves through Chevron's corporate boardroom in San Ramon, Calif., and forced the company for the first time to disclose the issue to its shareholders. It has also now spawned an unusually high-powered battle in Washington between an army of Chevron lobbyists and a group of savvy plaintiff lawyers, one of whom has tapped a potent old schoolmate—Barack Obama.

Chevron is pushing the Bush administration to take the extraordinary step of yanking special trade preferences for Ecuador if the country's leftist government doesn't quash the case. A spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab confirmed that her office is considering the request. Attorney Steven Donziger, who is coordinating the D.C. opposition to Chevron, says the firm is "trying to get the country to cry uncle." He adds: "It's the crudest form of power politics."

Chevron's powerhouse team includes former Senate majority leader Trent Lott, former Democratic senator John Breaux and Wayne Berman, a top fund-raiser for John McCain—all with access to Washington's top decision makers. (A senior Chevron exec has met with Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on the matter.) Chevron argues that it has been victimized by a "corrupt" Ecuadoran court system while the plaintiffs received active support from Ecuador's leftist president, Rafael Correa—an ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. The company says a loss could set a dangerous precedent for other U.S. multinationals. "The ultimate issue here is Ecuador has mistreated a U.S. company," said one Chevron lobbyist who asked not to be identified talking about the firm's arguments to U.S. officials. "We can't let little countries screw around with big companies like this—companies that have made big investments around the world."

More:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/149090