WATERWAYS NEWS COVER FEATURE EARTH DAY GAYLORD NELSON

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COVER FEATURE - 02 MAY 2009 - www.WaterwaysNews.com

Ecudor Pollution

Case Nears End

A judge is preparing to decide the outcome of a multi billion-dollar lawsuit filed by residents of Ecuador's Amazonian rain forest against Texaco for fouling their land. The lawsuit was filed in 1993. The plaintiffs charge that, throughout the 1970s and '80s, hundreds died of cancer as a result of the American oil company badly polluting a huge chunk of northern Ecuador. The defendant, Chevron Corp. which bought Texaco in 2001 denies the accusations. Continued

A court appointed expert agrees with many of the plaintiffs' charges and has assessed damages at $27 billionUSD. He says mud and other toxins produced by drilling and production were dumped in hundreds of unlined pits and leeched into the ground. A court appointed geologist, Richard Cabrera, and his 14-member scientific team found barium, lead and other heavy metals in those pits.
Chevron disputes Cabrera's findings. The company wants his report thrown out, saying he is biased toward the plaintiffs. All this happened in what was once virgin Amazonian jungle, the world's greatest biosphere and an area that still contains huge oil reserves. The plaintiffs say Texaco, in 18 years of full-scale production, also dumped waste water into rivers and that pipeline breaks spilled 17 million gallons of oil. Locally, the case has been called the trial of the century, and some of the hearings have been held in the jungle. Chevron does not dispute that pollution exists. But Chevron lawyer Diego Larrea says it's Petroecuador — the state oil company, which still drills oil in the area that is responsible for the pollution. Larrea says Texaco adhered to Ecuadorian law. Continued

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Equadorians effected by the pollution

Profit & arrogance before concern?

He also says Ecuador's government released the company of legal responsibility after a three year cleanup a decade ago. The plaintiffs say that Texaco's cleanup was a fraud. The current government of Ecuador agrees. The law suit was filed against Texaco in 1993 in a New York court, but Chevron got the case moved to Ecuador, saying Ecuadorian courts were impartial and professional. In 2003, the trial moved to a ramshackle court in Lago Agrio, a nondescript, dusty town near the lawless Colombian frontier. Judge Juan Nunez, said his conscience feels the pressure and he has to carefully consider the arguments both sides have offered, some 145,000 pages of evidence. Texaco came to Ecuador in 1964. It left 30 years later after extracting 1.5 billion barrels. Texaco built Ecuador's oil industry from scratch. The presence was very visible, open pipelines just planted alongside major roads. Pumping stations built into clearings, in what was pristine jungle. Now everywhere, there are pools of sludge. The Equador government admits Petroecuador also dumped wastewater nto waterways. . . .continued

However, it says this does not mean Texaco is not the main polluter. The government says Texaco built the system and ran it for longer. The pollution left behind is close to where people live and where children go to school. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa sympathises with the plaintiffs. He says Texaco left behind a mess. His government is also prosecuting two Chevron attorneys and seven former government officials who signed off on the cleanup in 1998. Correa says that pools operated by Texaco remain open, with little having been cleaned up. Chevron says Correa's comments show the company can't get a fair hearing in Equador even though it was Chevron who originally petitioned to have the case transferred from the U.S. to Ecuador. A Chevron spokesman said, "Unfortunately, the case has deteriorated into a judicial farce, with the media circus put on by the plaintiffs on a regular basis, with the political pressure brought to bear on the court, with the government and political interference in this case," he says. Chevron is already planning a possible appeal should it lose the case. Mwanwhile back in the jungle, the real owners of this paradise turned hell want to know who will clean up the mess or compensate them for their wrecked and sidelined lives. back to start . . .continued

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New Attention on ChevronTexaco Case Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa put a spotlight on the legal case brought by the Amazon Defense Front and 30,000 people against ChevronTexaco, leading a group of journalists to the area near Lago Agrio late in April, where the company spilled more than 18 billion gallons of oil and toxic waste water over nearly three decades. According to an Associated Press story, President Correa publicly pledged government support for the case, which began nearly 10 years ago in the United States and was thrown out on appeal in 2003. Since then the court in Ecuador has been conducting judicial inspections of polluted areas, gathering evidence a judge will use to make a decision, possibly in the next year. During the same week, indigenous leaders representing the people affected by the pollution in the Orellana and Succumbios region of Ecuador attended the annual meeting for shareholders of ChevronTexaco in California. Humberto Piaguaje, a leader of the Secoya indigenous people, called for the company to resolve the case and help clean up the environment. “We want you to give us back our lives,” Piaguaje said. “We want you to let us live in peace and harmony with nature. We want you to repair the damage so that our children do not have to continue suffering. ”Oxfam America has supported the Amazon Defense Front’s legal case for nine years, and assisted in the creation of the Assembly of Delegates of Communities Affected by Texaco, a community-based back to start

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organization that has ensured those most directly affected by the pollution have a voice in the legal strategy.
“We think it is positive that President Correa has declared his support of those affected by pollution in the Lago Agrio region,” said Javier Aroca, who coordinates programs related to indigenous rights for Oxfam America in South America. “We consider this is a signal that the government is interested in investigating and sanctioning those who are responsible.”
“It is important to remember that the people affected are demanding compensation for almost 10 years now,” Aroca said. “The pollution has affected the health of indigenous peoples and peasants…there have been cases of skin diseases and cancer. Furthermore, the lands are not as productive as they used to be, which has affected the agricultural economy. Form our point of view, the government of Ecuador should support the affected population to complete the legal procedures, which are very expensive.”
A win for the Amazon Defense Front in this precedent-setting case could change the landscape of the oil industry, and further establish the rights of communities to be compensated for negative social and environmental effects of oil operations.

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