Amazon pollution case could cost Chevron billions

RING EM UP!

I pray that they are made to pay for this crime. They are killing Mother Earth

WOW, After watching those videos, I know what IS really happening! That company seems worse than any other.

"Who are the real outlaws?" in these cases, he asks.

At stake are the basic rights of indigenous people of the Amazon. These communities have said "No" to oil development on their lands. Will their wishes be respected? Or will excuses be found for militarizing these communities in order to pave the way for oil companies to operate? human rights advocates wonder.

Oil impacted communities have seen such militarization many times before. ChevronTexaco, which controls 50% of Ecuador's block 23, has been accused before of complicity with military repression in the countries in which it operates. The oil giant is a defendant in a US lawsuit for its alleged role in requesting and facilitating intervention by the Nigerian military, which led to the deaths of two activists peacefully protesting against Chevron.

Meanwhile, Texaco's operations have led to massive contamination of the northern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Texaco is also a defendant in a class action lawsuit for that contamination and resulting impacts on the health and livelihood of some 30,000 Ecuadorian Indians and campesinos. Amazon Watch estimates that some 350 open toxic pools still remain in the backyards of many indigenous and forest communities. These pools are festering with cancer-causing chemicals including benzene, toluene, arsenic lead, mercury and cadmium, they say.

"This was an environmental crime of epic proportions that has created a black plague of cancer through the Amazon where ChevronTexaco drilled," said Luis Yanza, a community organizer for the Frente de Defensa de Amazonia, during a San Francisco Bay Area tour last December.

The situation in Blocks 23 and 24 can go in a number of directions. The companies might leave their concessions. The indigenous communities might welcome such a retreat, even they are unfairly blamed for the pull out. But this outcome would not suit the government, since it would mean the loss of revenues guaranteed by the concession contract. There is therefore a strong possibility that the force majeure ruling is a prelude to an effort divide and conquer the opposition to oil exploitation.

If police or military presence is increased in blocks 23 and 24, the question will be: are they there to protect the oil companies, or the Amazonian people? Will the rights of the communities -- including the right to say no to oil development -- be respected? Or will the need for oil to pay interest on a crushing external overshadow human rights?

For all the ambiguities and dangers in the current situation, the Ecuadorian government has shown innovation in using the force majeure provision to describe indigenous opposition to violations of their rights. Belatedly, they have officially recognized the movement in defense of indigenous rights as a "major force." They have recognized that the will of indigenous communities is "beyond the control" of the government and the oil companies.

What is not clear is whether this major force will be respected or attacked.

These statements have human rights advocates in Ecuador concerned that the force majeure ruling is the beginning of campaign by the companies and their allies in government to force the indigenous communities to accept oil development in their territories against their will.

In a letter to Hoy, Jose Serrano, a lawyer with the Quito-based Center for Economic and Social Rights, points out that it is, in fact, the companies that have not complied with Ecuadorian law.

On November 15, 2002 the Civil Commission Against Corruption determined that Burlington had not filled the requirements of its concession contract. In addition, Burlington has violated an injunction against communicating with individual members of the Shuar federation, a practice that Shuar leaders say is meant to divide their people by offering special deals to some and not others. Serrano points out that CGC has also violated the terms of a federal injunction relating to its operations in block 23.

From the article:

Force majeure -- literally "major force" but translated also as "cause beyond control" -- usually describes unforeseen natural catastrophes such as earthquakes or major upheavals such as wars, which can void the obligations of a legal contract.

But the Ecuadorian government now uses force majeure to describe legitimate community opposition to oil concessions on indigenous territory in the Amazon rainforest.

On March 4, 2003, the Ecuadorian newspaper Hoy reported that the Ministry of Environment has agreed to allow two transnational companies to cancel their oil concession contracts under the provision of force majeure. The force majeure they are referring to is the determined opposition of Kichwa, Shuar and Achuar people who live in the concession areas to ongoing activities by the companies, Burlington Resources of Texas and Compania General de Combustibles (CGC) of Argentina. The CGC concession is owned partly by ChevronTexaco, according to Platt's Oilgram News. (Oil giants Chevron and Texaco merged in 2000.)

This turn of events, in what has been furious struggle between indigenous communities and transnational oil companies, leaves the communities and their supporters wondering if they have won a major victory or are danger of in increasing repression.

On the surface, it would seem to be an inspiring victory for the indigenous people whose ancestral territories in the Amazon rainforest have become known as Block 23 (The CGC block) and Block 24 (the Burlington concession). Taken at face value, the decision frees the companies of any obligation to the Ecuadorian government to carry out oil activities in the areas. It means the determination of the communities -- who have officially decided to oppose oil development in their territories -- will be respected.

"We will say NO forever, we don't want to think about the possibility of oil in the future. We definitely want another kind of future," Achuar leader Santiago Kawarim was quoted as saying by the group Amazon Watch.

But there are reasons to be skeptical. Rene Ortiz, the president of the Association of Oil Companies in Ecuador, which includes both CGC and Burlington, has accused indigenous leaders of being "outlaws," according to Hoy. He says the problems in the two blocks are due to the absence of authorities in the remote rainforest. For his part, the Minister of Environment has responded by calling for police presence in the area.

I don't drive and I don't fly. And I do take mass transit and walk everywhere. I walk the talk.

Yeah, well I guess the 99.9% of you 'great thinkers' could burn your cars and ride a bike..take a clean-air bus, or 'god-forbid'...walk....give me; and the growing towards 7 billion a break!

When "environmentally friendly" oil drilling goes horribly wrong. The so-called millions of dollars spent by Chevron on reparations is an insult when minimal regulations yield profits in the billions. How obvious does it have to be that oil companies only care about one thing – oil? Even if they pretended to care about the long-term impacts, their ecological & cultural disasters would not be of this magnitude.

Now I know why their TV ads show them going green. They’re informing us that the destruction of the rain forest & its inhabitants is necessary in order to keep our insatiable appetite for oil fed. And I actually thought for a minute that they just might be supporting alternative energy choices.

Remember, we're still waiting for the rest of the oil from the Exxon Valdez to be cleaned up – even after 20 years of litigation & the continued reduction of their monetary fine during years of an expensive appeals process. They could have used this time & money constructively to finish the clean up, but instead chose to try & clean up their repugnant reputation & failing miserably.

I applaud the efforts of President Correa to bring his country out from under the tyranny of the capitalist money changers.

i hope this case goes through soon! i shed tears knowing was happens to this planet every day in what is supposed to be the most beautifull locations on our planet!

"But Rafael Correa was elected president in 2006, and everything changed. Chevron says it can't get a fair trial as long as he is running Ecuador."

Oh...boo-hoo.
When did Chevron/Texaco ever worry about the people being fairly represented?

We should demand they clean up that mess.What would the people who do not value money do with money.We should pay them to take care of the rain forrest.
As usual we can only hear of BS on the back side to the news.
I will do what I can in my small way but with full knowledge that when we all do what we can in our own small way it becomes powerful.
Peace Joy Prosperity and Good Health to our world as soon as possible!

I was hoping it'd be trillions, but billions are fine enough I guess. Nonetheless, no amount of money can make the situation down there better. What happened years ago has scarred that area for good.

They should indeed be liable!

Thanks Jan. Article posted is actually dated January 12, 2009 (fyi).

So little (almost no) coverage in the mainstream.
Here's a tidbit more...
Jan 15th, 2009
http://www.chevrontoxico.com/article.php?id=495

Oops, was writing this as you posted same above ;^)

I wouldnt be surprised if this brave judge got assasinated or had "an accident". We can only pray that ths evil corporation will be forced to pay (literally) for its crimes. The pocketbook is the only place you can hurt these people.

'Crude" debuts at Sundance.

Just how far would a multinational corporation in league with government go to bring about the right verdict in a case like this?

Ecuadorean governments reaped the wealth of Texaco's jungle project, with gross domestic product more than tripling from 1972 to 1977. By the time Texaco departed, the consortium it headed had extracted nearly 1.5 billion barrels of oil from more than 350 wells.

In the meantime, Ecuadorean oilfield workers slathered the crude on their legs, believing it cured rheumatism. Some coated their scalps because American supervisors told them the crude warded off baldness, they said.

"They were pulling our legs,'' recalls Margarita Yepez, a former Texaco social worker who believes such careless exposure to crude killed some of her colleagues. "What did we know? They were the experts.''

The plaintiffs say Texaco saved $8-$10 a barrel by dumping some 18 billion gallons of the wastewater from drilling and extraction into waste pits instead of re-injecting it back deep into the ground. The more than 1,000 waste pits were not lined, so the toxins seeped into the groundwater, they say.

"They themselves said it was the cheapest production in Latin America,'' lead plaintiffs' attorney, Pablo Fajardo, says of Texaco.

The plaintiffs also allege the company poisoned the air by burning off natural gas and set fire to solid wastes during the 1990s remediation. They say they found a July 1972 Texaco memo that orders the company's acting manager in Ecuador to report only major spills and destroy "all previous reports'' on spills.

One of the memo's two authors is Robert M. Bischoff, then Texaco's chief for Latin America. He retired in 1984.

"I don't remember that,'' Bischoff, 89, told the AP by phone from Florida. "In all my years with Texaco, and I was with them 40 years, I was never asked to do anything that I'd be ashamed of.''

If the plaintiffs win, Fajardo says, residents will finally get a potable water distribution system and basic health care. But should Chevron have to underwrite the creation of services that no government bothered to offer?

"It's a bit of opportunism and a bit of populism rolled into one,'' says Robertson.

Ironically, it was Texaco that first pushed to get the case heard in Ecuador. It argued that a federal court in New York — where Texaco was based — was not the appropriate venue, and that Ecuador's judicial system was reliable and independent. The New York judge threw the case out and in 2003 it was refiled in Lago Agrio.

But Rafael Correa was elected president in 2006, and everything changed. Chevron says it can't get a fair trial as long as he is running Ecuador.

From the article:

LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador — When the sun beats particularly hot on this land in the middle of the jungle, the roads sweat petroleum.

A Rhode Island-sized expanse of what was once pristine Amazon rainforest is crisscrossed with oil wells and pipeline grids built by Texaco Inc. a generation ago. And for the past 15 years, a class-action lawsuit has been winding its way through the courts on behalf of the more than 125,000 people who drink, bathe, fish and wash their clothes in tainted headwaters of the Amazon River.

Now a single judge is expected to rule in the case in 2009 from a ramshackle courtroom in this northern frontier town. Statements from a court-appointed expert suggest Chevron Corp. — which bought Texaco in 2001 — will be held responsible for the many oil spills and dumping of toxic wastewater. If Chevron loses, it could be ordered to pay up to $27.3 billion in damages, though an appeal would be likely.

The expert, geological engineer Richard Cabrera, largely accepts plaintiffs' claims that Texaco left a mess when it left in the early 1990s. He is recommending damages based partly on his calculation of 1,401 pollution-caused cancer deaths.

Chevron does not deny "the presence of pollution and we don't deny that there were impacts,'' says spokesman Kent Robertson. But Chevron contends a 1998 agreement that Texaco signed with Ecuador, after spending $40 million on remediation, absolves it of any legal responsibility. It says, and few dispute, that its former partner, state oil company Petroecuador, kept polluting after Texaco departed.

But two wrongs don't make a right, argues law professor Judith Kimerling, a former New York state prosecutor whose 1991 book "Amazon Crude'' first publicized what some environmentalists have called a rainforest Chernobyl.

"I really think the remediation they did was a sham,'' she says.

When Donald Moncayo was a kid, he remembers, Texaco soaked the dirt thoroughfares it cut through the jungle with crude to keep dust down.

"We would run on roads they coated with oil,'' he says. "We went to sleep with our feet black. You could only remove it with gasoline.''

Pipelines across the area connected the wells to the 313-mile Trans-Ecuadorean Pipeline built by Texaco to carry crude to the Pacific. Moncayo, 35, can't remember when the pipelines weren't springing leaks.

His mother died in 1987 from an internal infection he blames on oil contamination. Now he works for the plaintiffs, taking visitors on "toxic tours.''

One of the first stops is a fresh spill. It's little more than 50 gallons, dark and gooey. Bigger spills have smothered crops, choked birds, killed cattle.

In the early days of the oil bonanza, Ecuador's government encouraged people to settle in the oil patch by offering free homesteads. But it provided almost no services — hardly any of the area's drinking water is treated.

cont.