Chevron Is Learning Its Lesson

I grew up with family tales about the unique beauty of Ecuador. My father's family made their living on tourism in the Andes, the Galapagos, and the Amazon. Sadly, what was to us a mysterious and majestic example of the wonder of creation was merely a dumping ground to Texaco. They chose to discard 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the pristine rainforest, poisoning its people.

Texaco left Ecuador in 1992, not long after I finished college, and in their wake was left the worst oil related disaster on the planet. That damage is still there today. Mere weeks ago I stood in front of a toxic waste pit, decades old and yet only a few feet from the home of a family of campesinos. Told the area was cleaned and safe, they bought the land and built their home there. Families like that one have lost more than Chevron, or anyone else, can ever repay.

I found it impossible to witness such a horrific site in contrast to the beauty of the rainforest and not be changed. As much as the smell turns my stomach so does the knowledge that Texaco admitted to dumping it, yet refuses to accept responsibility.

Of course, the affected communities are demanding justice from the company that caused the damage. It's actually a very simple case. There's a massive murder weapon, 30,000 victims and a motive -- profit.

Some Texaco executive, who most likely never set foot in the Amazon, nor ever met any of the indigenous people whose territory Texaco invaded with helicopters and massive machinery, made the cold calculation that saving $3 per barrel was worth the destruction of this part of the rainforest. It still gives me chills to read the 1972 memo from Texaco describing their policy of hiding spills and destroying records.

In fact, every decision that has been made from the very first one to drill has been made to choose profit over people and the environment. Decisions that took only the shortest-term impacts into consideration, yet decisions that would wreak havoc on the world's oldest and largest forest. The toxic waste pits sit there, apparently stagnant, but all the while leaching toxins into the rivers and streams of the Amazon.

Meanwhile, Chevron's decisions to try to cover up its liability continue unchanged, knowing all the while that the resulting inaction means the continued poisoning of entire communities.

The 60 Minutes story that aired this past Sunday has ripped another layer off of Chevron's attempts to bury and ignore this story, like the truly festering wound that it is. The resulting publicity has wiped out much of Chevron's efforts to deceive the financial markets and the general public. I listened to a recent Chevron shareholder call and one of the very first analyst's questions was about the case, it was prefaced with "I know you are not going to be happy about this next question..." Have you seen the internet traffic since Sunday? Chevron is really unhappy this week.

Watching Chevron's strategy in the face of the overwhelming facts and growing awareness is as uncomfortable as watching Chevron spokesperson Sylvia Garrigo compare drinking contaminated water with wearing makeup (a tip for Ms. Garrigo: your cosmetics may very well be harming you, please visit www.safecosmetics.org to learn more). Yet Chevron's executives continue to deny and delay. Time is running out for them and the lies they hide behind (to read Chevron's top ten lies about this case look here). They are learning the hard way that hiding a potential $27 billion dollar liability is just as impossible as hiding 18 billion gallons of toxic waste.

The ease at which Chevron's CEO David O'Reilly (who also happens to be the Chair of the Board) has apparently kept his board in the dark is amazing. Yet, last year that plan came crashing down around him like Bernie Madoff's scheme when O'Reilly was force to disclose to shareholders that it faced a potential liability in the billions in Ecuador.

How does the board of directors miss the hypocrisy of Chevron's "Will You Join Us" ad campaign, asking others to join THEM in making sound environmental and energy efficient choices, while their CEO refuses to seek a real solution to this quagmire? I suppose that is to be expected from a company which bought Texaco without even demanding a master list of all its toxic dump sites in Ecuador (as we learned courtesy of 60 Minutes).

In this economic climate, Chevron's board must realize that they can on longer afford to operate with such poor governance. Their wound is bleeding even more deeply into the social consciousness and Chevron is becoming the poster child for lack of corporate accountability. Today, even the Attorney General of the State of New York is asking tough questions of Chevron.

As my own son grows up I will share with him the same stories of the sacred and timeless beauty of the Amazon. I am confident he will learn from a young age the lesson with which Chevron still grapples. One can only hide from their mistakes for so long, each day you delay facing up to them brings with it a heavier cost, so don't wait until you find that the whole world is at your doorstep demanding justice.

Comments

[dfnssr]

Chevron and Wal-Mart have a lot in common. Neither company is willing to sacrifice some percentage of their profit to do what is right. Wal-Mart gets slammed because of their corporate business practices, and rightfully so, but if Chevron did in Illinois what they are doing in Ecuador, they would be getting slammed too. Thank you for doing such great work to expose such an awful company!

[AnnaKay1979]

I really hope justice will be served and Chevron will have to pay for what it did to those poor people. Drinking water is contaminated, people are dying of cancer and skin diseases, their lives are destroyed. Denying, downplaying and manipulating- that’s all Chevron can do. Instead of wasting money fighting in courts, they should take responsibility and clean up that mess.
Here’s an interesting blog about the contamination: http://www.thechevronpit.blogspot.com

[JnrNorman]

Chevron owns the patents to make NIMH batteries for hybrids and electric cars half the weight they are now! Chevron isnt nice ever.


This is the technology being fast tracked by the Obama administration! !!!!

This is a planet threatening situation not some small oversight!

Go to the website to read the whole article--more info and and action plans.

http://www.raw- wisdom.com/ genetically- modified- food
50 HARMFUL EFFECTS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM) FOODS

[TxAggie]

What about PetroEquador?? Where are they in the culpability? They have been operating and producing the the damn wells since 1992. Is this just about sticking it to the big gringo oil company?

[Paulpaz]

TxAggie, the case is about Texaco dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste from 1964 to 1990 (if anyone was "stuck" it's the people who live in what Texaco turned into a toxic disaster zone). During that time, Texaco was the sole operator. That is why the case is against Chevron (formerly Texaco). Petroecuador did not take over operations until after Texaco left. There is no doubt that Petroecuador is responsible for further damage. However, that does not negate the massive damage that Texaco did and in no way affects the validity of this case. This case is about obtaining a clean-up of the waste left there by Texaco. I am sure there will be future actions against Petroecuador, but again, that should in no way let Texaco off the hook for their massive intentional dumping. This case is also about 30,000 people fighting to have clean water and a healthy environment.

[TxAggie]

Texaco was the Operator and PetroEquador was the majority owner and culpable for their 60% interest at the time. Texaco did remediation work and left under agreement with PetroEquador (the government). It involves the "dumping of 18 BILLION gallons: who made that number up? Was Texaco the only oil company operating in that region during that period? Did Chevron have operations there ?
This is about sticking it to the big oil company not about law or fairness.

[TxAggie]

Paul- You can have only one operator, the point is Petrocquador was a 60% non-operator and 60% responsible for anything that occurred from. I have no doubt that pollution did occur, damage was done and needs to be remediated, but the Ecuadorian government was involved from day one and they are MORE culpable than Chevron from both an ownership standpoint and from the fact that they had regulatory oversight. I suspect things have been enflamed by the lawyers that stand to gain billions of dollars from sticking it to the big oil company. The Ecuadorian government should bear shared responsibility now, not down the road and any culpabiliy on the part of Cehvron should be discounted proportionately. The big bad guy in the deal is PetroEcuador. What will happen to the $27 B if it is in fact awarded, will it go for remediation, I doubt it.

[Jonathan Dick]

I'm astounded that Chevron continues to deny the health impacts of this disaster despite the scientific evidence to the contrary. (See http://chevrontoxico.com/tags.html?tags=health+studies for a sampling.) I suppose we've all grown to expect oil companies to downplay and even to deny their environmental impact on the ecology of an affected area. Maybe they count on that kind of cynicism from the public, but it is quite another thing when there are human beings whose health and lives are compromised by this negligence.

Unlike plants and animals, these affected individuals can clearly describe their symptoms (or those of their deceased family members) and their proximity to these waste pits. When the drinking water is described as "oily" and as having a "yellow foam" and the evidence itself is still visible today, it isn't only scientists who can connect cause to effect.

One wonders if Chevron executives would be willing to drink well water from the affected area.

[Robin Kirk]

Great comment! It's high time for consumers and government to find ways to hold corporations responsible for their actions. Andrew Cuomo is doing a good job as NY's AG, but why is he the only one? Cuomo also went after the companies that sponsor the hideous plastination freak shows, forcing them to admit they had not sought the permission of the deceased to display their remains -- not to mention the well-founded allegations that some bodies may be those of executed prisoners or the homeless sold by unscrupulous morgues.

[dherriges]

Thanks Paul for posting about such an important story! A verdict in this long-running trial will send a ripple effect around the whole world, letting corporate polluters know they can't just dump their waste, take the money and run.

Chevron tries to spin this case by hiding the simple facts in a maze of legal technicalities and junk science. The reality is this is an incredibly simple issue:

Texaco built a system it knew would cause horrific pollution. Texaco did so entirely on purpose, to save a buck. Come the 1990s, Texaco leaves the country, does a pathetic joke of a clean-up that doesn't even address the vast majority of contaminated sites at all, and tries to wash its hands of the whole thing. Sorry, folks, it doesn't work that way in the 21st century.