Texaco management ordered the destruction of reports documenting oil spills in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. The company, now owned by Chevron, faces $ 16.3 bn potential liability in a civil lawsuit.
Two persons who are now Chevron employees and were previously lawyers for Texaco have recently been indicted for fraud in environmental clean-up.
Now a newly discovered internal memo, from 1972, sent to the company's operations manager in Ecuador, threatens to be a major threat to the company. The memo orders that all previous reports related to oil spills should be removed from offices and destroyed. Only major events that have attracted the attention of the press or regulatory authorities should be reported.
Texaco has already admitted to dumping more than 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waste into Amazone waterways and abandoning over 900 waste pits. Cancer and other health problems are far more predominant in surrounding regions than in other parts of Ecuador.
The $16.3 bn damages claim has been arrived at by an independent court appointed expert, to pay for clean up of pits, improvement of infrastructure, a system to deliver clean water, compensations for cancer deaths, and disgorgement of part of the company's profits.
For real information and insights into the story described here, visit: http://www.texaco.com/sitelets/ecuador/en/default.aspx
AMAZON DEFENSE COALITION CRUDE DECEPTION - TEXACO ECUADOR MEMO
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=16907
A memorandum from Texaco makes it appear the oil company didn’t want to report oil spills in Ecuador during the company’s partnership with the state-owned oil company PetroEcuador in 1972, according to a news release issued yesterday from Amazon Defense Coalition, which is pursuing a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against the oil company.
However, the Amazon Defense Coalition failed to provide the full account of the memo in an effort to deceive the public and impact public opinion against Chevron, which purchased Texaco in 2000. The Amazon Defense Coalition failed to disclose that the internal memo did not effect Texaco’s reporting of oil spills in Ecuador, which were regulated by its partnership with the Ecuadorian government and had to be reported to them.
Attorney Steven Donziger said he was looking
for a ’sweet spot” in terms of compensation from Chevron, even though PetroEcuador is the real polluter of the Amazon River.
The Wall Street Journal noted that “An alternative explanation(for why Donziger is going after the oil company), as bank robber Willie Sutton might have said,
is because Chevron is where the money is.”
The 1972 Texaco memo does not state oil spills should be hidden from Ecuadorian authorities. The Amazon Defense Coalition also did not disclose additional memos and information in their possession which detailed spill reporting procedures followed by Texaco.
The news release from the Amazon Defense Coalition is part of a coordinated political and legal campaign with the Amazon Watch group against Bay Area-based Chevron Corporation. The long-running legal battle is funded by the law firm of Kohn Swift and Graf which is providing money to attorney Steven Donziger, who in turn supports the publicity efforts of Amazon Watch/Defense Coalition against Chevron for allegedly damaging the Ecuadorian Amazon river in the Oriente region.
A number of experts believe damage to the Ecuadorian Amazon were caused solely by PetroEcuador. The Latin Business Chronicle reported earlier this year that “It is not Chevron which should be sued for environmental damages in Ecuador, but the country’s own state oil company.”
The Wall Street Journal has noted that Donziger (and supporters Amazon Watch and Amazon Defense Coalition) were only looking for a “fat settlement” of money rather than seeking to clean up the ecological mess that was created by PetroEcuador. Why is the law firm of Kohn Swift and Graf, attorney Steven Donziger and these environmental groups protecting PetroEcuador instead of demanding that it clean up the millions of gallons of oil that the Ecuadorian State-owned oil monopoly has dumped into the Amazon River basin?