Texaco in Ecuador
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CASE OF THE CENTURY
While the odds may seem long in this David-and-Goliath case of small indigenous and peasant communities taking on an oil giant, the plaintiffs have stood firm for a decade.
The lawsuit filed against the oil giant ChevronTexaco, accusing the company of massive environmental damage in the northeastern Ecuadorian jungle, is now in a decisive phase. After nearly a decade in US courts, the case was returned to Ecuador and hearings opened in the northern jungle town of Lago Agrio in October 2003. After hearing testimony and examining written evidence, Judge Efrain Novillo assembled a team of experts to accompany him on a tour of 50 of the waste pits left behind by the company when it pulled out of the area in the early 1990s.
"We've requested that he visit 30 of the hundreds of waste pits and talk to the people who live near these pits," says US lawyer Steve Donziger, a member of the legal team that represents some 30,000 people who have been affected by pollutants that have leached into groundwater and soil.
From 1971 to 1992, a consortium involving Texaco and the state-owned oil company, PetroEcuador, pumped 1.5 billion barrels of oil from that region of the Amazon. The plaintiffs say that the company improperly disposed of 18.5 billion gallons of wastewater.
Lawyers for the company asked the judge to throw the case out, arguing that ChevronTexaco—the two oil giants have merged since Texaco left the Ecuador—is not responsible for the actions of its now-defunct subsidiary. Furthermore, they say Texaco spent some US$40 million in cleanup efforts, satisfying the Ecuadorian government.
But Donziger says experts have indicated that a real cleanup would cost more than $6 billion. The lawsuit does not seek specific damages, but asks for a complete cleanup and remediation of the environmental damage.
While the odds may seem long in this David-and-Goliath case of small indigenous and peasant communities taking on an oil giant, the plaintiffs have stood firm for a decade. One of the forces behind this persistence is Oxfam America's partner, the Amazon Defense Front, an umbrella group of community and grassroots organizations and municipalities in the northeastern Ecuador region.
Another is the unity of the Assembly of Delegates of Communities Affected by Texaco, which has developed an unusual, consensus-based approach to making decisions about the plaintiffs' actions that could serve as a model to other groups involved in environmental problems. Oxfam America has supported the Assembly's work from the beginning and is carefully monitoring the progress of the case.
While Donziger and other attorneys are cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the case, they warn that appeals could take years. If the plaintiffs do not receive satisfaction in the Ecuadorian courts, they could sue Texaco again in the United States.
Even though the damage occurred more than a decade ago, the effects are still serious. "The cleanup that the company did was a disaster, because they only covered up the waste pits with soil," says the Rev. José Miguel Goldáraz, a Catholic priest who works in the area. "Now the damage is even greater, because the pollutants are filtering into the water. It may be less visible, but it's more serious."
