Last weekend, I visited the site of a legal showdown over oil pollution. Three hundred feet downhill from an oil well once owned by Texaco (which is now owned by Chevron), on the banks of an Amazonian swamp, two lawyers once faced off.
Chevron’s lawyer spoke first. It may not be common for oil company representatives to emphasize the beauty of nature. But in this case, doing just that meant protecting profit. So the lawyer went on about the birds flying overhead, the healthy green plants growing out of the swamp, and the water, which was so clear and clean that it might have been made of glass. He claimed that the very life of this forest is evidence that the case for contamination is fraudulent.
Pablo Fajardo, 37, the lawyer for the Amazon Defense Front, responded without words. He bent down and picked up a large stick. Leaning over the swamp, he proceeded to stir the muddy sediment. Immediately, the silvery shine of oil appeared on the surface of the water, and as Fajardo continued to stir, the oil spread further. He took the stick out and showed it to the other lawyer. It was coated in thick black goo that could only be petroleum.
This exchange occurred in 2008, near the appropriately named Ecuadorian oil town of Lago Agrio (Sour Lake). This February, 18 years into the legal battle that began when Ecuadorian indigenous leaders flew to New York in 1993 to sue Texaco, Lago Agrio’s court ordered Chevron to pay $9.5 billion for the damage they have caused.
Despite this victory, the fight is still far from over. Chevron has the comfort of no longer having assets in Ecuador and will continue to use its political and economic muscle to follow through on what it has promised from the beginning: “we’re not paying and we’re going to fight this for years.”
The situation is too complex for me to address fully. But having seen and smelled the oil firsthand, having heard horror stories from individuals who live in the region, and having studied both sides’ argument carefully, I feel not only comfortable, but compelled, to call attention to Chevron’s continued abuses.
The Damages
To put the damages in perspective, think of the BP Gulf spill. It released just over 200 million gallons of oil and could be considered an accident. BP contributed $20 billion to the clean up effort. In contrast, between 1964 and 1992, Texaco dumped an estimated 16 billion gallons of hazardous waste into rivers, streams, and unlined pits. Texaco’s actions in the Amazon were deliberate, yet the company refused to pay a cent.
Chevron’s lawyer was correct in pointing out that some trees can grow well in oil-polluted water. But he would have a much harder time proving that the oil in the water played no role in the elevated rates of cancer and other illnesses found among villagers of the Lago Agrio Region, who have bathed, fished, and drank from local rivers and lakes. Various studies, including those by The Department of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene of the University of London and the Center for Economic and Social Rights, conclude that well over 1,000 people in the region have died from oil-related illness, and thousands more have become ill.
Chevron’s Response
Texaco knowingly polluted, and that fact has unavoidable moral implications. But morality and legality are not the same thing.
Chevron has made three principal claims of legal innocence: that the environmental laws at the time were weak and therefore Texaco did not explicitly break the law, that the supposed $40 million Texaco paid in 1998 effectively cleaned up the damages, and that Petroecuador—the state oil company with whom they shared a joint-partnership—holds all responsibility for any current pollution.
All of these claims can be addressed concretely.
Regarding environmental laws, the 1921 Law of Sediments grants oil companies the right to use water “without depriving the waters of their potability and purity,” and the 1971 Hydrocarbons law states that oil companies are required to “avoid contamination of waters, air, and lands.” The 1998 cleanup consisted of covering a few of the oil-filled unlined pits with dirt, getting government approval for the effort by an official who had previously been contracted by Texaco, and wiping their hands clean. Finally, Texaco was responsible for sharing and “employing modern technology,” according to the joint agreement with Petroecuador, while Petroecuador primarily supplied the manpower. In terms of environmental responsibility, the technology Texaco used and promoted in Ecuador was leagues below industry standards.
Chevron probably knows that it cannot win this case based on the merits of its arguments. So it has turned to its only asset: money and political influence.
In 2010 alone, it is estimated that Chevron spent 300 million dollars on lawyers. Chevron currently hires six public relations firms to spin the story in its favor.
The company has no shame in making contradictory arguments. In fact, doing so when it is convenient has helped them stall the case. During the first seven years of the trial, Chevron argued that the case should be heard in Ecuador instead of New York, believing it had the political muscle to manipulate the Ecuadorian courts.
To advance this strategy, Chevron submitted 150,000 pages that evidenced the impartiality of the Ecuadorian Court system. They won, and the case moved to Ecuador. When it turned out that the Ecuadorian Courts were less malleable than Chevron had hoped, Chevron reversed itself and accused the entire Ecuadorian court system of corruption, despite being given ample time to present evidence and having won a number of recent unrelated cases in Ecuador.
In February 2009 a private investigation firm hired by Chevron offered a $20,000 bribe to Mary Cuddehe, a young journalist for The Atlantic, to spy on the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
In June 2009, Chevron announced that two good Samaritans with no connection to Chevron had secretly recorded the case’s judge admitting to bribery. Examining the transcript, there is absolutely no evidence of bribery on the part of the judge. However, evidence did come out that Diego Borja, one of the men who recorded the conversations, had close previous ties to Chevron, and met with Chevron’s lawyers in San Francisco before the recording of several tapes. He was recorded bragging to a friend that “crime does pay.” He also discussed the leverage he has over Chevron, claiming that he had “conclusive evidence” of “things that can make the Amazonians win this just like that.” (Borja is currently being sued for withholding evidence).
WikiLeaks documents released this year reveal that Chevron attempted to bribe Ecuadorian government officials to illegally intervene and kill the case and pressured U.S. Embassy officials to put their weight behind these efforts. Ironically, while they were doing this privately, a public relations campaign attempted to smear the plaintiffs for supposedly taking advantage of a corrupt court system.
Chevron’s arrogance and disrespect towards the communities they have forever injured clearly did not stop when Texaco left Ecuador in 1992. It continues to this day.
Reflection: Our Responsibility
I am proud to attend a university that teaches me to respect the environment and human rights. After meeting a man from Lago Agrio who lost his mother to cancer and two of his younger siblings to pollution-related diseases, I cannot help but wonder whether I can do anything to make Chevron clean up the oil that they spilled.
Sure, I could go protest out in front of Chevron’s office. I could give some small sum of money to organizations that are fighting back.
But, as college students, we have an even more powerful way to make sure that companies are not rewarded for their irresponsible actions.
The University has an endowment of over 500 million dollars, which is invested in companies all over the world. Most of the companies we invest in are not engaged in this kind of behavior. But some may be.
As of now, students have no effective way of making sure our endowment is invested in companies that are doing good. We cannot act because both the student representatives on the Committee for Investor Responsibility and the student body as a whole simply do not have access to information about the University’s investments. That information is confidential.
A few weeks ago, the WSA unanimously passed a resolution demanding that the investment office to act transparently. This is an important first step. But we need to make sure the administration responds to the WSA’s calls for transparency. That is how we can truly fight injustices like Chevron’s arrogance and abuse in the Amazon and promote businesses that consider the human impact of their actions along with their bottom line.