Religious Leaders Blast Oil Cleanup in Ecuador | Amazon Watch
Amazon Watch

Religious Leaders Blast Oil Cleanup in Ecuador

December 12, 2003 | Liz Tascio | Contra Costa Times

Pleasant Hill – Three community leaders have returned from a visit to Ecuador, and Wednesday night they showed pictures from their trip of oil-slicked rivers and sludge-filled pits.

ChevronTexaco paid $40 million to clean up the spilled and dumped waste it left behind when it pulled out of the Amazon in 1992, but the people who live there say the land and water is still polluted, and they are getting sick.

“There are so many problems in the world that are so complex and are not solvable. This is not one of them,” said Rabbi Dan Goldblatt of the Beth Chaim Congregation in Danville.

He traveled to Ecuador last month with the Rev. Steve Harms and Margareta Johansson of Peace Lutheran Church in Danville, invited by Ecuadorians who had tried to meet with ChevronTexaco Chief Executive Dave O’Reilly in May.

About 35 people attended the presentation at Hillcrest Congregational Church on Gregory Lane.

The three religious leaders say they want to spread the word that the mess is still there in the Amazon, and that ChevronTexaco should clean it up. They plan to ask Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, to go to Ecuador and report back to Congress. And they will meet next week with ChevronTexaco representatives.

The oil company is fighting a multibillion dollar lawsuit, filed in Ecuador on behalf of residents, alleging that the company polluted land and water, sickened residents and contributed to the demise of indigenous tribes.

Goldblatt, Harms and Johansson spent about 10 days in northern Ecuador, first visiting its capital, Quito, and touring the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. Then they moved on to San Carlos, in the heart of the area polluted by oil and waste, and visited nearby tribal communities. In some places, they found that the only water for drinking, bathing and cooking was covered with petroleum.

The three took pictures of open pits they say were half the size of a football field, filled with the waste products of oil production that Texaco dumped there.

Residents told the three visitors they were getting sick from the stuff leaching from the pits and the oil spilling from cracks in the aging pipes. The pipes run above ground along the roads in the area and sometimes cross over rivers. People reported respiratory problems, skin diseases and cancer.

Texaco operated in the Ecuadorean Amazon from 1972 to 1992 as the minority partner of Petroecuador. Texaco is now part of ChevronTexaco, based in San Ramon.

When Texaco withdrew 11 years ago, Petroecuador, its majority partner in Ecuador and the national oil company, took over oil production.

The company says it finished its cleanup in Ecuador in 1998.

“And it was inspected and approved by the government,” said Jeff Moore, spokesman for ChevronTexaco, in a phone interview Wednesday. “And the government released Texaco Petroleum from all responsibilities.”

He points out that Texaco has been out of the Amazon since 1992, and Petroecuador has operated there since.

“There are many other factors that … have caused problems in this region, such as the government’s colonization efforts, the lumber industry, agribusiness,” he said.

Representatives of ChevronTexaco will meet next week with members of the Interfaith Council.

“We’re hopeful that the meeting … will give the group a more balanced and objective understanding of several key issues,” including the cleanup and the government’s release of ChevronTexaco, Moore said.

Goldblatt hopes to convince company leaders to travel to Ecuador and see that there is still work to be done.

“People are suffering, they’re dying. I think they should face these people and talk to them,” he said. “I have no doubt that if we brought this to Texaco that they would be appalled.”
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Reach Liz Tascio at 925-945-4780 or ltascio@cctimes.com. Los Angeles Times contributed to this story.

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