Lago Agrio, Ecuador – A lawyer for plaintiffs demanding that California-based ChevronTexaco clean up a polluted swath of the Amazon jungle rejected allegations made by an oil company lawyer Tuesday that the plaintiffs tampered with evidence.
The exchange of barbs came a day before an Ecuadorean judge hearing the case planned to examine abandoned wells around this small jungle oil town, some 110 miles northeast of Quito.
“They have falsely accused me, saying that I gave instructions to tamper with evidence,” plaintiffs’ lawyer Alberto Wray told The Associated Press. “I’m going to file legal actions against the ChevronTexaco representative.”
In a news conference in Quito earlier Tuesday, ChevronTexaco lawyer Ricardo Reis Veiga told reporters that the plaintiffs, after discovering which sites the judge plans to visit, “have perforated several wells, violating the judicial process.”
The alleged vandals, acting on orders from the plaintiffs’ lawyers, also damaged vegetation around the well sites, Reis Veiga added.
Plaintiffs coordinator Luis Yanza called the oil company’s allegations “an act of desperation.”
“They know that we have the proof, the evidence and that with the inspections we will demonstrate the deeds, the pollution,” Yanza said.
The lawsuit, brought by 88 people representing 30,000 poor jungle settlers and Amazon Indians, opened in Lago Agrio in October after spending a decade winding through U.S. courts.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled in 2002 that the case should be heard in the country where the damage allegedly occurred.
The plaintiffs want ChevronTexaco to pay to clean up contamination and provide medical care for people harmed by pollution. They estimate the costs could reach $1 billion.
They allege that Texaco chose to cut costs during the 1970s and 1980s by dumping 18.5 billion gallons of oily wastewater brought up by drilling into more than 600 open pits and streams in the Amazon jungle.
ChevronTexaco says the lawsuit is unfounded and that it complied with a government cleanup plan. The company also blames state-owned Petroecuador, its former partner in the oil project, for most of the pollution.
“The company understands the challenges that the habitants have had to face, but it completely rejects allegations that the company is responsible for the actions they want to blame on it,” said Jaime Varela, ChevronTexaco’s Mexico-based representative for Ecuador.
Texaco merged with Chevron in 2001. ChevronTexaco is based in San Ramon in Northern California.
