Joya de los Sachas, Ecuador – An abandoned oily pit in this remote Amazon jungle town became the backdrop for an open courtroom as an Ecuadorean judge began visiting 122 polluted sites in a lawsuit involving ChevronTexaco.
“We have stomach pain, dizziness, skin rashes and we are constantly sick,” resident Elias Zurita said at a public hearing Wednesday presided by Judge Efrain Novillo. The 40-year-old Zurita said has lived three metres from a toxic pool since he was eight.
Although, California-based ChevronTexaco says the pool was sufficiently cleaned up, Zurita said that drinking water in the region has been poisoned with oil.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, brought by 88 people representing 30,000 poor jungle settlers and Amazon Indians, say that Texaco took advantage of lax Ecuadorean environmental standards to cut costs in the 1970s and 1980s.
The plaintiffs allege the company chose to dump 70,000 billion litres of oily wastewater brought up by drilling into more than 600 open pits, instead of re-injecting it back underground, a common practice in the developed world.
They want ChevronTexaco to bankroll additional cleanup and provide medical care for people harmed by pollution. They estimate the costs could exceed $1 billion US. Ecuadorean law does not permit cash awards for class action plaintiffs.
The oil company says it followed environmental regulations and complied with a government cleanup plan, capping the oily pits. ChevronTexaco also blames state-owned Petroecuador, its former partner in the oil project, for most of the pollution.
“These inspections have no judicial value, whatsoever,” oil company lawyer Alfonso Callejas said, alleging that the plaintiffs visited the sites ahead of the judge to influence the hearings.
The first day of the public hearing drew about 100 residents, lawyers, journalists and activists -including celebrity Bianca Jagger -to this hot, muggy town.
“Here, on this battlefield, it will be demonstrated that Texaco contaminated Ecuadorean soil and has to take responsibility for the damage,” plaintiffs’ lawyer Alberto Wray said.
Resident Noemi Delgado poked a stick into an oozing pocket of black, oily mud to show the contamination beneath a section of grassy topsoil.
“This is a circus,” ChevronTexaco spokesman Christopher Gides said after spotting six technicians, sent by the plaintiffs, in white lab suits, protective gloves, goggles, helmets and respiratory masks.
The lawsuit opened in October in the nearby jungle town of Lago Agrio, 175 kilometres northeast of Quito, after spending a decade in U.S. courts. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York sent the case to Ecuador in 2002, ruling that it should be heard in the country where the pollution occurred.
The site inspections are expected to last for several months.
Texaco merged with Chevron in 2001 to form ChevronTexaco.
