La Joya de los Sachas, Ecuador – After a decade of court battles, lawyers on Wednesday took a lawsuit by Ecuadorean Indians accusing U.S. oil firm ChevronTexaco C Corp. of polluting the Amazon jungle into the field.
Scientists started taking soil samples from the Amazon, hoping to prove, or disprove, that a Texaco subsidiary contaminated groundwater supplies during its oil operations in Ecuador from 1972 to 1992.
The tests near the sweltering jungle town of La Joya de los Sachas marked the beginning of six months of inspections that plaintiffs and defendants believe will be definitive.
“I think we stand a good chance that science will provide the truth that everyone down here has been looking for 30 years,” said Steven Donziger, attorney for 30,000 jungle dwellers who accuse Texaco of polluting the environment.
The case is one of a kind in Ecuador. Lawyers sweating through button-down shirts trudged through high jungle brush to point out the sites they planned to have drilled, bringing the judge to the site of the evidence rather than filing it in court.
Both sides have asked to inspect 122 sites across the crude-rich Amazon to test for toxins in residents’ drinking water, remediated oil pits and area rivers and streams.
Plaintiffs accuse a Texaco subsidiary of dumping 16.5 billion gallons of oil-laden water into the environment while producing crude under a contract with Ecuador’s government.
Texaco merged with Chevron in 2001.
The company says it paid for a $40 million clean-up that was approved by the Ecuadorean government and that its oil production practices met industry standards at the time.
Plaintiffs say the area requires a $6 billion clean-up. They say oil pits covered with soil have seeped toxins into the groundwater that have killed livestock and made people sick.
ChevronTexaco says the remediated pits pose no health risk.
Both plan to use standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and World Health Organization for hydrocarbon levels to measure the risks.
Plaintiffs filed suit in Ecuador last year after a U.S. court threw out the 1993 case over issues of jurisdiction.
“Up until now, for 10 years it’s been procedural and legal and now it’s science. Science has to be allowed to prevail,” said ChevronTexaco spokesman Chris Gidez, as plaintiffs’ scientists clad in white hazardous materials suits prepared to drill.
Inspections hit a rocky start when ChevronTexaco accused plaintiffs of tampering with evidence by taking preliminary samples without a judge present to prepare the field.
As lawyers debated under a tent in sweltering heat, a handful of local residents gathered to watch the trial on the fringe of this rundown town 113 miles east of Quito.
Wearing a traditional red robe, Secoya Indian Milton Payaguaje traveled four hours to demand Texaco clean up the rivers where he lives. “Animals drink water and die, and people get sick when they go swimming,” the 19-year old said.
Plaintiffs and defendants will send samples taken from the field to laboratories in Ecuador and the United States. Once inspections are completed, another group of scientists appointed by Judge Efrain Novillo will review the results.
