Ten months after the “Rainforest Chernobyl” trial began in the Supreme Court in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, the judicial inspections – marking Phase II of the trial – began yesterday at one of Texaco’s former oil camps, Campo Sacha in Joya de las Sachas, in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
In October 2003, the judge of the Supreme Court of Lago Agrio presided over six days of testimonies and collected thousands of pages of written documents relating to the contamination left by Texaco, now ChevronTexaco, in the Ecuadorian Amazon as a result of the company’s operations from 1972 to 1992. Now, the Judge is conducting judicial inspections of 122 of the contaminated sites. Texaco left over 627 unlined waste pits in the Ecuadorian Amazon, according to a study released last October by Petroecuador and the Amazon Defense Front.
Yesterday, Judge Efrain Novillo was accompanied by environmental remediation experts, ChevronTexaco lawyers and public relations representatives, indigenous peoples and campesinos affected by Texaco’s pollution, the plaintiffs’ lawyers, national and international media, activists and human rights advocate, Bianca Jagger among others.
The environmental remediation experts wore hazardous material suits and masks as they removed samples of toxic material from the waste site adjacent to well # 6. Samples from this site, as well as other sites, including streams and local resident’s drinking water, will be taken to labs in Ecuador and the United States to be analyzed. The samples will then be analyzed by court appointed experts and reviewed by Judge Novillo.
The affected peoples have high hopes that the truth about ChevronTexaco’s “Rainforest Chernobyl” will be brought to light with the inspections. They believe that the inspections will provide the evidence needed to prove that ChevronTexaco contaminated the Amazon and is responsible for a full cleanup. It is estimated, by Global Environmental Operations, that a clean up will cost up to U.S. $6 billion.
ChevronTexaco lawyers spent hours yesterday trying to convince the judge that they are not responsible for the contamination. They, once again, tried to put the blame on Petroecuador, Ecuador’s state-owned oil company and former partner of Texaco. They also tried to blame plaintiffs(affected peoples) for tampering with the waste sites, but this accusation was dismissed.
In the U.S., the local citizen’s group San Ramon Valley Cares and Amazon Watch organized a “Mock Inspection” in front of ChevronTexaco’s World Headquarters in San Ramon, CA to raise awareness about the inspections in Ecuador. The participants built a huge oil pit out of black plastic and surrounded it with dead fish made of paper and old Chevron and Texaco oil liters. The local citizens also carried poster size photos of the real waste pits in Ecuador and signs that read, “ChevronTexaco: Clean Up Ecuador”. At noon the participants acted out a skit of the inspection in front of the company’s headquarters, complete with the judge, expert inspectors, a ChevronTexaco lawyer, a plaintiff’s lawyer, an affected person and supporters carrying signs Many ChevronTexaco employees taking lunch break were able to witness this lively and colorful event dramatizing this next chapter in historical trial against the company.
Judge Novillo has announced that inspections will resume at the beginning of September and will continue until all 122 sites are inspected and analyzed.
For more information on the ChevronTexaco case or to see articles on the inspections please visit www.amazonwatch.org
