Quito, Ecuador – A scientific analysis submitted to Ecuadorian courts by technicians from ChevronTexaco demonstrates the company resorted to “junk science” to hide its environmental disaster in the Amazon, say technical experts for the Amazon Defense Coalition, the group representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against ChevronTexaco.
Known as the “Rainforest Chernobyl”, ChevronTexaco´s dumping of roughly 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into more than 600 open-air pits has contaminated an area the size of Rhode Island. Five indigenous groups along with 30,000 rural dwellers are affected and suffer from astronomically high rates of cancer.
The plaintiffs’ experts have cited holes in ChevronTexaco’s reports of the first four judicial inspections including:
· ChevronTexaco technicians avoided testing for the most dangerous chemicals—such as chromium. After not testing for these chemicals, their report draws “conclusions” that they do not exist.
· ChevronTexaco technicians ignored standards for toxins permitted under Ecuadorian environmental laws. Instead, the company points to fictitious “international” standards in attempt to exonerate itself.
· ChevronTexaco technicians tested samples at the inspected sites at locations known to be contamination free—hilltops above the waste pits or just below the surface—avoiding sampling one meter under the surface where the pits are buried.
· Laboratory results submitted by ChevronTexaco in the appendix of its report indicate high levels of cancer-causing Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPHs). The company’s report and conclusions ignore this fact.
“Like the scientists who were paid by tobacco companies to prove smoking was harmless, ChevronTexaco´s technicians used junk science to manufacture conclusions,” asserted Steven Donziger, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.
“ChevronTexaco’s board of directors should investigate and blow the whistle on the cover up operation going on in Ecuador,” said Atossa Soltani, Executive Director of Amazon Watch.
“This is without doubt the worst oil-related environmental disaster in the world today, and it makes the Exxon Valdez look like a backyard spill in comparison,” said David Russell, a leading oil remediation expert who estimates cleanup to cost over $6 billion.
The trial began in Lago Agrio in October of 2003. Judge Efrain Novillo will conduct inspections at 122 of the contaminated sites before making a final ruling. Two inspections are scheduled this week.
