San Ramon – More than 100 people – street theater performers, people in penguin suits and the son of a Nobel Prize winner among them – protested outside of ChevronTexaco’s headquarters Wednesday morning as the company held its annual shareholders meeting inside.
A small delegation of protesters was inside the meeting. But company Chairman David O’Reilly limited comments from protesters, there to press him about pollution in the Ecuadorian rain forest they contend was caused by a former Texaco subsidiary.
The crowd in front of ChevronTexaco – whose large sign in front had been dismantled before Wednesday’s protests – swelled from one to dozens to about 150, supporting various environmental or human rights groups.
The first protester, Stephanie Alston of San Francisco, showed up at sunup, flashing photos from an exhibit now showing at Mudd’s Restaurant in San Ramon that depicts polluted scenes, birth defects and graves in the Ecuadorian rain forest.
“This could be your kids, too,” Alston shouted to passing motorists, thousands of whom would pass the morning-long protest at Bollinger Canyon Road and ChevronTexaco Way in Bishop Ranch. She scolded passing motorists, wagging an index finger much like a parent to a toddler and shouting, “Shame on you!”
One protester, David Seaborg, 56, of Walnut Creek, was knocked onto the sidewalk by a motorist who didn’t stop until Alston chased down the vehicle at the ChevronTexaco gate.
Naturalist Seaborg is one of six children of Nobel Prize-winning scientist Glenn Seaborg. He was not seriously injured; the motorist was not cited because Seaborg had been in the road, police said.
The photo exhibit and protest were coordinated by Amazon Watch and joined by the Sierra Club, EarthRights International, ChevronTexaco Anti-War Campaign, Greenpeace, Amnesty International and Corporate Accountability International, as well as independent protesters.
Greenpeace representatives brought three people dressed as the brown-and-white marine bird Xantus’s Murrelet, which they said was a species endangered by a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in the Coronado Islands of Baja California.
A three-person team from the Ronald Reagan Home for the Criminally Insane theater troupe, the motto of which is “bad taste for a good cause,” performed “Condi the Oil Tanker,” complete with circus music, a ringleader with a garish early 1900s mustache and a person dressed in a round, puffy suit complemented with a Condoleezza Rice mask. Rice formerly was a Chevron director and had a tanker named after her.
Leila Salazar Lopez, Cleanup Ecuador organizer for Amazon Watch, was gratified both by the turnout and by the diverse gathering of various groups. “There are many communities affected by ChevronTexaco,” she said.
ChevronTexaco officials maintain that areas where a former Texaco subsidiary drilled wells and pumped oil have been satisfactorily cleaned up, are safe and pose no risk to human health or the environment. They say responsibility lies with Ecuador’s state-owned oil company, Petroecuador, which O’Reilly last year said was inept.
Scott Marshall covers San Ramon. Reach him at 925-743-2216 or smarshall2@cctimes.com.
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