Environmental Justice for the Amazon
Amazonian Leaders, Activists, Photographers and Shareholders pressure ChevronTexaco to Clean Up Ecuador
Can you imagine an oil spill worse than the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska? Unfortunately, there is one in the middle of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.
Between 1964 and 1992 Texaco, now Chevron Corp., explored and drilled in the Ecuadorian Amazon. They also dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into unlined waste-pits, streams, rivers and nearly 17 million barrels of oil were spilled from the pipeline Texaco built. This is 30 times more than the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, according to Amazon Watch, a San Francisco based non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the Amazon rainforest and supporting the indigenous and forest people’s who live there. The communities want environmental justice. They want ChevronTexaco to clean up the area it contaminated and fully compensate the victims.
Photo Exhibit in San Ramon
The devastation caused by Texaco was documented by two bay area based photographers, Lou Dematteis and Kayana Szymczak and presented in a photo exhibit called “Crude Reflections: ChevronTexaco’s Rainforest Legacy” at MUDDS restaurant San Ramon, California (the site of Chevron’s world headquarters) between April 25-28, 2005. The launch of the photo exhibit on April 29, was a great success, with over 150 community residents and community leaders in attendance. Special guests in attendance were two Amazonian leaders – Humberto Piaguaje, an indigenous Secoya leader, and Carmen Perez, a community nurse from La Primavera community in the affected area. Humberto had led Kayana, one of the photographers, through his community of San Pablo only one month earlier. When he saw the photos of his community and his family he said, “This is the truth. This is how we live. This is how our people are suffering from the oil pollution caused by Texaco.”
The exhibit documents the human and environmental impacts related to Texaco’s, operations in the Ecuadorian Amazon between 1964 and 1992. The photos are accompanied by testimonies, like that of Dolores Morales whose 19-year old son died of cancer and 15-year old son is sick with leukemia. She says, “We came to the Amazon 11 years ago because there were jobs here. We settled in a house about 20 yards away from a Texaco oil well and 50 yards from a toxic waste-pit. We got our drinking water downstream, and the water was usually oily with yellowish foam. When it rained, the waste-pit overflowed and ran into the stream that we got our drinking water from.” This is just one of over 60 testimonies in the exhibit. The exhibit can be found online at www.chevrontoxico.com
Shareholders File Resolution to Pressure ChevronTexaco
On the eve of the ChevronTexaco shareholder meeting, representatives from the California state pension funds (CALPERS and CALSTRS), social investment firms, and environmental and human rights organizations expressed concerns regarding ChevronTexaco’s activities in sensitive areas like the Ecuadorian Amazon jungle.
For the second year, a proposal addressing the company’s legacy in Ecuador will be presented. It calls upon ChevronTexaco to prepare a report on “new initiatives by management to address the specific health and environmental concerns of communities affected by unremediated waste and other sources of oil-related contamination in the area where Texaco operated in Ecuador.” The resolution can be found at http://www.amazonwatch.org/newsroom/view_news.php?id=868
The proponents of the resolution are Trillium Asset Management, the New York State Common Retirement Fund, Amnesty International and the Sisters of Mercy of Burlingame (California). At the press conference, Shelley Alpern, representing the lead sponsor Trillium Asset Management, said, “Three decades ago, ChevronTexaco began drilling in fragile indigenous lands, spilling 18.5 billion gallons of toxic wastewaters into the rainforest and spilling millions of gallons of oil. The effectiveness of its cleanup operations is being disputed in the Ecuadorian courts in a lawsuit that could cost this company billions of dollars. ChevronTexaco’s handling of this situation warrants far greater scrutiny by shareholders and by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which should be investigating why this lawsuit has not been mentioned in any of the company’s SEC filings.”
California State Controller Steve Westly requested that the ChevronTexaco Board of Directors conduct an independent review of the situation in Ecuador. “I am concerned that ChevronTexaco’s decision to engage in a lengthy legal battle over Texaco’s past behavior may cause damage to the company’s reputation and further erode shareowner value,” said Mr. Westly.
A statement was read from New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi: “I find it troubling that ChevronTexaco’s reputation continues to suffer because it has not been able to resolve its issues in Ecuador. Each day that this environmental and health crisis continues, ChevronTexaco’s future business opportunities abroad are more at risk.” Hevesi is the sole trustee of the $120 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, the second largest public pension fund in the United States. “As an institutional investor, I hope that the company will resolve its issues in Ecuador as soon as possible.”
Gabriela Jaramillo, representing Amnesty International, explained their involvement in this resolution, “Amnesty International has co-filed this shareholder proposal not only as a concerned shareholder but also as the world’s largest human rights organization, representing 1.8 million members globally. As stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ‘every organ of society’ has a responsibility to promote respect for human rights, and this includes powerful multinational corporations like ChevronTexaco. The claims of the Ecuadorian Amazon communities deserve to be addressed, and the company needs to demonstrate with actions that they are serious about being a socially responsible leader in their industry.”
ChevronTexaco Shareholder Meeting targeted by activists from Ecuador to Iraq
On the morning of April 27, 2005, ChevronTexaco employees and shareholders entering the company’s world headquarters in San Ramon were greeted by 100 activists from all over the world. The activists came to support the Amazonian leaders from Ecuador who were entering the shareholder meeting, and to protest the company’s operations from Ecuador to Iraq.
Amazonian leaders, Humberto Piaguaje and Carmen Perez, traveled thousands of miles—by canoe, bus, airplane and car—to have the opportunity to address the ChevronTexaco CEO, David O’Reilly, CVX executives and shareholders about their concerns. They were invited by shareholders, including Trillum Asset Management and Amnesty International, who were proposing a resolution to address the clean up of the Ecuadorian Amazon. A Burmese refugee concerned about the proposed merger with UNOCAL, the company that used slave labor in Burma to build its oil pipeline, also entered the meeting. Representatives from the Sierra Club—concerned about the proposed drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge—and activists concerned about Chevron’s continues use of gas flaring in Nigeria were also present.
As the shareholder meeting took place inside the world headquarters a peaceful rally was being held outside to bring attention to the real cost of oil at home and abroad. Members of San Ramon Valley Cares and concerned citizens held large photos of the people affected by Texaco’s operations in Ecuador; community residents from Richmond, the city where Chevron’s refinery is located, protested against continued air pollution and for environmental justice; Burmese refugees protested the ChevronTexaco and Unocal merger; the Sierra Club protested drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge; Greenpeace activists from Mexico came dressed as murrelets, birds threatened by ChevronTexaco’s proposed LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) facility in Baja California to protest the company’s operations there; and local anti-war activists protested ChevronTexaco’s profiting from the war in Iraq.
For three hours community residents and activists held signs, banner and photos; chanted; drummed and spoke to educate the public and the press about ChevronTexaco’s effects on communities and the environment all around the world. Then, the Amazonian leaders, shareholders and representatives from the various organizations that entered the shareholder meeting came outside to report to the rally on what happened inside.
After ChevronTexaco gave their presentation on record profits and new developments, the shareholders presented and defended their resolutions. Shelley Alpern, from Trillium Asset Management, was able to present the resolution on Ecuador and Humberto Piaguaje, Secoya indigenous leader from Ecuador, defended the resolution and spoke from his heart about how Texaco virtually destroyed his culture by taking their land, polluting the environment and introducing diseases never heard of before. Humberto said, “I may be foreign to you but I am human. The jungle was once a great university, market, and hospital to us. Since ChevronTexaco came, our university, market and hospital has been vanishing. I am not here to tarnish your image but to find a solution to this crisis.”
Unfortunately, however, Carmen Perez, the community health worker and mother of six who traveled 3 days from the Ecuadorian Amazon, was not able to speak. Mr. O’Reilly, shut off her microphone as she was going to address the shareholders about her concerns. “I was very sad that I traveled for three days to come to this meeting, only not to be heard by the Chairman of the company,” said Perez, who is a health care worker in the community of La Primavera, in Ecuador’s Sucumbios province. Sucumbios is the epicenter of what industry experts believe could be the worst oil-related environmental catastrophe in the world.
Also unable to speak was Rabbi Dan Goldblatt, the leader of Beth Chaim Congregation in the Tri-Valley area of California (where San Ramon is located) who earlier had visited Ecuador at the invitation of the affected communities. Emerging from the meeting, Goldblatt called O’Reilly’s attitude “shameful”. “I didn’t come to talk about the lawsuit, I came to talk about the moral issues facing this company for its responsibility in Ecuador, where its legacy continues squeezing human life to this day,” Goldblatt said.
Five minutes before the meeting was scheduled to end, O’Reilly shut down the microphone and adjourned the meeting in the middle of a presentation by Atossa Soltani, the executive director of Amazon Watch, a non-profit group that has been working for years with the Ecuadorian communities. Soltani was presenting a letter sent by Amazon Watch to O’Reilly earlier in the week accusing company employees of making false and misleading public statements about the evidence at the trial, which thus far shows significant levels of toxic contamination at Texaco’s former sites. She was attempting to cite ChevronTexaco’s own soil and water tests from a well called Sacha-53 that found 22 samples over the maximum allowable legal limits for toxins.
“O’Reilly’s attempt to censor shareholder comments today is a clear sign that the company is attempting to keep shareholders in the dark about the serious liabilities they face in Ecuador,” said Soltani.
Following the report of what happened inside the meeting, community residents and activists vowed to complain to the company and continue protesting ChevronTexaco every month until the company begins to respond.
The shareholder resolution on Ecuador received 9% of the shareholder vote.
ChevronTexaco Feels the Pressure, Changes name to Chevron Corp.
On May 9, 2005, just 1 1/2 weeks after the ChevronTexaco Shareholder Meeting in San Ramon, CA, where the company faced shareholder discontent and activist pressure for its ongoing toxic legacy in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the company changed its name to Chevron Corp. According to ChevronTexaco Chairman David O’Reilly, “Texaco is being dropped from the corporate masthead to reduce the confusion caused by the combined name”.
Is this the real reason why the company changed its name? Could it be because the company is feeling the pressure about taking responsibility for Texaco’s legacy in Ecuador?
Since 1993, forest peoples affected by Texaco’s operations in Ecuador have been calling for environmental justice. In 1993 forest people’s filed a lawsuit in New York courts against Texaco calling for a clean up of the affected area. For nine years the forest peoples and their lawyers sought justice in the United States, but in August 2002 the case was sent to Ecuador. ChevronTexaco (Chevron and Texaco merged in October 2001) hoped that the Ecuador case would disappear, but the company was wrong. In May 2003, the forest peoples, including five indigenous nationalities, re-filed their lawsuit against the company in Ecuadorian courts. In October 2003, the “trial of the century” began. Now the case is in the second phase of the trial, the judicial inspections phase. During judicial inspections the judge presiding over the case is inspecting 122 disputed sites (of contamination) accompanied by technical experts. Lab tests are being released which show the continued impacts of Texaco’s operations in the Amazon. If found liable, ChevronTexaco could face up to $6 billion in clean up fees.
In addition to the evidence being released during the judicial inspections, ChevronTexaco is feeling the pressure from shareholders. Shareholders are concerned about the possible liability of $6 billion, but they are also concerned about the negative public image that the company is receiving from being associated with Texaco’s operations in the Amazon. Last month, trustees from the three largest public pension funds in the United States called on the company to take action to resolve the dispute – and in a direct rebuke to company management, California Controller Steve Westly requested that the Board of Directors conduct an independent review of the situation in Ecuador.
In 2001, before the Chevron and Texaco merger took place, activists warned Chevron. Activists told Chevron that by merging with Texaco, the company would inherit Texaco’s liabilities, including the toxic legacy in the Ecuadorian Amazon, but they were dismissed. Now, ChevronTexaco is feeling the heat from the plaintiffs, activists, shareholders and their community in San Ramon, so it wants to distance itself from the public eye. “As long as the company neglects to clean up the Ecuadorian Amazon, it will face public scrutiny. We will not let the public forget that ChevronTexaco, is responsible for 100% of the clean up in the Ecuadorian Amazon,” says Leila Salazar-Lopez, Clean Up Ecuador Organizer for Amazon Watch. “We will continue to organize in San Ramon, the Bay Area and beyond. We are planning on taking our photo exhibit to cities across the United States and Ecuador and we will harness our ‘people power’. ChevronTexaco cannot hide behind a name. The truth will come out.”
ChevronTexaco’s new tag line reads, “Chevron Corporation… a company dedicated to improving lives by harnessing our planet’s most important resource: human energy.
ChevronTexaco, now Chevron Corp., is Califonia’s largest corporation and the second largest energy company in the United States after ExxonMobil. It is in the process of purchasing El Segundo-based, UNOCAL Corp. (pending shareholder and regulatory approval).
For more information on the Clean Up Ecuador Campaign, see www.amazonwatch.org or www.chevrontoxico.com or call 415-487-9600 ext. 313.
