DON'T MENTION ECUADOR

Chevron's shareholders should be aware! The company will silence anyone who dares to speak about company's unacceptable behavior and environmental crimes that have been committed around the world. Some shareholders were denied entry to the Chevron's shareholders meeting on May 26th, others were arrested. People expressed concern and Chevron did not want to hear any of it. The only thing Chevron's CEO John Watson had to say was that Ecuadorians can count on his empathy. I guess Chevron still has no plans of taking responsibility for its actions.

Read more here: Chevron Condemned for Human Rights Abuses, Ecuador Disaster at Annual Shareholder Meeting Today

The Truth Always Comes Out

Chevron has been misleading the news media and the US courts about the so-called remediation agreement signed in 1995 by Texaco and the government of Ecuador.

Chevron wants us to believe the agreement releases it from all liability in the lawsuit, but the truth is, it doesn’t. The agreement only applies to government claims, and Chevron’s own attorney said so. Perez Pallares admitted under oath that the release is not valid in this case. Making Chevron look even worse is the fact that Perez Pallares is the lawyer who negotiated and signed the release for Chevron.

The Chevron Pit writes in more detail about Chevron's inability to keep its story straight.

Chevron's Outrageous Demands Criticized

People are speaking up against Chevron's unfair and selfish demands.

An article by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship criticizing Chevron's attempt to force Joe Berlinger to turn over unused footage from his documentary "Crude" appeared on the Huffington Post recently.
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Bill Moyers

Double Standards

With the oil gushing its way into our reality, we are all in a panic mode. We are worried about our environment, health and the effect toxic oil might have on our lives. It already happened for the people in Ecuador and they have been fighting hard to get through the thick and high wall of lies and denial Chevron has built.

Now, when it’s our lives that are in danger, maybe everyone will understand better what Ecuadorians fighting Chevron have been going through all these years. We are all appalled to hear BP, Transocean and Halliburton deny and blame one another for the spill. Just like Chevron has been refusing to take responsibility and pointing fingers at others, starting with Petroecuador.

President Obama said BP is to be blamed for this disaster, expressed concern and promised BP will pay for the cleanup. Everyone applauded and was very happy to have their President stand for what is right. When the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa visited oil sites Texaco left behind in the Amazonian jungle, Chevron called the whole Ecuadorian government corrupt and unjust. Is Chevron upset with President Obama for getting involved as well?

More here

Environmental disasters are horrible wherever they happen and there can’t be any double standards when it’s time for the ones who caused them to take care of the damage. This nonsense has to stop; Chevron needs to pay for the cleanup in Ecuador and so should BP for what’s happening in the Gulf Coast right now.

Chevron Must Be Blind. The Evidence Is Right There!

If Chevron wants to see some evidence that tells the truth, a trip to the Ecuadorian jungle will be enough. The oozing oil pits, horrible stories of the families affected by the contamination, test results that show that the levels of toxins are way above legal limits by any standards show a full picture of the blatant environmental crime committed by Texaco.

Nobody, including Chevron, needs Joe Berlinger’s footage to find out the truth and everybody, including Chevron, knows that asking for it is just another cowardly ploy designed to buy some more time.

It was not an accidental spill like the one in Gulf Mexico we are witnessing right now. Texaco wanted to save money and instead of disposing of the toxic waste properly, it dumped it right in the middle of the Amazonian jungle contaminating waterways that 30,000 people depended on for living.

As if deliberately polluting the environment and destroying people’s lives wasn’t embarrassing and shameful enough, Chevron now has the audacity to refuse to take responsibility and keeps coming up with those outrageous schemes.

More here: The Real Corruption Is In The Ground, Not In Film Footage

It Would Take 234 Years To Spill As Much Oil From The Leaking BP Oil Well As Texaco Dumped Into The Ecuadorian Rainforest

So I’ve been reading about BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and that the well is leaking at a rate of 210,000 gallons of oil a day. That sounds like a lot, and it is. But my calculator tells me that it would take the leaking BP oil well 85,714 days or 234 years to spill as much oil into the Gulf as Texaco intentionally dumped into the rainforest of Ecuador from 1968, the year Texaco drilled its first well, to 1990, when it stopped operations there.

Gulf of Mexico

Texaco has admitted pumping 18 billion gallons of oil and formation water into the streams and waterways of the Amazon basin, instead of re-injecting the toxic sludge back where it came from, way underground – the standard practice for the oil industry then and now.

During the 22 years that Texaco drilled for oil in Ecuador, the oil company saved at least $8 billion in expenses by treating the rainforest like its own personal trash heap with an average daily dump of 2.2 million gallons of oil and formation water, with high concentrations of benzene, a known carcinogen, and other hazardous chemicals and minerals.

As the people of the Gulf Coast in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama know all too well, that much oil and toxic water damages not only the physical environment but also a complete way of life. Families have lost loved ones to the explosion; fisherman and shrimp boaters may have to find another way to make a living; tourists will worry about the safety of the beaches and swimming areas, and scientists will study the area to see how the spill impacts ocean and human life for decades to come.

With no support from their government, the indigenous tribes of the Ecuadorian rainforest faced a much harsher reality when they filed their lawsuit against Texaco in 1993, a year after the oil company left Ecuador. They had been helpless to stop Texaco from wrecking havoc in their homeland. The government never sent in the Navy. The President of Ecuador at that time didn’t demand that Texaco take responsibility and clean up the mess. There were laws against such pollution, but no one enforced them because no one cared.

In 2001 Texaco’s problem became Chevron’s problem with Chevron’s purchase of Texaco. Nothing changed, though. Today the contamination remains, stored in unlined oil pits that continue to leech into the soil and underground water supply. Hopefully a similar fate will not befall the Gulf Coast. Hopefully BP will do the right thing, unlike Chevron, which is using every legal maneuver it can to avoid responsibility for the 18 billion gallons of toxic waste in the rainforest.

As President Obama just did on the Gulf Coast, President Correa visited the contaminated area and expressed his concern for the people who are living near and sometimes on top of toxic pits. Unlike BP, however, Chevron is using the President’s visit to argue in US court that the government is interfering with the lawsuit; that the court system is corrupt, and everyone who has drilled for oil in Ecuador is responsible for the contamination, except, of course, Chevron.

BP may end up scapegoating, too. But right now BP executives look a whole better than Chevron’s who haven’t even bothered to visit Ecuador to see the contamination, conveniently thousands of miles away from its San Ramon, California headquarters.