The True Cost of Chevron

The oil waste Chevron left behind in the Ecuadorian rain forest is making people sick. According to American expert Dr. Daniel Rourke 10,000 people are at risk of getting cancer. The longer Chevron refuses to clean up, the bigger this environmental crisis gets.

Read more about Dr. Rourke’s findings here

Her leg amputated because of a cancerous tumor, Modesta Briones sits in her house near Parahuaco oil well #2 in the Ecuadoran Amazon.

The Numbers Are In

If there is anyone out there not realizing how extensive the devastation in the Ecuadorian rain forest is, they need to read Chevron Pit’s latest post. New damage assessments have been submitted to the Ecuador trial court and the numbers are mind blowing!
Below are some of the horrific findings. For more detailed look, visit The Chevron Pit

A mother holds her ten-month old daughter

with a skin rash caused by bathing in

oil-polluted water in Rumipamba in 1993.

• Soil Remediation: A conservative estimate of potential costs to remediate contaminated soils at all of Chevron’s 378 former oil production facilities in Ecuador ranges from $487 million to $949 million depending on the clean-up standard used. The actual cost could be significantly higher.

• Groundwater Remediation: Based on data in the trial record, the range for clean-up of groundwater is $396 million to $911 million.

• Rivers and wetlands: Data indicates that sediment contamination exists, but no clean-up number was presented pending further investigation.

• Health Care: Using recent data from the World Health Organization and the Ecuadorian Ministry of Health, an estimated $1.4 billion will be needed to provide health care to the thousands of affected persons over the next three decades.

• Drinking Water: Degradation of the environment with petroleum hydrocarbons associated with Chevron’s production activities has been documented at numerous locations. The cost of a comprehensive series of regional water systems is estimated to be between approximately $326 million to $541 million.

• Excess Cancer Deaths: Actuarial life-table methodology demonstrates that the aggregate cost of excess cancer deaths due to exposure to oil contamination in the area where Chevron operated could be approximately $69.7 billion. This is the based on the value of a statistical life used by averaging relevant data used in the U.S. court system and by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ($7 million for each lost life), and comparing it with official Ecuador mortality data and census information. Up to 9,950 people in the affected area will face a significant risk of dying from cancer in the coming decades even if the area is remediated in the next ten years. Even if the analysis stops in 1990 – the year when Chevron ceased being the operator of the oil fields – the aggregate cost of excess cancer deaths is still estimated at $12.1 billion based on 1,732 deaths from cancer. (The earlier Cabrera report estimated 1,401 deaths from cancer, but he did not project future deaths.)

• Natural Resources Losses: This estimate is based on the evidence that concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons and harmful metals in soil, groundwater, and surface water have exceeded levels considered to be toxic to terrestrial and aquatic biota. While determining the exact values of service losses in the rainforest with precision is not possible, it is not clear that further studies would produce a range of plausible values different from the range posited earlier by Mr. Cabrera – approximately $874 million to $1.7 billion, depending on the methodology employed.

• Unjust Enrichment: Chevron’s unjust enrichment ranges from $4.57 billion to $9.46 billionassuming a 100% probability of detection and ultimate payment, and from $18.26 billion to $37.86 billion assuming a 25% probability of detection and ultimate payment. Given the evidence of Chevron’s malfeasance in Ecuador, the plaintiffs assume the company had at best a 25% probability of detection and ultimate payment, and therefore the unjust enrichment award should at minimum range from $18.26 billion to $37.86 billion. This is a conservative figure, as in reality it is highly unlikely that Chevron believed it had more than a 10% probability of detection and ultimate payment.

• Cultural Impacts on Indigenous Groups: Representatives of the Amazonian communities, noting the acute interdependence between indigenous groups and the rainforest ecosystem, analyzed the impact of hydrocarbon contamination on indigenous culture. The team reviewed economic valuations to repair the loss of cultural and ancestral practices, including a program to purchase unspoiled land, and to construct pools of native fishes and centers to restore flora and fauna. The cost for this restoration is estimated at $481.5 million.

Chevron's Con Man Exposed

Recordings of Diego Borja, a man who has been a contractor for Chevron for several years, revealing Chevron's darkest secrets have been released by Grant W. Fine, a lawyer and investigator hired by the plaintiffs. This is beyond shocking! Things Borja talks about prove what we knew all along...Chevron has been lying and hiding the truth to avoid responsibility for the mess in Ecuador.





Diego Borja


Here's a copy of the Amazon Defense Coalition's statement with more details:



Amazon Defense Coalition
For Immediate Release

April 6, 2010
Contact: Karen Hinton,
703-798-3109
karen@hintoncommunications.com

Chevron “Cooked” Evidence in Ecuador Environmental
Trial, According to Oil Giant’s Own Contractor

Diego Borja & Wife Worked For Chevron & Represented Oil Company’s “Independent” Lab To Test Contamination Samples

Washington, DC (April 6, 2010) – In a series of stunning revelations from recorded conversations, longtime Chevron contractor Diego Borja threatened to reveal damaging evidence “cooked” by Chevron in the environmental trial in Ecuador unless he received enough money for turning over secret videotapes to high-ranking Chevron executives in June 2009.

At one point, Borja laughed and said, “Crime does pay.”

Click here for copies of the report and press release http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/borja-report/

Borja’s disclosures are found in a report released today by Grant W. Fine, a lawyer and investigator hired by the plaintiffs. The report covers more than six hours of audiotapes and 25 pages of online chats that were given to the plaintiffs by Santiago Escobar, a childhood friend of Borja who made the recordings.

In the conversations, Borja said Chevron hired him to create four companies so his work for the oil company would appear “independent.” He suggested that the companies were connected to a laboratory to test contamination samples. Borja said the laboratory was not independent, but rather “belonged” to Chevron.

The investigative report also revealed that Borja’s wife, Sara Portilla, worked for Chevron for four years and represented Severn Trent Labs (STL), a US laboratory that Chevron described as an “independent” lab to test its contamination samples. Court documents obtained by Fine cite Borja and Portilla as representatives of STL. They both signed chain of custody documents with the Lago Agrio court that showed how the samples moved from the contamination site to the testing lab.

Borja – who Chevron always has cast as a good Samaritan – also said that Chevron is paying $6,000 a month in rent for his large home with a swimming pool that abuts a golf course in a gated community near Chevron’s headquarters. Borja said that Chevron is paying him the U.S. equivalent of the salary he made in Ecuador, which was $10,000, and is also paying the costs for a lease on an SUV and for personal security.

On the audiotapes, Borja said he has enough evidence to ensure a victory by the Amazon communities if Chevron failed to pay him what he was promised. Before turning over the videotapes to Chevron, Borja said he made sure Chevron “completely understood” he wanted payment for them.

He also said he had incriminating evidence against the oil giant stored on his iPhone and in an undisclosed location in Ecuador that he could use as leverage if Chevron betrayed him. Specifically, Borja said he has a notarized document that contains a version of events that would help the plaintiffs and that Portilla, his wife, is aware of the information.

Representatives of the Amazon communities reacted with shock to the audiotapes. “They prove at a minimum that Diego Borja is a real con man,” said Luis Yanza, President of the Amazon Defense Coalition, which represents the plaintiffs.

Yanza called on Chevron to investigate and disclose the information that Borja has stored on his iPhone and in Ecuador.

Yanza also called on authorities in Ecuador and the U.S. to examine the tapes and include them in their investigation of the videotaping scandal, which Chevron disclosed last August as a way to derail the trial. Chevron also cites the videotapes as evidence of corruption in its arbitration claim against the government of Ecuador, which Chevron filed in September, only four weeks after revealing the videotapes.

Escobar, who said he has known Borja since they were teenagers, said he decided to give the tapes to the plaintiffs because if “I keep quiet about immoral acts, then I become part of the immoral acts.” He said, “Diego always bragged to us about what he was doing with the testing samples to help Chevron avoid prosecution. Everyone knew he was Chevron’s dirty tricks guy. Overtime, I became more disgusted with what Diego was doing. The videotapes and his interest in switching sides was the last straw for me.”

Among other revelations, Borja said:

• If Chevron “tricked” him he would “immediately go to the other side… I have correspondence that talks about things you cannot even imagine, dude… I can’t talk about them here, dude, because I’m afraid, but they’re things that can make the [plaintiffs] win this just like that” at which point he snapped his fingers. He also said, “crime does pay.”




• Chevron had “cooked” the evidence and, if the U.S. judge who sent the case to Ecuador in the first place ever knew, he would “close [Chevron] down.”




• The energy giant used him to set up four dummy companies to make them appear to be independent of Chevron, but in fact they were controlled by Chevron.




• The laboratory that processed soil and water samples for Chevron to submit as evidence in the trial was not “independent” as the company represented to the court. “I have proof that they [the laboratories] were more than connected, they belonged to [Chevron],” said Borja, who also indicated he signed the contract to rent the house where Chevron’s laboratory was located.

Escobar also told Fine that Borja said he and wife stored testing samples in their refrigerator in their Quito office before mailing them to STL. (Test America, Inc., purchased STL in 2007.)

As a contractor for Chevron, Borja often worked at the contamination sites and collected evidence, yet he and Portilla also signed chain of custody documents with the court as STL representatives. Portilla signed them as an STL Project Manger and used the email address, sportilla@stl-inc.com

• Borja indicated that he and a person from Chevron, whom he referred to as his Florida-based boss, lied to gain entry into the independent laboratory that was processing the soil and water samples for the plaintiffs during the trial. (Yanza said he suspects the person is Ricardo Reis Veiga, a longtime Chevron lawyer based in Miami currently under indictment in Ecuador for lying about Texaco’s remediation results.)




• Borja said he has worked for Chevron on the Aguinda trial since 2004 and has signed numerous court documents – contrary to Chevron’s claim at the time it released the videos that Borja was a mere “logistics contractor” for the company. Portilla has worked for Chevron for four years, and his uncle has been employed by Chevron for 30 years. Borja also said he has worked for Chevron since he was 24 years old (nine years ago). Chevron’s legal team, Borja, his wife and uncle have office space in a Quito building his uncle owns.




• Borja conceded there was no bribe of the Ecuador trial judge, Juan Nunez, in the videotapes -- confirming the long held contention of the plaintiffs and contradicting Chevron’s assertions. With the videotapes, Borja said he did in “two days” what Chevron had been trying to do for a year, which was to get the judge dismissed.





• Borja also said Chevron promised to make him a “business partner” for turning over the tapes. When Escobar said he would have it “made” once he became a partner of Chevron, Borja responded: “That’s right, you dog… I mean, it’s a brass ring brother.”

Fine, a lawyer and investigator based in San Francisco, California, conducted the investigation. Fine also conducted an earlier investigation into Wayne Hansen, the so-called American “businessman” who claimed to be in Ecuador to identify contract opportunities for remediation work and partnered with Borja to videotape meetings with Nunez and others, using a spy pen and spy watch. Fine discovered that Hansen had never worked in remediation before, currently has no means of visible financial support and was sentenced to 32 months in a federal prison for drug trafficking over 275,000 pounds of marijuana.


About the Amazon Defense Coalition

The Amazon Defense Coalition represents dozens of rainforest communities and five indigenous groups that inhabit Ecuador’s Northern Amazon region. The mission of the Coalition is to protect the environment and secure social justice through grass roots organizing, political advocacy, and litigation. Two of its leaders, Luis Yanza and Pablo Fajardo, are the 2008 winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.

Newest Statement of the Amazon Defense Coalition

The Amazon Defense Coalition has released a statement in response to Dr. Charles Calmbacher's bewildering testimony today.

Below are some quotes, you can read the release here:
http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2010/04/real-fraud-in-27-billion-environmental.html


“Dr. Calmbacher clearly agreed to have his signature placed on materials, including reports, that were to be submitted to the court, and he acknowledged he was actively reviewing the reports with our local, technical team. We are bewildered, frankly, at his testimony."

"On August 27th, 2004, a major media outlet quoted him as saying: ''Their defense is a lot like the tobacco industry saying there is no evidence linking smoking and lung cancer,'' said Charles Calmbacher, a certified industrial hygienist who works as an expert for the plaintiffs.”

Stories of the Victims

Rosana Sisalima with her granddaughter, San Carlos on November 24, 2004

The Chevron Pit is featuring stories about people who have been affected by the oil contamination left behind by Texaco in the Ecuadorian rainforest. These stories are incredibly sad and disturbing. I hope you will read them and pass them along to others who care about how our oil companies treat people and their environment in countries where they explore for oil.

Here's the link:
http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2010/02/texaco-throws-dirt-on-oil-pit-after_18.html

Stories of the victims

Angel Toala

The Chevron Pit has posted another story about people who have been affected by the oil contamination left behind by Texaco. This one is about Luz Maria Martin and her husband Angel Toala, who died of stomach cancer.

You can read the their story here: http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2010/03/father-of-six-moved-to-find-good-job.html