Same As It Ever Was

Exxon in 1989, BP 2010 and for the last 18 years, Chevron. Each of these companies knowingly followed a reckless protocol of profit over people.

Consequences be damned. They don't change safety standards; they aren't interested in kneeling before Justice and making reparations. Nope, they lawyer up and launch a PR campaign that would make even Quadaffi seem a candidate for sainthood.

And so it goes with Chevron. Chevron has repeatedly refused to disclose important legal documents related to a video scam. The oil giant tried but failed to bribe an Ecuadorian court on videotape (secretly recorded) to derail a trial that produced an $18 billion judgment against the company for contamination the likes of which we have never seen anywhere else.

Meanwhile, they launch these epic ad campaigns declaring their "commitment to the environment and improving the quality of lives around the world". I'm serious, just check out their website if you've somehow been lucky enough to escape the nonstop television, radio and print ads.

So, while us folks at home are being swooned by a multi-million dollar sermon on the goodness of Chevron, the Ecuadorians are fighting for their lives. Check out this Chevron Pit blog, too.

UPDATE

I haven’t posted anything in a while. I have been traveling and wasn’t able to update the blog regularly. There have been a few developments but two things have not changed: Ecuadorians are still getting sick and dying because of Chevron’s contamination and Chevron refuses to do anything about it.

Here are a few headlines I missed:

Chevron Accused Of 'World's Worst Oil-Related Disaster' In Ecuador: Alleged Evidence Submitted In Lawsuit

Diego Borja, his wife Sarah Portilla, and collaborator Wayne Hansen have left California after being called to testify about falsifying evidence in Ecuador environmental trial

Comedy Video Rips Chevron's New "Greenwashing" PR Campaign

Chevron’s Andrea Neuman Sanctioned For Abusive Questioning

Chevron lawyers’ unprofessional practices are not going unnoticed anymore. Andrea Neuman , one of the lead lawyers in the Ecuador lawsuit is the fourth Chevron lawyer to be sanctioned by either an Ecuadorian or a U.S. court. Neuman is accused of trying to intimidate an American technical expert during a recent deposition. Chevron has been playing by its own rules for a long time blatantly ignoring the rule of law.

Visit Chevron Pit for more details.

Andrea Neuman

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.

Diego Borja! Time To Speak!

Diego Borja was supposed to help Chevron. He was the person responsible for the recordings of the Ecuadorian judge and now we have recordings of him bragging about knowing all of Chevron’s dirty secrets and how Chevron is paying for his nice house and a very comfortable life. Well, time has come for him to tell the court all the details. How ironic that Chevron’s own “secret agent”, will have to reveal Chevron’s dark side.

Chevron has been trying very hard to hide the truth but it seems the harder Chevron’s people try, the more trouble they get into. Truth will always come out. Right now, Chevron even refuses to submit its damage assessment reports. If I was working for Chevron, I’d want to hide it too. The damage in Ecuador is so immense, it’s sickening!

The Power of Manipulation

Even though evidence is mounting against Chevron and it has been scientifically proven that Chevron is guilty of the contamination in Ecuador, Chevron still manages to trick some people into believing Chevron's false arguments. This time it's a reporter Roger Parloff. His story ran on Fortune.

But, I recently ran across an excellent response to his story. The post on Chevron In Ecuador.com says it all.

WITH DISCOVERY BID, ECUADOR TURNS TABLES ON CHEVRON

September 14, 2010 By Rebecca Beyer
Daily Journal Staff Writer

SAN FRANCISCO - The Republic of Ecuador, which has seen its judicial system come under attack by Chevron Corp. in the last year, has taken a strategy from the oil giant's legal playbook in an effort to defend itself in an arbitration in The Hague.

Home to a massive environmental lawsuit against the San Ramon-based company, the South American country has stood by for nearly a year while Chevron - armed with a law dating back to the 1800s - has filed multiple discovery requests in federal courts across the United States aimed at proving the Ecuadorean judicial system is corrupt. In Ecuador, Chevron is fighting plaintiffs' claims that the company should be held responsible for cleaning up the devastation from nearly 30 years of drilling by Texaco in the Amazon rainforest (Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001).

On Friday, Ecuador filed its own discovery request in San Francisco federal court under the same law Chevron has been using - 28 U.S.C. 1782, a statute designed to help parties obtain U.S.-based evidence for use in foreign proceedings. Ecuador is seeking to depose Diego Borja, one of two men who secretly videotaped a conversation with the original Ecuadorean judge in the case. In re Application of the Republic of Ecuador, 10-80225. Chevron claims the tapes showed the judge - who denied wrongdoing but recused himself - had already made up his mind to rule in the plaintiffs' favor as part of a bribery scheme. But Ecuador cites a report made by an investigator hired by the plaintiffs that suggests Borja is improperly linked to Chevron.

A spokesman for Chevron said the Borja videos were authenticated by forensic experts and that it was too soon to say whether the company would oppose Ecuador's deposition request. Ecuador's filing is just the latest chapter in litigation that dates back 17 years, spans three continents and includes allegations of corruption and collusion on both sides. The country's 1782 petition also comes after Chevron has had great success using the law to obtain discovery from people involved in the Ecuadorean case on the plaintiffs' side.

"Turn-around is certainly fair play," said Georgene M. Vairo, a professor at Loyola Law School. "It's appropriate for Ecuador to try to protect itself by looking into the alleged wrongdoing of Chevron. 1782 is there to do that."

Although Ecuador is not a party in the litigation within its borders, it is a defendant in an international arbitration Chevron initiated in The Hague last year under the Bilateral Investment Treaty between Ecuador and the United States. There, Chevron is seeking, among other things, a declaration that it has no liability for the damage in the Amazon because of a settlement Texaco signed with Ecuador in 1995 in which the oil company agreed to do some environmental clean-up and Ecuador agreed to release any claims against the company.

In the arbitration, Chevron alleges that it is being denied due process in Ecuador because of a corrupt judicial system. For its part, Ecuador wants to depose Borja about his employment history, his relationship to Chevron, his wife's relationship to Chevron and his meetings with the judge and others. The discovery request is "directly relevant to the Republic's defense in the Treaty Arbitration," Ecuador's attorneys from Winston & Strawn wrote in Friday's filing, and "will help determine the authenticity, importance and relevance of Chevron's videotape evidence, and to discover the underlying motives for Borja to produce such clandestine videotapes."

Ecuador is represented by Washington, D.C. partner Eric W. Bloom and New York partner C. MacNeil Mitchell, who did not respond to a request for comment. Richard A. Lapping, of the firm's San Francisco office, declined to comment. Cristina C. Arguedas, an attorney for Borja from Arguedas, Cassman & Headley in Berkeley, declined to comment.

"I think it is legitimate for [Ecuador] to investigate instances of judicial corruption," said Andrea E. Neuman, a Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner in Irvine and one of Chevron's lead attorneys. "It strikes me that the target of the investigation here would normally be the judge who was seen on these authenticated tapes soliciting a multimillion-dollar bribe."

Edward A. Klein, a partner at Liner Grode Stein Yankelevitz Sunshine Regenstreif & Taylor in Los Angeles who has handled 1782 cases said Chevron would be "pretty hard-pressed to resist Ecuador's efforts to get discovery in the United States given Chevron's liberal use of the 1782 process."

Chevron has used the 1782 statute to get a wide range of discovery - mostly aimed at proving their claim that consultants on the plaintiffs' side were behind the $27 billion damages estimate found in a court-appointed expert's report - for use in the proceedings in Ecuador and The Hague. Its highest-profile use of the law came when a New York federal judge - and later the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals - agreed with the company that a documentary filmmaker should turn over hundreds of hours of raw footage from "Crude," a film about the litigation (last week the same judge granted Chevron's request to depose the filmmaker). Earlier this month, a magistrate judge in New Mexico granted a discovery request for Chevron and cited the footage as one reason for doing so.

Karen Hinton, a spokeswoman for the plaintiffs in the Ecuadorean lawsuit, said Chevron's discovery efforts "are nothing but theatrics to draw attention away from what the company cannot deny, the overwhelming evidence that Texaco intentionally contaminated the rainforest and Chevron is now responsible for it."

In court papers, the plaintiffs have called Chevron's assertions that they have improperly colluded with the expert "hypocrisy," claiming Chevron's consultants' work appeared in the report of another court-appointed expert. No hearing date has been set on Ecuador's request to depose Borja.

rebecca_beyer@dailyjournal.com

The List Gets Longer and Longer

The long list of issues that show Chevron's shameless and very often
illegal attempts to hide its crimes in Ecuador and escape the
responsibility keeps on growing. Looks like the real picture of
Chevron is slowly coming out for all of us to see. The Chevron
Pit has posted a short summary of Chevron's
manipulative actions that have backfired and gave us a little preview
of the lengths Chevron will go to hide the truth. Here are some of
them:

· Diego Borja, a Chevron contractor in Ecuador, ran a “dirty tricks”
operation for the oil giant in Ecuador that attempted to ensnare the
trial judge in a corruption scandal, according to taped phone
conversations.

· Borja claimed that Chevron had “cooked” court evidence and that he
would turn against Chevron if company officials did not pay him what
they promised for videotapes he made of the judge in the lawsuit.
Widely covered by the news media, the videotapes were later
discredited.

· Chevron hired Kroll, the publicly traded investigations firm, to try
to pay an American journalist to become an undercover spy for the
company in Ecuador, according to a recent article in The Atlantic.

· Chevron’s lawyers had ex parte meetings with judges and have not
denied having ex-parte meetings with court-appointed experts on the
case – the exact same basis for Chevron’s false claims of “fraud”
against lawyers for the plaintiffs.

· The plaintiffs also produced evidence that a court-appointed expert
adopted many materials wholesale that were prepared by Chevron’s own
expert without citation – the exact same charge that Chevron has
leveled against the plaintiffs.

· Two Chevron officials are under criminal indictment in Ecuador for,
according to the charges, conspiring to defraud the government by
lying about the results of a sham remediation in the mid-1990s.
Chevron’s own tests submitted into evidence show illegal levels of
contamination at the so-called “remediated” sites.

· Due to a series of death threats from unknown sources, lawyers for
the plaintiffs and their families are now protected with armed
bodyguards.

Chevron, Did Cat Get Your Tongue?

Chevron has been very quiet recently and has not commented on the latest findings about Chevron’s manipulations, mistakes and blatant lying about the contamination in Ecuador. The audits I mentioned in my last blog that show Chevron is guilty of the pollution, unbelievable story of trying to hire a journalist spy to write false stories for Chevron and spying on the people whose lives were destroyed by Chevron. Staying quiet will not make it go away. We will not stop talking about it!

Here's what Chevron Pit has to say: Chevron Desperate Over Ecuador Disaster

Proof of Guilt

Two audits have been submitted to a U.S. Federal Court that show that Chevron is guilty of knowingly contaminating Ecuadorian rain forest and then lying about it. Those audits were conducted at Texaco’s request. (Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.) Looks like Chevron is getting lost in its own web of lies!

Read more here: Court Filing: Chevron’s Own Audits Prove Company Lied About Massive Pollution in Ecuador

Real Life Secret Agent Spy Story

One day there will be a movie made about the lengths Chevron has been going to in a desperate effort to avoid responsibility for the disaster in Ecuador. Hiring journalists to spy for Chevron and then write false stories is just one of Chevron’s many unethical and quite often illegal attempts to manipulate the facts. I’ve said that many times, Chevron clearly thinks it’s above law and goes ahead with any crazy idea, no matter the consequences, to get out of its own oily mess. What surprises me is that there are people who can be bought and will willingly get involved in Chevron’s dirty defense tactics. Sam Anson of Kroll is the latest accomplice. To find out more about this man, read Chevron Pit’s latest post

Chevron Says One Thing and Does Another

The Chevron Pit writes about yet another violation and a
shameless move by Chevron. Chevron’s lawyers fought hard to get the
footage from Joe Berlinger’s documentary “Crude” saying it was
necessary for Chevron’s defense and promising it will never be used
for anything else. For anyone who has followed Chevron’s dirty defense
campaign it shouldn’t be surprising to hear that the moment Chevron
got the film outtakes, it passed it along to bloggers.

“60 Minutes” Wins An Award For “Amazon Crude”

Two “60 Minutes” segments received Edward R. Murrow Award for
excellence in journalism. One of them was for the investigation into
the Chevron lawsuit. It is great news since Chevron has been trying
to discredit the report from the very beginning.

Click for more details: Hard-Hitting 60 Minutes Investigation of
Chevron's Toxic Legacy in Ecuador Wins Prestigious Journalism Award

EXPOSED

I blogged a few days ago about Chevron’s own lawyer admitting under oath that Chevron has been lying about so-called “remediation” agreement signed by the Ecuadorian government and using it to avoid paying for the environmental disaster Texaco caused. The Chevron Pit posted some of Perez Pallares’ statements which contradict Chevron’s main defense argument.

Disaster in the Amazon

On June 4th New York Times ran an interesting article about Chevron and Ecuador. You can read it here: Bob Herbert of NYT: Chevron Has Its Own Disaster In Ecuador

CAN YOU STOP US?

I guess Chevron's CEO John Watson wanted to show everyone how much he cares about the environment when he asked the government for stronger safety standards that would prevent disasters like the one happening in the Gulf of Mexico now from happening again. Doesn't it sound though like he is saying that unless the government stops the oil companies, they will do whatever they want? While trying to save money they will put our world at risk and if anything disastrous happens, they will just find ways to escape the responsibility.

Chevron's Watson to Feds: Stop Us Before We Hurt Somebody

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.
More details on The Chevron Pit



Bill Moyers

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.

Lies, Lies, Lies

Shushufindi 38

I am not surprised to hear that Chevron told a whole bunch of lies to Columbia Journalism Review’s Martha Hamilton about the well site Shushufindi 38, featured on 60 Minutes last year. What amazes me is that it took Chevron a whole year to respond to the CBS program.
Chevron is trying to blame Ecuadorian oil company Petroecuador, even though the court documents show that Texaco was the only operator at this site.
Chevron also claims there is no contamination at Shushufindi 38, while the test show that levels of toxins are over 400 higher than legal limits in Ecuador and over 4,000times the legal limit as allowed in most states in the US!

You can read more at The Chevron Pit blog: http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2010/04/chevron-lied-to-columbia-journalism.html