Chevron dumped over 16 billion gallons of wastewater polluting rivers and streams in the Ecuadorian rainforest. It is horrible especially since Chevron knew how harmful the toxins were, but what makes it even worse is the fact that Chevron had a safer system designed but chose NOT to use it in order to save money.
Watch this unbelievable video of an oil worker talking about Chevron instructing the employees to drain the chemicals straight into the environment.
Showing posts with label oil pit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil pit. Show all posts
Friday, February 25, 2011
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Terrifying Truth
Last month Chevron’s lawyer Andrea Neuman deposed an environmental expert William Power. The lawyer for the Amazonian communities suing Chevron took the opportunity and cross-examined Mr. Powers. His testimony revealed some horrifying truths about Chevron’s contamination in the Ecuadorian rain forest. Below you can read a few quotes, visit Chevron in Ecuador for more details and to read how Mr. Power’s testimony sent Chevron’s lawyers into total panic.
Q: Now, when Chevron-Texaco designed its pits in the Ecuadorian Amazon, what design did it use?
Powers: Dug a hole in the dirt and deposited the drilling muds in the unlined hole.
Q: And if Chevron-Texaco was designing those pits in the United States, would it have been able to dig a pit in the – and put in the drilling muds as you described?
Powers: No.
Q: What's the consequence of Chevron's design of its pits in the Lago Agrio concession?
Powers: Two consequences: the leeching of the chemicals into the ground, and ultimately into the ground water; and the overflow of the pits due to lack of maintenance and rain water and overflowing directly into the drainage channels surrounding that pit.
Q: And what's the basis for your conclusions concerning the Chevron-Texaco's pits?
Powers: Having viewed the pits and reviewed the nature of how those pits were designed, utilized, and the fact that – it is uncontested that the pits were left with drilling mud in them.
Q: And when Chevron developed the oil field in Ecuador, did it do so in conformity with standards for treatment of production water that were in place in the United States at the time that it was building its infrastructure in Ecuador?
Powers: No.
Q: Can you describe the ways in which Chevron's Ecuadorian concession fell below standards it would have been required to meet if that field were in the United States?
Powers: Based on the salinity and the produced water from the field, the company would have been required to reinject that water into a subsurface formation. Could not have operated that oil field or produced a single barrel of oil without having that produced water injection system operational.
Q: By failing to reinject production water in the Lago Agrio concession, what impact did that have on the environment in Lago Agrio?
Powers: It contaminated the surface water at the points where it was injected, not only with the high salinity of the produced water in an environment that has almost no natural salinity, but the trace contaminants of heavy metals and oil also contributed to the generalized contamination of that surface water.
Q: If you include the produced water in your comparison between the discharge into the environment from Chevron's Lago Agrio concession, when you compare that to the Exxon-Valdez oil discharge from that catastrophe, how would you compare them?
Powers: Both the produced water and the crude oil are toxic. The – you can argue about the relative toxicity of them both. But the amount of toxic liquids that should not have been in the environment in Ecuador was at least 30 times the quantity or the volume of crude that was spilled in the Exxon-Valdez disaster.
Q: Now, when Chevron-Texaco designed its pits in the Ecuadorian Amazon, what design did it use?
Powers: Dug a hole in the dirt and deposited the drilling muds in the unlined hole.
Q: And if Chevron-Texaco was designing those pits in the United States, would it have been able to dig a pit in the – and put in the drilling muds as you described?
Powers: No.
Q: What's the consequence of Chevron's design of its pits in the Lago Agrio concession?
Powers: Two consequences: the leeching of the chemicals into the ground, and ultimately into the ground water; and the overflow of the pits due to lack of maintenance and rain water and overflowing directly into the drainage channels surrounding that pit.
Q: And what's the basis for your conclusions concerning the Chevron-Texaco's pits?
Powers: Having viewed the pits and reviewed the nature of how those pits were designed, utilized, and the fact that – it is uncontested that the pits were left with drilling mud in them.
Q: And when Chevron developed the oil field in Ecuador, did it do so in conformity with standards for treatment of production water that were in place in the United States at the time that it was building its infrastructure in Ecuador?
Powers: No.
Q: Can you describe the ways in which Chevron's Ecuadorian concession fell below standards it would have been required to meet if that field were in the United States?
Powers: Based on the salinity and the produced water from the field, the company would have been required to reinject that water into a subsurface formation. Could not have operated that oil field or produced a single barrel of oil without having that produced water injection system operational.
Q: By failing to reinject production water in the Lago Agrio concession, what impact did that have on the environment in Lago Agrio?
Powers: It contaminated the surface water at the points where it was injected, not only with the high salinity of the produced water in an environment that has almost no natural salinity, but the trace contaminants of heavy metals and oil also contributed to the generalized contamination of that surface water.
Q: If you include the produced water in your comparison between the discharge into the environment from Chevron's Lago Agrio concession, when you compare that to the Exxon-Valdez oil discharge from that catastrophe, how would you compare them?
Powers: Both the produced water and the crude oil are toxic. The – you can argue about the relative toxicity of them both. But the amount of toxic liquids that should not have been in the environment in Ecuador was at least 30 times the quantity or the volume of crude that was spilled in the Exxon-Valdez disaster.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Atacapi 5- One of many Chevron's dirty secrets
Chevron needs to stop using the 1995 remediation agreement between Texaco and the Ecuadorian government as its defense. It is useless!!!! It required Texaco to clean up its oil pits but it has never been done.
The Chevron Pit just posted a chart showing that the oil sites Texaco said it remediated still show illegal levels of toxins.
Throwing some dirt on the top does not count as clean up!
Dirt laden with oil, dug only three inches deep from the pit at the well site, Atacapi 5
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