Chevron’s new “witness” in the
Ecuador case, Fernando Reyes, is the latest in a long line of company
operatives whose comments have backfired against the oil giant in the
long-running environmental litigation in Ecuador.
The
growing list of discredited Chevron witnesses features a convicted felon who
secretly videotaped a judge, an environmental expert who designed a soil
sampling plan to make sure Chevron did not find contamination, a Chevron
employee who ran a supposedly “independent” lab controlled by the oil company,
an independent academic who turned out to be affiliated with a think tank that
denies global warming, and a “technical expert” who turned out to be a former
top lobbyist for the chemical industry.
The Reyes story is turning out to
be more of the same.
Yesterday,
Chevron released a press bulletin about a declaration by Reyes that is replete with lies and spin.
Reyes
is an oil industry technician in Ecuador who worked briefly for the rainforest
communities several years ago as part of their effort to monitor Chevron’s
attempts to sabotage the trial. In his declaration – parts of which
appear to be written by Chevron lawyers -- Reyes claims the plaintiffs did not
believe in their own evidence, which is simply untrue as these summaries
demonstrate. See here, here, here, and here.
In
fact, Reyes could not point to one piece of evidence to contradict the
overwhelming scientific data (including more than 80,000 chemical sampling
results) that formed the basis for the $19 billion judgment against the
company. See here. Even Chevron’s own lawyer, Rodrigo Perez
Pallares, admitted in an advertisement the company deliberately dumped 16
billion gallons of toxic waste into Amazon waterways. See here and here. That’s about 85 times more oil waste
than BP spilled in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
It turns our that Reyes worked
for Fugro McClelland, a geotechnical consulting company paid by Chevron to
audit its operations in Ecuador in the early 1990s. He currently works
for Ivanhoe Energy, an oil industry stalwart with operations in China,
Mongolia, and Ecuador.
The Fugro audit, released during the trial of
Chevron in Ecuador, contradicts the contention by Reyes that the contamination
was not as severe as the lawyers claimed. That report said: “All produced
water from the production facilities eventually discharged to creeks and
streams” except for one of the 376 well sites and separation stations operated
by the company. See here and here for more details.
Reyes later worked for Fugro as
part of Chevron’s remediation in the mid-1990s, which is widely condemned as a sham.
That is to say, Reyes, by his own admission, took part in one of the largest environmental frauds in history – one that Chevron lawyers tried
to use as a defense in their failed strategy during the Ecuador trial.
Reyes
claims he was not paid for his affidavit. We’re not so sure. It was
signed in Colombia, so at a minimum he received an all-expenses paid trip to
that country – similar to the one Chevron offered Mary Cudahee, an American
journalist Chevron tried to recruit to spy on the plaintiffs.
Reyes was also trying to insinuate himself into the Ecuador case to make as
much as possible, according to Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer
for the rainforest communities.
We
clearly remember Chevron’s claim that Diego Borja, the Chevron contractor who
orchestrated a failed video entrapment scheme against a sitting judge in
Ecuador, was motivated by “civic duty”. Chevron’s scheme completely
backfired. Later, Borja admitted that the company paid him at least $2.2
million for his efforts while describing him as a “Good Samaritan”. See here.
Reyes
is yet another Chevron “witness” peddling junk science and fake facts. We
hope he shows up in court to face cross-examination so the truth can be fully
disclosed, unfiltered by Chevron’s legal team and the fake narrative being
peddled by the company’s six public relations agencies. Other witnesses
presented by Chevron in the Ecuador matter whose credibility was quickly blown
up include:
- Diego Borja, the mastermind of Chevron’s video entrapment scheme in Ecuador, ended up confessing he was paid $2.2 million for his services, that he “cooked” evidence during the trial by switching out dirty soil samples for clean ones before submitting them to a laboratory, and that he set up dummy companies for Chevron to make a lab controlled by the oil giant appear to the court like it was independent. See here and here.
- Borja’s partner Wayne Hansen, who Chevron portrayed as an “American businessman” who worked in the remediation field, was actually a felon convicted of importing 275,000 pounds of illegal narcotics into the United States.
- Sara Portilla, Borja's wife who ran Chevron's supposedly "independent" lab in Ecuador while her husband manipulated soil samples at the well sites; she now works for Chevron in the U.S. See here.
- John Conner, a Chevron technical expert who wrote a "playbook" directing the company's technicians to find only "clean" soil samples during the judicial inspections process; Conner has testified that Chevron paid his company at least $8 million for working in Ecuador.
- Ralph Marquez, formerly the lead lobbyist for the chemical industry in Texas who worked as in "independent" monitor for the Chevron during the Ecuador trial. Marquez is a Karl Rove ally whose main expertise is using junk science to protect corporate polluters.
- Douglas Southgate, a global warming denier and academic who worked as a consultant with Chevron.
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