Bill Moyers Blasts Chevron For Attacking First Amendment Rights

Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers, the celebrated and venerable journalist, blasted Chevron's recent attempt to force an independent filmmaker to turn over the 600 hours of private video outtakes from the documentary "Crude," in an article which appeared on the Huffington Post recently. "Crude" chronicles the legal struggle of more than 30,000 indigenous people and their lawyers in Ecuador where Chevron is accused of dumping more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste directly into the Amazon Rainforest.

Moyers, along with Michael Winship (the Director of the Writers Guild of America, East) wrote the article in response to Chevron's unprecedented attempt to force Joe Berlinger, the director of Crude, to allow Chevron to rummage through his files to find film footage that the oil company can take use to attack the litigation pending against the company in Ecuador. They were uncompromising in their condemnation of Chevron's maneuver, writing: "Chevron is trying to avoid responsibility and hopes to find in the unused footage -- material the filmmaker did not utilize in the final version of his documentary -- evidence helpful to the company in fending off potential damages of $27.3 billion…If we -- reporters, journalists, filmmakers -- are required to turn research, transcripts and outtakes over to a government or a corporation -- or to one party in a lawsuit -- the whole integrity of the process of journalism is in jeopardy; no one will talk to us."

Read the entire article here.

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Trudie Styler: Chevron caused "Hell" in Ecuador

Trudie Styler, the co-founder of the Rainforest Foundation with her husband Sting, blasted Chevron for its irresponsible behavior in Ecuador in an online interview last week with Katie Couric of CBS News. The interview was during the run-up to the Rainforest Foundation's annual fundraiser at Carnegie Hall, which featured inspired performances by Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Lada Gaga, and Elton John.

Styler on numerous occasions has visited Ecuador's Amazon region, where Chevron is accused in a lawsuit of dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste. She has partnered with UNICEF and the Amazon Defense Coalition to start a project to deliver clean water to the region. Her work was featured in Crude, a Joe Berlinger documentary about the lawsuit.

Styler told Couric: "I work in down in Ecuador, where we've seen the plight of the indigenous people there. They've had their lands decimated by Chevron, the oil company, and they have no clean water. They have no good land to grow anything on. This to me is sort of like, just an example of how we are completely ignorant to what their plight is. It doesn't apply to us, because it's not in our backyard…[in Ecuador] You
see a microcosm of what hell is really like for the people who lived with good air, with good water; they could fish from their streams. They could raise their children who were joyful in the sort of beautiful, simple lives they were living. Along comes oil companies…and they're left with nothing but illness."

Take a look:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

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BP, Chevron, and the Gulf spill: Lessons for CEO John Watson

Chevron CEO Watson: Open to new lessons?

Lost in the news about BP's Gulf spill is that Chevron has admitted dumping billions of gallons of oil sludge into Ecuador's Amazon, on purpose. Unlike BP, Chevron's executives, led by CEO John Watson, have not acknowledged they have any responsibility for the disastrous impacts on the environment and the damage caused to human health.

As background, thousands of indigenous persons and farmers from Ecuador's Amazon have been in litigation against Chevron over the damage for almost two decades. The case was filed in U.S. federal court in 1993, but shifted to Ecuador at Chevron's request as part of its stratagem to evade accountability. Now that the trial in Ecuador is almost over and the evidence clearly stacks up against Chevron, the oil giant is looking for what it hopes will be greener courtroom pastures.

Chevron is accused of deliberately discharging more than 18 billion gallons of "produced water" (salty water which contains chemicals, including at times the carcinogen benzene) into the rivers and streams of this once pristine ecosystem covering an area roughly the size of Rhode Island. Texaco, now owned by Chevron, operated a large oil concession there from 1964 to 1990 and was the mastermind of the polluting scheme that Chevron now defends. (When Chevron bought Texaco in 2001, Watson was the young Chevron executive in charge of the integration of the companies.)

In a classic example of corporate colonialism, Chevron's public relations flaks have called the indigenous leaders behind the lawsuit everything from liars to con men. Chevron has even claimed that the higher incidences of cancer, spontaneous miscarriages, birth defects, and other diseases are due to a lack of "sanitation" and the poor personal hygiene of the local residents. It's the theory that body odor causes cancer.

Creepy, to say the least.

Chevron has admitted that it had dumped more than 15 billion gallons of "produced water" into the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. "Produced Water" is ten times saltier than ocean water. In Ecuador, it equates roughly to 2% pure crude oil, meaning that Chevron had admitted dumping more than 30x the amount of oil spilled in the infamous Exxon Valdez disaster.

Yet the Valdez disaster (like the BP situation in the Gulf) was still an accident -- in Ecuador, the disaster was deliberately planned by Chevron as a mechanism to save costs.

Click to take a look at the advertisement placed by Chevron during the trial in a leading Ecuadorian newspaper. In the ad, the company admits that it dumped billions of gallons of produced water in to the Amazon – with the admission highlighted.

The advertisement – which was purchased by Chevron lawyer Rodrigo Perez Pallares – translates to: "3. While in Ecuador, the consortium poured 15.834 billion gallons between 1972 and 1990 during the entire period of Texaco's operation of the consortium, i.e. an annual average of 880 million gallons."

Talk about an admission of guilt. With lawyers like Perez Pallares, it is no wonder Chevron is having a hard time evading its liability in Ecuador.

In the advertisement Perez Pallares plainly admits that Chevron discharged toxic waste – and experts advising the plaintiffs have estimated, based on well records, that Chevron is undercounting the amount of produced water it dumped. The real number is over 18 billion gallons.

Chevron tries to blame Petroecuador for the problem, given that Texaco turned over this substandard operating system to that company in 1992. Yet Texaco was the party that exclusively designed, engineered, constructed and operated this system – sort of like of building the Valdez with a big hole in its hull, thereby guaranteeing it would gush oil as it cruised the world's oceans.

Petroecuador has now converted over to "reinjection wells" and is no longer discharging produced water. That is, this cash-strapped company already has done far more to protect the environment than cash-flush Chevron ever did with its First World technology.

Chevron won't cop to its misconduct. Instead, the oil giant claims that the "produced water" is safe to discharge into the sensitive ecosystem of the rainforest – no matter what alarm bells scientists ring. Perez Pallares and Chevron's other lawyers have made this preposterous claim during the trial while sipping bottled water imported from Quito.

Chevron needs to understand is that it is not legally or morally permissible to dump billions of gallons of cancer-causing industrial run-off into the drinking water of your neighbors just so you can inflate your profits. In this case, the drinking water was that of indigenous groups in Ecuador that had lived prosperously in the rainforest for centuries until Texaco showed up.

In its 26 years in Ecuador, Chevron never conducted a single environmental impact study or health evaluation. It never released any test results to determine the level of toxicity of the sludge it was discharging. That's either outright deception, or willful blindness. It is still practiced today by Chevron's executives, none of whom have visited the disaster zone in Ecuador.

It is high time for Chevron's executives to accept responsibility for the harm and destruction their company continues to cause in Ecuador. They might start by admitting that Texaco and Perez Pallares used the fraudulent TCLP laboratory test to lie to Ecuador's government about a purported clean-up in the mid-1990s, for which the company received a "release" from certain government officials.

Compared to Chevron's executives, BP's managers are starting to look like saints. They at least grunt about accepting responsibility. BP engineers at least seem to be trying to stem the awful leak.

They have a long way to go, but in the Gulf they are a marathon's distance ahead of Chevron's John Watson in Ecuador.

Visit www.chevrontoxico.com for more information.

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Bill Moyers: Chevron's "Crude" Attempt to Suppress Free Speech

This article, by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, appeared on The Huffington Post.

Chevron's "Crude" Attempt to Suppress Free Speech

Even as headlines and broadcast news are dominated by BP's fire-ravaged, sunken offshore rig and the ruptured well gushing a reported 210,000 gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico, there's another important story involving Big Oil and pollution -- one that shatters not only the environment but the essential First Amendment right of journalists to tell truth and shame the devil.

(Have you read, by the way, that after the surviving, dazed and frightened workers were evacuated from that burning platform, they were met by lawyers from the drilling giant Transocean with forms to sign stating they had not been injured and had no first-hand knowledge of what had happened?! So much for the corporate soul.)

But our story is about another petrochemical giant -- Chevron -- and a major threat to independent journalism. In New York last Thursday, Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered documentary producer and director Joe Berlinger to turn over to Chevron more than 600 hours of raw footage used to create a film titled Crude: The Real Price of Oil.

Released last year, it's the story of how 30,000 Ecuadorians rose up to challenge the pollution of their bodies, livestock, rivers and wells from Texaco's drilling for oil there, a rainforest disaster that has been described as the Amazon's Chernobyl. When Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001 and attempted to dismiss claims that it was now responsible, the indigenous people and their lawyers fought back in court.

Some of the issues and nuances of Berlinger's case are admittedly complex, but they all boil down to this: Chevron is trying to avoid responsibility and hopes to find in the unused footage -- material the filmmaker did not utilize in the final version of his documentary -- evidence helpful to the company in fending off potential damages of $27.3 billion.

This is a serious matter for reporters, filmmakers and frankly, everyone else. Tough, investigative reporting without fear or favor -- already under siege by severe cutbacks and the shutdown of newspapers and other media outlets -- is vital to the public awareness and understanding essential to a democracy. As Michael Moore put it, "The chilling effect of this is, [to] someone like me, if something like this is upheld, the next whistleblower at the next corporation is going to think twice about showing me some documents if that information has to be turned over to the corporation that they're working for."

In an open letter on Joe Berlinger's behalf, signed by many in the non-fiction film business (including the two of us), the Independent Documentary Association described Chevron's case as a "fishing expedition" and wrote that, "At the heart of journalism lies the trust between the interviewer and his or her subject. Individuals who agree to be interviewed by the news media are often putting themselves at great risk, especially in the case of television news and documentary film where the subject's identity and voice are presented in the final report.

"If witnesses sense that their entire interviews will be scrutinized by attorneys and examined in courtrooms they will undoubtedly speak less freely. This ruling surely will have a crippling effect on the work of investigative journalists everywhere, should it stand."

Just so. With certain exceptions, the courts have considered outtakes of a film to be the equivalent of a reporter's notebook, to be shielded from the scrutiny of others. If we -- reporters, journalists, filmmakers -- are required to turn research, transcripts and outtakes over to a government or a corporation -- or to one party in a lawsuit -- the whole integrity of the process of journalism is in jeopardy; no one will talk to us.

In his decision, Judge Kaplan wrote that, "Review of Berlinger's outtakes will contribute to the goal of seeing not only that justice is done, but that it appears to be done." He also quoted former Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis' famous maxim that "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants."

There is an irony to this, noted by Frank Smyth of the Committee to Protect Journalists.Brandeis "made his famous sunlight statement about the need to expose bankers and investors who controlled 'money trusts' to stifle competition, and he later railed against not only powerful corporations but the lawyers and other members of the bar who worked to perpetuate their power"

In a 1905 speech before the Harvard Ethical Society, Brandeis said, "Instead of holding a position of independence, between the wealthy and the people, prepared to curb the excesses of either, able lawyers have, to a large extent, allowed themselves to become adjuncts of great corporations and have neglected the obligation to use their powers for the protection of the people."

Now, more than a century later, Chevron, the third largest corporation in America, according to Forbes Magazine, has hauled out their lawyers in a case that would undermine the right of journalists to protect the people by telling them the truth. Joe Berlinger and his legal team have asked Judge Kaplan to suspend his order pending an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

As the Independent Documentary Association asserts, "This case offers a clear and compelling argument for more vigorous federal shield laws to protect journalists and their work, better federal laws to protect confidential sources, and stronger standards to prevent entities from piercing the journalists' privilege. We urge the higher courts to overturn this ruling to help ensure the safety and protection of journalists and their subjects, and to promote a free and vital press in our nation and around the world."

Bill Moyers is president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. Michael Winship is president of the Writers Guild of America, East. Rebecca Wharton conducted original research for this article.

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Gulf Oil Disaster an Ominous Sign for Chevron

In what can only be interpreted as an ominous development for Chevron in its 17-year odyssey to escape liability for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste in Ecuador's Amazon, The Economist reported this week that BP faces complete liability for the Deepwater Horizon disaster and that the event has already reduced the capitalization of the company by $30 billion, or roughly 16% of its market value.

Specifically, the magazine reported that:

The costs fall to BP because, as the majority shareholder in the consortium leasing the Deepwater Horizon (the junior partners are America's Anadarko and Japan's Mitsui) and the project's operator, it is liable under American law for the costs of cleaning up.

(Under U.S. law either being the majority shareholder OR being the operator is sufficient to make a company liable for the costs of cleaning up).

Why is this ominous for Chevron? Because one its main excuses to avoid a potential $27.3 billion liability in Ecuador is that it doesn't currently own the oil fields where it contaminated, even though it operated them alone for 25 years from 1965 to 1990.

Nice try, John Watson (Chevron CEO) and Hew Pate (Chevron General Counsel).

What Watson and Pate try to hide from the public markets is what the Economist recognizes: under the law, the operator of the oil fields is 100% responsible for any pollution caused under its watch, regardless of the overall ownership structure.

So as BP is responsible for the damage caused in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it is setting a harrowing precedent for Chevron – one that must have the lawyers and executives in the company casting a wary eye at the company's toxic legacy in Ecuador. A damages assessment in the trial there (taking place in Ecuador at Chevron's request) places the cost of clean-up at roughly $27 billion, with a final decision expected later this year.

Chevron has refused to fully disclose this potential liability in its SEC filings. Stay tuned.

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Obama, Ecuador, and Chevron: Big Oil’s Hypocrisy

As the economic and environmental losses mount on the Gulf Coast so do the similarities between the growing BP oil spill and the existing oil contamination in the Ecuadorian rainforest, the latter courtesy of Chevron.

First and foremost, they both are ecological disasters that have forever changed the landscape’s environment and way of life for both the people and business owners of the Gulf Coast and the indigenous tribes of Ecuador.

In testimony on Capitol Hill BP, Transocean and Halliburton blamed each other for the accidental spill on the Gulf Coast, sounding much like Chevron in Ecuador, where the oil company has blamed everyone but itself for the billions of gallons of oil and toxic water dumped intentionally into the rainforest by Texaco, purchased by Chevron in 2001.

BP blamed Transocean and Transocean blamed Halliburton, just as Chevron has blamed Ecuador’s state-owned oil company, Petroecuador, and, oddly enough, even Texaco, arguing that just because it bought the oil company does not mean it is responsible for what Texaco did. (Never mind that this argument undoes about 150 years of legal rulings.)

Like Chevron, BP and its oil exploration partners are being very careful in their public statements about legal liability. But U.S. and Ecuadorian laws are clear on this point. The Economist reported this week that because BP is “majority shareholder in the consortium” and the “project’s operator, it is liable under American law for the costs of cleaning up.” Under US law either being the majority shareholder or being the operator is sufficient to make a company liable for the costs of cleaning up. Texaco was the exclusive operator of the oil well sites in Ecuador.

Meanwhile, President Obama has not been shy about pointing his finger directly at BP.

Twelve days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama, visited Venice, Louisiana, to meet with local fishermen, industry representatives and local leaders. President Obama made it clear BP was to blame for the spill:

“BP is responsible for this leak — BP will be paying the bill,” he said.

President Obama’s press secretary said the White House would “keep a boot to the throat of BP” to ensure that it fulfilled its responsibilities.

In 2007, six months after his election as President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa visited the former concession area of Texaco, now owned by Chevron, to see firsthand the contamination and destruction left behind by the oil company after almost three decades of oil exploration. President Correa expressed support and concern for the residents who suffer from cancer, respiratory illness and other diseases as a result of living near toxic materials. He lifted soil from the ground and stated the obvious, “Soil with oil, friends.”

He was the first President of Ecuador to visit the contaminated sites since Texaco left Ecuador in 1992.

Chevron’s new attack-dog law firm, Gibson Dunn, points to this moment as evidence that Ecuador is a corrupt and backwards country and that Chevron cannot get a fair trial there -- even though Chevron pleaded with a U.S. court to move the lawsuit to Ecuador in the first place.

When President Correa visited several of over 900 unlined oil pits where Texaco left its toxic sludge, Chevron said it was “sorry” the President had gotten involved by expressing concern for the people living in the contaminated area.

Is Chevron sorry the President of the United States did the same thing on the Gulf Coast? Does Chevron think the United States is a corrupt and backwards country?

Chevron is drowning not only in a multi-billion liability in Ecuador, but also in its own hypocrisy.

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The Real Corruption Is In The Ground, Not In Film Footage

In yet another 11th hour tactic to divert attention from a pending judgment in the $27 billion lawsuit Chevron faces in the Ecuadorian rainforest for extensive oil contamination, the oil company is trying to get its hands on all of the footage left on the cutting room floor of Joe Berlinger’s highly-acclaimed documentary Crude.

Filmmakers Michael Moore and Ric Burns have criticized Chevron’s actions. What Chevron hopes to find in the footage is not clear. What is clear is that the corruption is not in some 600 hours of videotapes. It’s in the ground and the underground water supply of the rainforest for anyone to see and smell. Chevron's quest for the footage is just another last-minute sideshow to taint the judicial process that is proving the case against Chevron, including some 62,000 chemical sampling results, the vast majority of which were provided by Chevron, that overwhelmingly show massive contamination at well sites drilled and explored by Texaco. In fact, Chevron intentionally dumped so much toxic sludge that it would take dozens of years for the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico to spill as much.

But Chevron’s actions in Ecuador were no accident; there was no explosion, no unexpected spill. Instead, Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, designed, installed, and operated a substandard oil extraction system that purposefully dumped some 18 billion gallons of toxic produced water directly into the populated rainforest’s streams and waterways and filled over 900 unlined oil pits to permanently store the oil and formation water waste left over from oil extraction. Since the 70s, this toxic brew has leeched and continues to leech into the soil and into the streams and waterways. Texaco knew it actions would pollute the environment and endanger the residents’ health.

Today the fishermen and shrimp boaters on the Gulf Coast fear the worst. In Ecuador, the indigenous and farmer communities in the region have lived it.

In the more than 40 years since Texaco first stepped foot in the region, many of the people have lost their livelihoods, their homes and, in many instances, friends and family to cancer and other diseases.

But instead of trying to fix the problem, Chevron has done nothing but try to cover up the disaster it inherited from Texaco, treating the whole disaster as an image problem to be managed, rather than a humanitarian and environmental crisis to be fixed. It has worked for Chevron so far, and clearly the oil company sees no reason to stop.

Notwithstanding Chevron's smoke and mirrors campaign, we still believe that at the end of the day Chevron will be held accountable for its indefensible and unconscionable conduct in the Amazon.

For more information, see these two blogs:
Chevron's Swift Boat Lies
Contempt for Investigative Journalism

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Did Chevron Lawyer Callejas Direct “Dirty Tricks” Operation?

Question: What role did Chevron's lead lawyer in Ecuador, Adolfo Callejas, have in directing the company's "dirty tricks" operation that was used to delay the multi-billion dollar environmental damages case?

Callejas has become Mr. Silent as evidence mounts that he was involved in a corruption scandal involving Chevron contractor (and member of the Callejas trial team) Diego Borja. Callejas has refused to answer even a single question about how Borja became embroiled – at Chevron's apparent behest – in a corruption scandal where he secretly videotaped a trial judge doing essentially nothing and then claimed the judge was involved in a bribery scheme (Chevron's allegations about the judge have been completely discredited).

As new evidence has implicated Chevron's legal team in a whole range of dubious activities – including "cooking" evidence submitted by the oil giant to the Court, creating dummy corporations to form "independent labs" that company lawyers would control, etc. – it would be appropriate for Chevron's General Counsel, Hewitt Pate, to step up and tell what he knows about possible misconduct from his own lawyers in Ecuador.

After Chevron posted the videos of the judge on YouTube and demanded an official "investigation", Callejas swore to the Ecuador Court that Borja was an independent third party who turned over the tapes to Chevron out of a sense of civic duty. We now know – through Borja himself – that he worked for Chevron on the environmental trial since at least 2004, supervising field sampling for the company, and that he shared an office building with Callejas and his Chevron colleagues in Ecuador's capital of Quito. Through at least the end of last year (and presumably to this day) Chevron was paying Borja the princely sum of $10,000 per month, a true millionaire's wage in Ecuador.

Borja also was caught on an audio recording telling a friend that he created a dummy company to make a Chevron lab appear "independent" when it was actually run by his wife. Borja's signature, and that of his wife, are on chain-of-custody documents for soil samples gathered during the trial at the direction of Callejas and the Chevron legal team.

Now Callejas has come under fire, and faces possible sanctions, in Ecuador for misleading the Ecuadorian Court when he told the judge that Borja was an independent third party when in fact he worked for the legal team being run by Callejas. Gives some insight into Chevron's peculiar brand of truth-telling, doesn't it?

One might wonder: What else did Callejas and Chevron lie to the court about relating to the dirty tricks operation? Why did Chevron, under false pretenses related to supposed "threats" against him, move Borja out of Ecuador and set him up in a luxury house paid for by Chevron's oil revenue only one mile from its world headquarters in San Ramon, CA?

One easy way to answer this question would be to ask Borja what happened in Ecuador. That's not possible now, because Chevron hired him a criminal defense lawyer and continues to pay him a salary (read: hush money) for sitting around his backyard pool which abuts a golf course.

This sort of delay, misdirection, and dishonesty is about par for the course for Chevron's legal team.

After all, two Chevron lawyers are currently under indictment in Ecuador (and fugitives from justice, living in the United States) for conspiring to falsify remediation results to induce the Government of Ecuador into "releasing" the company from further liability to the government for the company's actions in the area. Ten Ecuadorian government officials with whom they worked face the same charges.

Callejas needs to come clean and explain his relationship to Borja and the secret videos.

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BP: 200,000 gallons per day by accident. Chevron: 4 million gallons per day on purpose.

Try comparing the environmental disaster that Chevron created in Ecuador's Amazon to the oil slick that now threatens the Gulf Coast states.

The disaster at "Deepwater Horizon" is causing an oil well to bleed some 200,000 gallons of oil a day into the ecosystem. And this was a horrible accident.

If you can believe it, this is only a fraction of what Texaco (now Chevron) deliberately dumped in Ecuador's rainforest when it operated hundreds of oil wells there from 1964 to 1990.

Chevron has admitted that Texaco dumped toxic "produced water" into the Ecuadorian rainforest and into the streams and rivers that 30,000 people used for their bathing and drinking water. "Produced water" can contain a toxic mixture of chemicals, including benzene and other components of crude oil. Some believe that approximately 2% of produced water is pure crude oil.

Over the course of 26 years, Chevron has acknowledged that it dumped more than 18.5 billion gallons of the industrial waste into the waterways of the populated and sensitive ecosystem, or 4 million gallons per day at the height of its operation. Put another way, Chevron's dumping of 18.5 billion gallons of produced water is the equivalent of discharging 332 million gallons of crude directly into the rainforest.

Without taking anything away from the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico, at the rate that the Deepwater Horizon spill is going, it will have to discharge 200,000 gallons per day for 1,660 days to dump as much oil as Chevron deliberately dumped into the Ecuadorian rainforest. That is a little over 4.5 years.

And that only accounts for the pure crude oil Chevron dumped – not the oil it spilled from shoddy operation practices, or the 98% of the "produced water" that isn't pure crude, but encompasses a toxic "cocktail" of industrial runoff, salty water, and other chemicals. If you want to start comparing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to the entirety of Chevron's dumping in Ecuador (all the produced water it has admitted to dumping, not just the crude oil), consider this: at a rate of 200,000 gallons a day, the Deepwater Horizon spill would have to go on for 92,500 days to spill 18.5 billion gallons into the environment. 92,500 days. 253 years. And no, that isn't a typo.

The worst part? Deepwater Horizon was an accident. But Chevron's actions in Ecuador, through its predecessor company Texaco, were the product of a system designed to dump toxic waste directly into the environment to keep production costs to a bare minimum.

Since the Deepwater Horizon incident happened, BP has taken full responsibility for the spill. More than 2,500 people have been mobilized to respond to the disaster, and the company has insisted that it will pay for a full clean up. Of course, we will see what ultimately happens – but at least it's a good start.

Chevron's response to their disaster in Ecuador? The opposite. Chevron has launched a full-scale litigation war to cover up the disaster and the company's own fraud in a purported remediation in the mid-1990s. It has committed fraud on the court by engaging in deceptive sampling practices and by controlling a laboratory that it represented as independent, according to audio recordings of one of Chevron's longtime contractors involved in the fraud, Diego Borja.

If the Ecuador disaster happened within the U.S., Chevron would be pressured and shamed into cleaning it up. In Ecuador, where the company disregarded the rights of the local indigenous groups on its way to ever higher profits, we see nothing of the sort.

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Chevron Paying Whistleblower Diego Borja to Keep Quiet About Evidence Tampering

Several weeks ago, the indigenous and farmer communities revealed new information that Chevron "cooked" evidence in the Lago Agrio trial in order to avoid a judgment in the long-running lawsuit – and that the oil company was providing financial support to whistleblower Diego Borja to prevent him from going public with the company's fraud. Among Chevron's gross misdeeds in Ecuador, according to Borja: the oil giant directed Borja to create dummy companies in Ecuador to make it appear that a laboratory Chevron used to process soil and water samples during the environmental trial was independent, when in fact it was controlled by the company.

The Plaintiffs have long contended that Chevron was intentionally and fraudulently using bogus lab testing procedures to artificially lower the amount of contamination reported to the Court.

Borja, an Ecuadorian who was responsible for handling soil and water samples for Chevron during the environmental trial, was captured on audiotapes provided by childhood friend Santiago Escobar as saying Chevron "cooked" the evidence in the trial, and that he [Borja] has "correspondence about things you can't even imagine, dude….I can't talk about them here, dude, because I'm afraid, but they're things that can make the Amazons win this just like that (snapping his fingers)." (Click here for more information. See Transcript 4, October 1, 2009 p. 3, 7-9)

Borja was quoted demanding a "business partner(ship)" with Chevron that would pay off "like a big brass ring" in exchange for not turning over the evidence to the authorities. (See Transcript 2, October 1, 2009, pg. 6) He also bragged to Escobar, in reference to his work for Chevron, that "crime does pays." (See Transcript 1, October 1, 2009 p. 6)

At the time of the recording, Borja was (and apparently still is) receiving payment from Chevron for a number of expenses. Some might call this "hush money" to ensure Borja doesn't sing with too sweet a melody about Chevron's fraud in Ecuador. Among Chevron's payments to Borja:

A monthly stipend: On the tapes, Borja said that he made $10,000 per month while living in Ecuador and that Chevron is paying him an amount that allows him to live at the same level in the United States. Given that the cost of living in Ecuador is much lower than the U.S., the amount Chevron is now paying Borja is probably a healthy multiple of $10,000.

Re-location costs: In June 2009, Chevron obtained visas from the U.S. government and paid expenses to re-locate Borja and his family from Ecuador to San Ramon, California, Chevron's headquarters. Borja's wife, Sara Portilla, worked for Chevron for several years and apparently ran a Chevron laboratory that processed samples from the trial, even though Chevron had told the court the laboratory was independent.

Legal fees: Chevron has told reporters the company is covering Borja's legal expenses, including the fees of his criminal defense attorney, Chris Arguedes. Arguedes is a well-known criminal defense lawyer who represents Barry Bonds, among other notables. Paying for Borja's lawyer ensures that Chevron will limit the chance he has to be questioned by authorities about Chevron's own role in the fraud.

Housing: Borja said on the tapes Chevron is paying for a fully-furnished $6,000 per month house with a swimming pool in a gated community in San Ramon.

Car: Chevron is making a Saturn SUV available for Borja and Portilla to drive.

Security: Chevron is providing a security detail for Borja.

From living in Ecuador to living the high life in California – for Diego Borja, it is clear that crimes does pay.

(Click here <http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/borja-report/> for more information. See Transcript 3, October 1, 2009, pgs. 12-15)

Chevron has refused to comment on Borja's statements.

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More On Chevron’s Lies To Dupe Columbia Journalism Review

In a previous entry, we detailed how Chevron lied to Columbia Journalism Review writer Martha Hamilton about the operation of a well site called Shushufindi 38 in the Ecuadorian rainforest and the amount of toxic contamination at the well to convince her that 60 Minutes had not been fair to Chevron in its coverage of an environmental lawsuit against the oil company for extensive oil contamination.

Chevron told her the government-owned oil company Petroecuador operated the site, and fecal matter, not oil, had contaminated the well. Both statements are flat-out lies that Hamilton accepted as fact but 60 Minutes checked and, as a result, did not report.

Upon further review, it looks like Chevron also lied to her about the drinking water well site near the oil well site.

A water sample taken in the trial directly from this freshwater well showed toxic levels of likely carcinogens and harmful heavy metals that are derived from oil, including benzo[a]pyrene, indeno[1,2,3]pyrene, and cadmium. The U.S. government has determined that each of these chemicals are likely or probable carcinogens, as reflected in a toxic substance registry maintained at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. See this press release about the water well.

In her critique of the coverage, Hamilton wrote that the news show should have stated Petroecuador was responsible for the cleanup of the well site under a 1995 agreement. (It's unclear if she meant drinking water or oil well, but either way both has dangerous levels of contamination.)

But the agreement she references is the centerpiece of the legal dispute, as 60 Minutes clearly says. Following the visuals of Shushufindi 38, the news show states:

"Chevron says the pollution is now the responsibility of Petroecuador. That dispute is at the heart of the lawsuit."

Even though Hamilton says she is not weighing in on the merits of the lawsuit, one has to wonder why she did not contact the plaintiffs to check basic facts, something that we are sure Columbia Journalism Review would encourage all journalists to do.

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Chevron Lied To Columbia Journalism Review About Toxic Oil Well

Shushufindi 38, the famous pit closed by Texaco in 1984 as seen in recent months. Chevron’s tests found no contamination here.

Chevron has told the highly respected Columbia Journalism Review a flat-out lie about an oil well site in Ecuador and the harmful level of contamination found at the site’s oil pit, featured in a 60 Minutes piece that aired almost a year ago.

In a critique of 60 Minutes’ coverage of the eco-disaster lawsuit filed by indigenous tribes in Ecuador against Chevron, CJR writer Martha Hamilton said the CBS news show should have reported that the government-owned oil company Petroecuador operated the well site Shushufindi 38 after Texaco left Ecuador in 1992.

Had Hamilton contacted the plaintiffs in the lawsuit about her pending critique, she would have learned that Chevron lied to her. Court documents clearly show that only Texaco operated the well site, which Texaco closed in 1984.

Chevron also told Hamilton that soil tests turned up no contamination at the site. Again, court documents clearly show this to be false. Tests from the plaintiffs revealed illegal levels of toxins at over 400 times the Ecuador legal limit of 1,000 parts per million of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons and over 4,000 times the legal limit as allowed in most states in the United States (about 100 ppm of TPH).

For copies of these court documents, go to:

http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/pkshu38closed1984.jpg
http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/pktexacopits.pdf

Chevron’s tests at the well site pictured above, on the other hand, showed no contamination. Why? Chevron took its test samples uphill and away from the well site. Taking soil samples far away and uphill from toxic waste sites where Chevron knows it will find little or no contamination, and then using those same samples to report the toxic waste sites pose no risk to human health, is part of the company’s fraud in the Ecuador litigation.

Hamilton also argues that 60 Minutes should have spent more time explaining the 1995 remediation agreement between Texaco and the government of Ecuador. Hamilton reported that Petroecuador is responsible for cleaning up Shushufindi 38, but we disagree.

If 60 Minutes had spent more time explaining the remediation agreement, viewers would have understood why we disagree, and Chevron would have looked even worse. Viewers would have learned that Texaco and Ecuador’s government negotiated the agreement after the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in the US in 1993. They also would have learned that the agreement applied only to potential government claims, and expressly excluded the private claims being heard in the lawsuit.

Viewers also would have been told about how Texaco claimed to have cleaned about 16% of over 900 oil pits built by Texaco, a clear violation of its agreement with Ecuador’s government (which required it to clean 37% of the pits). Yet Texaco didn’t actually clean those pits. It just bulldozed dirt over them. Hundreds of tests taken at these “remediated” oil pits demonstrate they are as toxic as the pits that Texaco didn’t clean. Even Chevron’s tests submitted into court evidence show that Texaco did not clean these pits. The entire clean-up on which Chevron’s defense rests was a sham.

Because Texaco said it cleaned the pits, people living in the area thought they were cleaned so they built homes directly on top of toxic waste dumps. Here’s an example at a so-called “remediated” pit at Shushufindi 43.

A home built on top of Texaco’s toxic oil pit at Shushufindi 43.

As a result, Texaco’s phony cleanup resulted in putting people even closer to the contamination, increasing the risk of exposure to harmful chemicals. Match that up with the fact Chevron has never issued a warning to the local population that the pits are dangerous hazardous waste sites.

Had Hamilton contacted both sides, she could have written a completely different story: about how Chevron is attacking 60 Minutes so it can divert attention from its cover-up of Texaco’s phony cleanup.

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Chevron – Produce The iPhone & Evidence Your Contractor Has

A Chevron contractor in Ecuador, Diego Borja, claims the company cooked evidence and created dummy corporations to process laboratory samples – all in an effort to avoid a judgment in a large environmental trial.

Diego Borja

Chevron’s response: No comment.

But that’s just not good enough. Chevron should answer the explosive questions raised by Borja and turn over any evidence that Borja has regarding the lawsuit filed by Ecuadorians living near and, in some cases, on top of oil pits filled with toxic chemicals that were left in Ecuador by Texaco.. (See other posts on The Chevron Pit that feature people living near the pits who have died from cancer.)

Borja says he has the proof of his allegations on his iPhone and in documents stored in Ecuador. Borja says his wife, Sarah Portilla (also a Chevron contractor), knows everything as well. More details about the damaging evidence

In fact, Borja’s relationship with Chevron is a family affair in place for at least three decades. Borja’s uncle has worked for Chevron for 30 years and owns the building where Chevron’s Quito attorneys lease office space, and where his nephew and Portilla have offices as well. One big unanswered question is the role of Chevron’s Ecuador-based legal team in working with Borja in his questionable efforts to undermine due process of law. Borja is now being paid a substantial sum by Chevron for carrying out his various dirty tricks operations.

In conversations with a childhood friend, Santiago Escobar, Borja tells him that he collected soil and water samples at contaminated well sites on behalf of Chevron and that he and his wife accepted the samples as representatives of Chevron’s “independent” laboratory, Severn Trent Labs, Inc. and then stored them in their office refrigerator. Court records obtained by the plaintiffs show Borja and Portilla’s signatures on chain of custody documents. of documents Download PDF

Borja says that Chevron’s lab is not independent, and that it “belonged” to Chevron and that he rented a house where a Chevron lab was located in Ecuador. Yet Chevron presented laboratory samples to the court during the trial from an independent lab.

What is also clear is that Borja expects Chevron to pay him handsomely for the so-called “bribery” videotapes that he recorded on Chevron’s behalf.
More details on Chevron's efforts to derail the lawsuit

The Ecuadorians, who are suffering the consequences of Chevron’s actions, as well as Chevron’s own shareholders, deserve answers to the disturbing charges leveled by Borja.

Here’s a sampling of just a few of Borja’s troubling statements:

“Chevron always stayed, supposedly, independent, and sent the analysis to have them analyzed… But I know that’s not true … I have proof that they [laboratories] were more than connected, they belonged to them.” . (Transcript 6, October 1, 2009 p. 6-8; Transcript 11, October 1, 2009, p. 6)

“I have correspondence that talks about things you can’t even imagine, dude….I can’t talk about them here, dude, because I’m afraid, but they’re things that can make the Amazons win this just like that (snapping his fingers).” ).” (Transcript 4, October 1, 2009 p. 3, 7-9)

“….if the judge here (in the U.S.) finds out that the company did cooked things, he’ll say, ‘Tomorrow we better close them down,’ you get it?” (Transcript 6, October 1, 2009 p. 10-11)

When he first spoke with Chevron about the videos, Borja said he expected to be covered in terms of security and economically – “in everything” after handing over the videos. He told them, “Obviously, I’m not going to ask for anything now, because it would ruin everything.” Chevron told him not to worry, but it is “totally understood.” (Transcript 21, October 7, 2009 p. 11)

According to Borja, Chevron told him “We can’t give you money because…it would compromise the evidence…. What we can do is (make you) our business partner.” Borja continued, “Now, that little word means a lot of things, right?”
When Escobar then said, “the objective is to become their partner. I mean, once you’re a partner of the guys, you’ve got it made,” Borja replied, “That’s right you dog. So, I… I’ve seen how things work here now. I mean, it’s a brass ring this big, brother.” (Transcript 2, October 1, 2009 p. 6)

Borja said he formed four companies for Chevron in order to make the work he did appear to be independent of Chevron. He implies that Chevron controls these companies. (Transcript 4, October 1, 2009 p. 12-13; Transcript 6, October 1, 2009 p. 9)

Sounding angry, Borja said Chevron could not force him to testify. “I told them,…if I feel that I’m being tricked, you’ll eat shit.” ….they’re (Chevron executives) right here, 40 minutes from me… from where I live. Just 45 minutes away is the office of the [Unintelligible], so I just show up, ring the bell and everyone knows who I am. I sit down and tell them, ‘Let’s see, this is the way it is.’ And the joke is over, dude, you get it?.... I’ll shit on them in a second [Unintelligible]. I mean, what they… what I’m trying to explain to them is that I also have… I don’t know how much to say, but I have only so much patience, you get it? (Transcript 5, October 1, 2009 p. 4-5, 11)

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Chevron “Cooked” Evidence in Ecuador Trial

Diego Borja

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. Click here http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/borja-report/severn-trent-labs.html to see Borja’s and Portilla’s signature on STL documents.

• 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.

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Real Fraud In $27 Billion Environmental Lawsuit Is Texaco’s Phony Cleanup & Chevron’s Effort To Cover It Up

Amazon Defense Coalition

For Immediate Release
April 5, 2010
Contact: Karen Hinton
703-798-3109
karen@hintoncommunications.com

Real Fraud In $27 Billion Environmental Lawsuit Is Texaco’s Phony Cleanup & Chevron’s Effort To Cover It Up


WASHINGTON, DC (April 5, 2010) -- The Amazon Defense Coalition released the following statement about a news account that questions evidence submitted in the $27 billion environmental lawsuit brought by Ecuadorian indigenous groups against Chevron for oil contamination. Spokesperson Karen Hinton said:

“The plaintiffs’ reports in question show illegal levels of contamination to human health and the environment. Chevron’s own reports at the same oil well sites also show illegal levels of contamination. While we take Dr. Charles Calmbacher’s statements about the reports seriously, we believe his recollection almost six years after the fact is inaccurate.

“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.

“We know that Dr. Calmbacher’s testimony that there were no health risks contradicts public statements that he made in 2004, at the time of the judicial inspections. 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.” (See below.)

“Finally, it is clear scientific evidence from the four sites in question, including Chevron’s own evidence, strongly suggests that the real fraud is Texaco’s phony cleanup that was used to secure a release from Ecuador’s government.”

New York Times article, August 27th, 2004:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/business/court-goes-to-oil-fields-in-ecuador-pollution-suit.html?pagewanted=2

“ChevronTexaco says it has seen no credible evidence to link such problems to oil exposure and cites reports by American experts who take issue with health reports presented by the plaintiffs.

“The company also insists that its tests show no presence of hydrocarbon contamination in drinking water and argues that cancer rates in the areas at issue are lower than in other parts of the country.

''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.”

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