Pat Murphy: Chevron’s Bogus Blogger Up to Old Tricks

Surprise, surprise: Pat Murphy, purveyor of the SanFranciscoSentinel.com (a small online "newspaper" that sells editorial control of its opinions while pretending to offer neutral commentary) is once again carrying Chevron's water in the company's never-ending campaign to escape justice for its environmental catastrophe in Ecuador.

Pat Murphy

This time, Murphy has attacked the indigenous people of Ecuador suing Chevron for having the temerity to characterize Chevron's man-made, planned disaster in Ecuador as larger than BP's accidental spill in the Gulf. In Ecuador, Chevron discharged the equivalent of at least 345 million gallons of crude into the rainforest where six indigenous groups lived for centuries. Due to Chevron, all of those indigenous groups have seen their lifestyles devastated – not dissimilar to what is happening right now to the fisherman of Louisiana.

The U.S. government's most recent estimate is that BP has discharged between 18 and 39 million gallons of crude into the Gulf. At the top end, that's about one-tenth as large as the dumping Chevron did in Ecuador when its predecessor company Texaco operated a large oil concession from 1964 to 1990. Texaco's sludge, now Chevron's problem, is still there: Take a look at photos of the contamination and its impacts.

The question for Murphy is: Why is it a tragedy when 18 to 39 million gallons of contamination are spilled in America, but Chevron is getting "defrauded" when people call attention to 345 million gallons the company systematically dumped in Ecuador?

The answer is simple: Because in the world according to Chevron, Ecuadorian lives aren't worth much – particularly when they are indigenous people living in the forest. And, of course, BP isn't paying Pat Murphy to spread their propaganda while Chevron is.

Amazon Watch and the Amazon Defense Coalition have demonstrated that Pat Murphy is a paid blogger who has sold editorial control of his website to Chevron – an accusation that Murphy has never denied. (He once stated that he was not being paid directly by Chevron.) Over the past two years Murphy has offered a steady stream of commentary and misleading facts meant to discredit Chevron's critics – critics that Chevron is working hard to silence. And if you are Googling the Chevron case in Ecuador from Rotterdam or some other far-flung place, you might actually think the "San Francisco Sentinel" is the leading newspaper of San Francisco rather than one of the least-trafficked news sites on the Web (it ranked 171,939 in popularity among websites, compared to 851 for the San Francisco Chronicle).

Of course, the practice of blogging or writing articles on behalf of clients without disclosing payments is considered highly unethical. But that's never stopped Murphy before, and we don't expect it to stop him now. When you lay down with dogs, as Murphy has with Chevron, you get fleas.

If Murphy really wants to understand the issues in Ecuador – and not just squander any semblance of journalistic integrity that he might have once had (or thought he had) – we would invite him to visit the impacted region. If Murphy had to drink the poisoned water being forced on the local inhabitants because of Chevron, he might be slower to take what amounts to "blood money" to help cover up an environmental and human rights tragedy that is unparalleled on Earth.

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Tragic BP Gulf Spill Casts Light on Chevron Disaster in Ecuador

The Amazon Defense Coalition put out this release today:

Tragic BP Gulf Spill Casts Light on Chevron Disaster in Ecuador

While BP Is Largest Spill In U.S.,Chevron's Ecuador Disaster Is Largest In World

Chevron Admits Dumping at Least 16 Billion Gallons of Toxic Waste into Rainforest

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As the nation remains riveted on the tragic BP spill unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, Chevron still holds the record for creating the world's largest oil-related contamination and it happened deliberately in the populated Amazon rainforest in an even more sensitive ecosystem than the marshes of Louisiana.

Chevron's illegal oil-related dumping is at the root of a class action lawsuit in Ecuador where the oil giant now faces more than $27 billion in damages for poisoning an area the size of Rhode Island with 18.5 billion gallons of toxic "produced water," or more than 474 times the amount of contamination estimated to have been spilled in the Gulf of Mexico tragedy, according to calculations made by representatives of the plaintiffs.

Chevron's contamination has decimated the traditional lifestyles of five indigenous groups in the area, and one group has disappeared, according to the lawsuit. The pollution occurred when Texaco (now owned by Chevron) was the exclusive operator of a large oil concession in the rainforest from 1964 to 1990.

A 17-year trial against Chevron taking place in Ecuador's courts – moved there from U.S. federal court in 2002 at Chevron's request – is expected to end later this year. Chevron has declared the trial court is "biased" against it and has announced it will not pay any adverse judgment.

The plaintiffs in the trial are tens of thousands of rainforest residents, including the surviving members of indigenous groups called the Secoya, Cofan, Siona, Huarani, and Kichwa.

These are the facts of Chevron's dumping in the Amazon and how it compares to the BP spill in the Gulf:

• In the 1970s, Chevron's predecessor company Texaco (bought by Chevron in 2001) perforated hundreds of oil wells across a 2,000 sq-mile swath of rainforest that was home to the indigenous groups. The area where Chevron operated is one of the most biodiverse in the world, containing almost 10% of the world's plant species.
  
• Instead of re-injecting toxic "produced water" (which contains high levels of salt, pure crude, and the carcinogen benzene) deep into the ground – the industry practice then recommended by the American Petroleum Institute – Chevron dumped 18 billion gallons of it into rivers and streams. These waters had been used thousands of years by the local population for its drinking water.
  
• The BP tragedy was an accident; Chevron's discharge in Ecuador was deliberate.
  
• Chevron, as reported by 60 Minutes last year, also built more than 900 unlined waste pits to permanently store toxic sludge – another violation of industry standards. It then built pipes to drain the sludge into nearby streams.
  
• Chevron also burned gas without controls, creating enormous air pollution and a "black rain" phenomenon in the rainforest.
  

These facts have been documented in numerous testimonies, in more than 200,000 pages of trial evidence, and in the book Amazon Crude written by law professor Judith Kimerling and published in 1991 just before Texaco fled the country in 1992, according to representatives of the plaintiffs.

Experts have concluded that the Chevron discharged at least 345 million gallons of pure crude oil directly into the rainforest ecosystem, including 17 million from ruptured pipelines. To put this in perspective, the U.S. government has estimated that between 18 and 39 million gallons have been spilled thus far in BP's disaster in the Gulf, and approximately 11 million gallons of pure crude was spilled during the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Just like BP in the Gulf spill, Chevron continually tries to obfuscate the facts and cover up its responsibility in Ecuador:

• In 1972, a Chevron executive issued a memo ordering that all documents in Ecuador documenting oil spills be destroyed.
  
• Chevron claims it was "released" from further clean-up responsibility based on a "release" signed with the Government of Ecuador. But Chevron's "remediation" was a fraud. Evidence presented at trial shows that the small number of pits "remediated" are still as contaminated as sites not touched.
  
• As a result of Chevron's fraudulent "remediation," two company lawyers and ten former Ecuadorian government officials are now under indictment in Ecuador for lying about the clean-up results.
  
• During the trial in Ecuador, lawyers for the plaintiffs have been subjected to death threats, a Nixon-style dirty tricks campaign to remove a judge, and the use of junk science by Chevron "experts."
  
• Chevron claims high cancer rates are caused not by exposure to toxins, but by the poor personal hygiene among the local population.
  
• Chevron also has tried to silence its Ecuador critics – pressuring media outlets to deny advertising about the company's human rights problems and even going as far to have five people arrested at its shareholder meeting last week.
  

For photos of this horrible disaster, click here, or get the book Crude Reflections by Lou Dematteis and Kayana Szymczak. A complete summary of the evidence can be found here. For Chevron's lies, click here. To purchase a copy of an award winning documentary film about the case, "Crude," click here. For the latest developments, see www.chevrontoxico.com.

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Chevron’s Watson To Feds: Stop Us Before We Hurt Somebody

From a recent Dow Jones article: Chevron Corp. (CVX) Chief Executive John Watson said that the oil and gas industry has asked the U.S. government to raise safety standards for offshore drilling in order to avoid another "tragedy" like the massive spill that is still threatening the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

In other words: "Stop us before we hurt somebody."

Watson's remarks are an astonishing admission from an oil industry CEO. He's acknowledging that oil companies are incapable of ensuring safe operations and conceding they will maximize profits and compromise safety standards unless the government steps in.

But Watson knows exactly what he is talking about – the damage that he is talking about is exactly what Chevron caused in Ecuador, an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. Left to its own devices, Chevron put profits ahead of the safety of indigenous groups and the pristine environment of the Amazonian rainforest from the moment it landed its first helicopter in 1964 until it exited the country in 1992. By using substandard exploration and safety measures, Chevron "saved" an estimated $8 billion during three decades of exploitive oil drilling and exploration. This "savings" has resulted in the devastation of thousands of lives, an outbreak of cancer, and the decimation of indigenous groups.

The New York Times reported recently on a BP memo that admitted the oil company elected to use a cheaper type of cement casing system around the "blowout preventer" that experts believe may have prevented the explosion and the resulting spill. Texaco made a similar decision in Ecuador in the 1970s when it decided to not spend the $4 million at each of its well sites necessary to implement proper safety measures, such as the lining of toxic waste pits. Instead, Texaco's preferred method in the impoverished rainforest could be described quite simply: "dig and dump."

Instead of re-injecting deep into the ground the oil and toxic waste water left over from drilling well sites, as was the industry standard in the United States since at least 1962, Texaco dug over 900 huge holes in the ground and dumped a deadly mix of oil, chemicals and minerals into the unlined oil pits. Recent testing during the trial at about 100 of these oil pits and well sites revealed illegal and unacceptable levels of contamination that continue to leech into the ground, polluting the soil and water that the indigenous tribes and other Ecuadorians living in the area depend on for their survival.

The deadly consequences stemming from putting profits ahead of safety is a lesson that Chevron learned all too well in Ecuador. BP is now learning the same hard lesson in the Gulf. The question is whether either company will be held accountable.

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Chevron’s Deepwater Horizon Connection: The Clock Could Be Ticking

Much attention is focused on BP, and that company's tragic environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. But what about Chevron, the oil company that is responsible for what experts consider to be the world's worst oil-related disaster, in Ecuador's Amazon? Unlike BP's Gulf disaster, which was an accident, what Chevron did in Ecuador was a designed plan to cut costs that ended up decimating indigenous groups, contaminating fresh water sources, and causing an outbreak of cancer affecting thousands of people.

Does a company as irresponsible as Chevron when it comes to discharging toxic waste pass muster when it comes to being able to operate a deep water rig in the Gulf of Mexico or anywhere else?

It's a question more and more people are asking after The New York Times revealed that BP and other oil companies received permission from the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits. The Huffington Post has reported that the MMS has failed to inspect the offshore drilling rigs as required.

The Times reported that Chevron was among the oil companies that received MMS permission to drill in the region. Chevron has a history of corrupting the MMS. It recently was singled out by the Department of the Interior's Inspector General in a scandal involving Chevron employees trading sex, cocaine, and other favors in return for preferential treatment from the agency when it came to the payment of royalties to the federal government.

The proper regulation of Chevron's operations is a crucially important question – Chevron consistently fails to take proper safeguards to protect the environment around the world. A few examples of Chevron's wretched environmental record:

• Ecuador: Chevron has admitted to dumping at least 16 billion gallons of toxic "produced water" (estimates based on oil well records indicate the number is likely as much as 18.5 billion gallons directly into the waterways of the Amazon Rainforest, and is accused of abandoning more than 916 waste pits full of toxic "drilling muds" and other industrial waste products (each of which would be considered a mini "Superfund" site in the United States). A court-appointed expert has indicated that the contamination may cost as much as $27.3 billion to cleanup. Unlike the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, which was an accident, Chevron's operations in Ecuador were designed to pollute in order to minimize productions costs. Unlike BP's executives, Chevron's leadership has never said a word about taking responsibility for this decades-long disaster.
  

  
  

• Nigeria: Dumping and salt water encroachment linked to Chevron's operations have caused significant damage to the Niger River Delta region. Effects include land degradation, air pollution, biodiversity depletion, flooding and coastal erosion, noise and light pollution, health problems, and poor agricultural productivity. Although gas flaring has been illegal in Nigeria for decades, Chevron has also engaged in widespread, round-the-clock flaring, a process known to have serous negative health effects on humans. Some 1.5 million tons of oil spillage has occurred over the last 50 years in the Niger Delta from oil operations—equating to about one Exxon Valdez disaster per year.
  

  
  

• Kazakhstan: Chevron's massive operation in Kazakhstan is the largest polluter in the region, incurring at least $22.3 million in fines for environmental pollution in 2009-2010. Community monitoring in the region has registered more than 25 toxic substances in the air, including hydrogen sulfide, methylene chloride, carbon disulfide, toluene and acrylonitrile3. Under Chevron's watch, at least 56,000 tons of toxic waste in the atmosphere in a single year in 2004. As in Ecuador, improper storage of toxic solid waste on the field has led to the dumping of toxic effluent into the water table.
  

  
  

• United States: In Richmond, California, 35,000 families live in the shadow of a Chevron refinery that spewed out three million pounds of contaminants during the last three years. Existing pollution from Chevron already causes premature death, cancer, and other health ailments. Richmond asthma rates are 5x the state level. Chevron is now seeking to expand the refinery, allowing it to process both more and dirtier crude oil, despite overwhelming opposition from local residents. In Alaska, Chevron has been fighting with federal regulators to allow it to continue to use a corroded pipe that has lost more than 60 percent of its wall thickness to carry oil from its offshore operations to shore. Just last month, the company was responsible for spilling 8,000 gallons of crude oil in the Delta National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Louisiana.
  

Chevron is one of the largest leaseholders and producers in the Gulf of Mexico – an area with little independent oversight. The destruction that could be caused by another tragedy akin to the Deepwater Horizon is clear. In fact, the BP owned rig, which sank on April 20 causing a disaster that is still spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, was run by Transocean-- the same company that Chevron contracts with for its massive Gulf offshore operations.

All of these warning signs beg the serious question: Are Chevron's Gulf of Mexico operations properly vetted, permitted, and regulated by an effective outside agency? And if not, is the clock ticking until we're witnessing Chevron's very own "Deepwater Horizon"?

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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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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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