Forget WallyWorld, at Chevron They Live in WatsonWorld

Reposted from Eye on the Amazon, May 31, 2013 

There are many ways to describe the experience of participating in a Chevron Annual Shareholder Meeting. One is often left wondering if those inside are as completely divorced from reality as their words suggest, or if they are just putting on a show for a room full of cardboard cut outs of corporate yes-men. This past Wednesday was no exception. While hundreds protested outside the 2013 Chevron Annual Shareholder Meeting holding the largest "pink slip" you've even seen reading, "Watson: You're Fired!" Chevron CEO John Watson once again demonstrated that he is largely divorced from reality when it comes to the company's $19B liability in Ecuador and its other environmental problems, both local and global. Watson would hate to admit it, but once again the meeting was dominated by his critics and the largest ever shareholder support for Ecuador-related resolutions.

The Chevron Way: We Know Better

Time and again when faced with shareholder resolutions critical of Chevron or the compassionate voices of community members living with the harsh reality of exposure to the company's toxic operations, Watson claimed it was his critics who were "unfamiliar with the facts". Servio Curipoma, who has lived his entire life in the Ecuadorian Amazon surrounded by Chevron waste pits, who lost his parents to cancer caused by Chevron contamination, does not need Watson to tell him what it's "really like" in Ecuador. Yet Watson dismissed his testimony and offered Servio nothing but his "pity" for being "used by US trial lawyers."

Likewise, Dr. Henry Clark of Richmond, CA, whose 15,000 neighbors were sent to the hospital last August after Chevron's refinery blew up into a fire, or Laura Livoti, representing JINN and the Nigerians who suffer from never-ending flaring and a rig fire that burned for six weeks in 2012, do not need Watson to tell THEM their reality. They are living it. Watson told Ms. Livoti that she should consult with some of his executives, who have a greater understanding of what goes on in Nigeria. The grim reality is that due in great part to environmental conditions caused by Chevron's operations, the Nigerians in the area only have a 41-year life expectancy. With that dire statistic, it's conceivable that Chevron execs COULD be there on the ground for longer.

To the community of Richmond, long suffering from Chevron's toxic refinery and its poor safety record (now under criminal investigation, Watson's message was that his refinery actually has a better safety record than others in California. Funny, not a single other refinery in California BLEW UP last year!

Amazon Watch founder and Executive Director Atossa Soltani stood to remind Watson, the board and the other shareholders that she was there BEFORE Chevron bought Texaco with over 800 pages of evidence that Texaco was an enormous liability for what it had done in Ecuador. Watson's "bubble" appeared to weaken as he became visibly disturbed when Ms. Soltani reminded everyone that he himself was head of mergers and acquisitions at the time. What was then estimated to be a minor nuisance by lawyers and investment bankers anxious to close the merger deal for their exorbitant fees has since ballooned into a $19 billion judgment that rises every year with interest. Chevron is already spending an estimated $400 million per year just in legal fees, dwarfing the $40 million it claims it spent on its sham clean-up in Ecuador. Unwilling to even reply to Ms. Soltani, Watson turned on a completely unrelated video clip and then had her removed from the room by four security guards when she attempted to respond. The Watson World bubble remained intact, but only to Watson and the true believers (read: personally conflicted managers) he appears surrounded by on his executive team.

Facts vs Fiction: On WatsonWorld up is down

Real World: Texaco (now Chevron) builds and operates a system designed to pollute and then dumps 16 billion gallons of toxic foundation waters into the rainforest over decades causing a wave of cancers and other deadly illnesses.

In WatsonWorld: the local water shows ZERO signs of toxicity and is totally safe to drink, even though Chevron's own lawyers luxuriated with bottled water imported from Quito during the eight-year trial in the jungle. Furthermore, anyone who complains about it and pushes for a clean-up is a "global conspirator" out to extort billions from good global citizen Chevron.

Real World: Socially responsible investment firms collaborate with human rights and environmental organizations to challenge a company's false assertions and work with shareholders with billions of dollars of assets in Chevron to create reform from within.

In WatsonWorld: every single person involved should be forced to turn over every private communication they've ever made about Chevron because if they are critical they must therefore be part of a massive global conspiracy to defraud the company.

Real World: An offshore rig burns for six weeks off the coast of Nigeria, killing workers, destroying fishing, and sickening communities.

In WatsonWorld: That's called, "no damage to the community."

Real World: Chevron spills over 100,000 gallons of crude oil off the coast of Brazil, resulting in hundreds of millions in fines and billions of dollars of potential liability.

In WatsonWorld: There's no need for greater oversight of Chevron's offshore work because Chevron is "committed to safe operations."

Back to Earth

Outside, hundreds of protesters representing dozens of environmental and human rights organizations, and communities who live in the harsh REAL world of Chevron's operations, reminded Watson and Chevron that no amount of misdirection and factual distortion is going to make them go away. They continue to call for his firing and for true accountability and they pledge to stand up to Chevron until justice is achieved.

Perhaps sweetest of all is the fact that Watson will be forced to testify soon under oath about the Ecuador disaster in a case brought by Chevron itself that is rapidly threatening to bite the company on its own backside. Without his protective WatsonWorld bubble, he's likely to find that in the real world there are penalties for lying about Chevron's actions and misdeeds.

– Paul Paz y Miño

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Chevron’s Latest “Defense” In Ecuador Case: Hide Assets In Subsidiaries

After a dreadful series of legal setbacks, it sure didn’t take long for Chevron to come up with a new tricked-up defense to evade the $19 billion Ecuador environmental judgment.

Like Chevron’s many other failed defenses in the Ecuador case, this one won’t wash either.

Let’s review how we got here.

The company’s first line of defense in the 1990s was we didn’t really dump billions of gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest.  That lie was put to rest by multiple courts around the world based on overwhelming scientific evidence, as confirmed by numerous independent media outlets such as 60 Minutes.

Then, Chevron tried to claim that the devastated communities in Ecuador sued the wrong party.  According to Chevron, they should have sued Texaco, the company that operated in Ecuador.  That argument was rejected out of hand by appellate courts in Ecuador and the U.S.

Then the company blamed Petroecuador, Ecuador’s state-owned oil company and Texaco’s former partner in Ecuador.  But various courts rejected that defense after evidence surfaced that Chevron’s predecessor company was the exclusive operator of the oil concession in Ecuador.

When that defense failed, Chevron tried to claim Ecuador’s government released it from any clean-up obligations.  But courts found this so-called “release” did not cover the private claims of the rainforest communities, and in any event was a product of fraud.

Left with virtually no options, Chevron then tried to coax New York federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to enjoin the villagers from enforcing the Ecuador judgment anywhere in the world.  This unprecedented action caused an international furor, and a U.S. appellate court quickly reversed Kaplan.

When Chevron hired the respected litigator Ted Olson to appeal that setback to the U.S. Supreme Court, the company was rejected yet again.   By this point, nobody seemed to be able to put lipstick on Chevron’s pig.

So what’s left?

Well, now Chevron claims that its 73 revenue-producing subsidiaries around the world should be off-limits to the Ecuadorian villagers as they try to collect on the $19 billion judgment.

Consider the absurdity of Chevron’s latest gambit.  The company discloses in its annual report that almost all of its revenues are generated from subsidiaries around the world which are managed by the parent company from its global headquarters in California.

So according to Chevron, if you win a lawsuit against the parent company it simply won’t pay up.  Yet at the same time, its subsidiaries are off limits because their assets are not really owned by Chevron or connected to its activities in Ecuador.   Chevron already stripped almost all of its assets from Ecuador.

The order by the Argentine court last week to freeze Chevron assets in that country – a shareholder shocker if there ever was one -- was met with an apoplectic response at the company’s headquarters. “The plaintiffs' lawyers have no legal right to embargo subsidiary assets in Argentina," huffed spokesman James Craig.

Yes they do, James.  Hiding behind subsidiaries to avoid paying liabilities is now considered an antiquated notion in the legal world.  It rarely if ever works, particularly when the judgment is out of the country where you wanted the trial held and where you promised to pay up if you lost.

There’s another reason Chevron spokesman Craig is out of sorts.

Chevron discloses that about 80% of its annual revenue comes from subsidiaries outside of the U.S. Chevron’s subsidiaries in Canada and Argentina, two countries where the affected communities have filed seizure actions, produce an annual revenue stream of $2 billion to $3 billion for the parent company.   The rainforest communities can collect the full amount of their judgment in a few years just be diverting those funds to a clean-up.

The arithmetic Chevron-style works like this: when it comes to counting $240 billion in annual revenue collected from subsidiaries around the world, Chevron is as proud as a peacock.  Every penny counts.  But when it comes to paying out its environmental liabilities, there is nothing in the piggy bank.

We now get it. Under Chevron’s twisted logic, after fighting in court for almost two decades, the Ecuadorian who are suffering from cancer and birth defects now have no place to collect their winning judgment.  This is how a large oil company convinces itself that it is entitled to impunity for its human rights crimes.

It is well-documented that Chevron’s management team, led by CEO John Watson and General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate, is mired in conflicts of interest when it comes to Ecuador. Watson gave Pate a 75% raise last year – for a total compensation of $7.8 million -- after he lost the Ecuador case.  The company has admitted under oath that it faces “irreparable harm” from the Ecuador judgment but outside court it claims the risk is no big deal.

Any court in the civilized world that hears this case will not allow Chevron to manipulate the corporate form in this fashion.  The company is acting like a Deadbeat Dad fleeing a jurisdiction to avoid a child support payment.

The day of reckoning for Chevron management is fast approaching.

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U.S. Supreme Court Squelches Chevron Appeal On Ecuador Case

The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected Chevron’s latest attempt to block global enforcement of a historic $19 billion environmental judgment from Ecuador’s courts, removing another hurdle for rainforest indigenous groups as they continue their efforts to seize billions of dollars of Chevron assets around the world.

Chevron's losing petition was prepared and signed by Ted Olson, one of the top Supreme Court litigators in the country and the former Solicitor General of the United States under the last Bush Administration.  Olson works at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Chevron's lead outside law firm on the Ecuador matter and itself the subject of judicial rulings that it has committed ethical violations on behalf of the oil giant.

Jim Tyrrell of Patton Boggs and John Keker of Keker & Van Nest signed papers for the Ecuadorian rainforest communities and their counsel.

The Supreme Court decision represents the latest of numerous courtroom setbacks for Chevron as the company tries to evade paying the Ecuador judgment, which was issued in early 2011 after an eight-year trial found that the oil giant deliberately dumped more than 16 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon.  A three-judge appellate panel in Ecuador later affirmed the decision, criticizing Chevron harshly for threatening judges and filing frivolous motions to delay the proceedings.

Several pro-business groups who are funded in part by Chevron, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers, had weighed in on the oil giant’s behalf before the Supreme Court.

When Chevron refused to pay the Ecuador judgment, lawyers for the 30,000 affected villagers this summer hired prominent law firms to file seizure actions targeting billions of dollars of Chevron assets in Canada and Brazil.  They have promised to file more seizure actions soon in other countries, potentially creating significant operational problems for the oil giant, according to Chevron’s own court filings. See here. 

Chevron’s use of substandard operational practices in Ecuador – it operated there from 1964 to 1992 under the Texaco brand -- decimated indigenous groups and caused an outbreak of cancer that has killed or threatens to kill thousands of people, according to findings of the court.  A summary of the evidence against Chevron can be found here, a video about the case can be seen here, while a summary of the cancer deaths can be found here.

Independent journalists, such as 60 Minutes and a prominent Australian news show, also have confirmed Chevron’s extensive pollution in Ecuador.

Chevron had asked the Supreme Court to salvage an unprecedented injunction imposed in March 2011 by New York federal judge Lewis A. Kaplan purporting to bar worldwide enforcement of the Ecuador judgment.  That injunction provoked outrage in much of the legal community and was overturned unanimously in September 2011 by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the ruling the Supreme Court declined to review.

Over the last two years, federal courts at every level in the United States – trial courts, intermediate appellate courts, and now the Supreme Court – have now rejected Chevron’s attempts to block or undermine the Ecuador judgment.  The oil giant claims the judgment was procured by fraud, a charge the villagers and their lawyers say is a smokescreen invented by Chevron to cover-up its own criminal behavior in Ecuador as found by various courts.

“Chevron's latest loss before the Supreme Court is an example of the company's increasingly futile battle to avoid paying its legal obligations in Ecuador," said Aaron Marr Page, a lawyer for the Ecuadorians.

"Chevron is running from justice while its toxic dumping continues to create an imminent danger of death to indigenous peoples in Ecuador,” said Page.

Chevron’s losses in U.S. courts on the Ecuador case are mounting fast.

In the last two years, 18 U.S. trial courts and four appellate courts have either rejected or declined to consider Chevron’s campaign to paint the Ecuador judgment as a product of “fraud”, according to an analysis of court data by representatives of the rainforest communities.  That analysis can be read here.


Even Judge Kaplan, who has been subject to withering criticism for his biases against the Ecuadorians, further gutted Chevron’s strategy when he dismissed or stayed three of Chevron’s fraud claims and its unjust enrichment claim against the rainforest communities in a racketeering case pending against them in New York.

In its public relations materials, Chevron continually tried to claim U.S. courts have found “fraud” in the Ecuador proceedings.  In reality, three different Ecuadorian courts have heard Chevron’s allegations and rejected them, while no U.S. court has found fraud on the merits after an evidentiary hearing or trial.

In the handful of courts where judges made such a preliminary finding, it was done in the context of simple discovery proceedings and later was overturned by federal appellate courts.

A panel of federal appellate judges in Philadelphia, for example, blasted Chevron for attacking Ecuador’s courts – calling its comments “disparaging”.  Another federal judge in New Orleans accused the oil giant of using “hyperbole” and trying to make “a mountain out of a molehill.” See here.

This was the second time in the long history of the Ecuador lawsuit that the Supreme Court declined to hear a Chevron petition for review.  In 2009, the court declined to review a decision that denied Chevron’s attempt to force Ecuador’s government into a private arbitration over who should pay for the clean-up in Ecuador.

For that petition, Chevron used high-profile lawyer Paul Clement, another former U.S. Solicitor General.  Clement argued the losing side in the famous case last year over the Obama Administration’s health care law.

Just last week, the Gibson Dunn law firm was criticized for overbilling Chevron by sending 11 lawyers to a relatively minor court hearing.

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Chevron Says These People Don't Matter

These moving photos were taken by Lou Dematteis, a photographer and writer who documented the lives of many Ecuadorian indigenous people who have died, lost family members or are sick from diseases as a result of Chevron's intentional contamination of the Ecuadorian rainforest. A Chevron lawyer recently said these people are “really irrelevant.”

Luz Maria Marin holds the head of her husband Angel Toala one day before he died of stomach cancer in his home in Shushufindi.

Chevron says the people in these photos don’t matter.

The oil giant’s lawyer Doak Bishop of King & Spalding recently said:

“The plaintiffs are really irrelevant. They always were irrelevant. There were never any real parties in interest in this case. The plaintiff's lawyers have no clients... There will be no prejudice to [the rainforest communities] or any individual by holding up enforcement of the judgment."

Bishop is speaking of the Ecuadorian indigenous people who won an $18 billion judgment against Chevron for massive oil contamination in the rainforest – a judgment Chevron has refused to pay.

Chevron even went so far as to try and hire a journalist to spy on the Ecuadorians to see if they were telling the truth about being sick. Read this article about it.

Here are just a few of them, photographed and interviewed by Lou Dematteis. You can purchase his book at Lou Dematteis Photography.


At her home in Andina, Amanda Armijos stands in front of a photo of herself and husband Saul Apolo who died of stomach cancer at age 49.

Nine-year-old Jairo Yumbo shows his birth-deformed hand on the road in front of his home in Rumipamba.


Juana Apolo walks out of a cemetery in La Andina where her father, brother and sister are buried, all of whom died of cancer.


Uterine cancer victim Rosana Sisalima with her granddaughter at their home in San Carlos on November 24, 2004. Rosana succumbed to cancer in 2006.


Fifteen-year-old Myra Chicaiza sits with her mother Rosa Mercedes on the floor of their home in Dureno. Myra suffers from sever birth defects due to her mother's exposure to toxic hydrocarbon contamination when she was pregnant with Myra.

Maria Villasis shows the scars from four operations on her liver and gallbladder at her farm near Guanta oil well #8.

Miguel Mashumar and his wife Maria Claudia Antuash sit with a portrait of two of their two daughters who both died as a result of exposure to toxic hydrocarbon contamination.

Carmen Guaman with her fourteen-year-old daughter Veronica at their home in La Primavera. Veronica suffers from a neurological birth defect.


Her leg amputated because of a cancerous tumor, Modesta Briones sits in her house near Parahuaco oil well #2 in the Ecuadoran Amazon.



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Shocking New Video Exposes Chevron's Crimes & Fraud In Ecuador

Take 15 minutes of your day and watch this shocking new video that exposes Chevron's crimes and fraud in Ecuador.

Chevron's lawyers, lobbyists, and public relations firms have tried everything to distract attention away from the suffering of the Ecuadorians who have been forced to live with the contamination Chevron left in the rainforest after exploring for oil from 1964 to 1990. Chevron has even accused the Ecuadorians of fraud in an attempt to turn its victims into criminals.

This video reminds us what the lawsuit is all about -- the families who have lost loved ones to cancer and other oil-related illnesses all because Chevron used the most inexpensive methods to extract oil to maximize its profits.

The True Story of Chevron's Ecuador Disaster from Amazon Watch on Vimeo.

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Expert: Chevron Responsible for 10,000 People at Risk of Cancer

A new expert analysis has estimated that some 10,000 residents of the Ecuadorian Amazon face a sharply increased risk of contracting cancer in the coming decades due to heightened exposure to oil waste due to Chevron's substandard oil-extraction operation in that region from 1964-1990. This expert analysis, filed in the Ecuadorian court hearing a landmark legal case alleging that Chevron should pay to remediate the damage caused by more than 25 years of oil drilling, demonstrates that Chevron's refusal to clean-up its mess has created a critical human health catastrophe. For more information take a look a the press release below from the Amazon Defense Coalition:

Chevron's Ecuador Cancer Problem: 10,000 People at Risk of Contracting Disease in Coming Decades, Says Expert

Oil Giant Faces Up to $69 Billion in Liability for Potential Cancer Deaths

QUITO, Ecuador--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Almost 10,000 people in Ecuador face a significant risk of contracting cancer in the coming decades due to Chevron's refusal to clean up the billions of gallons of oil waste it dumped into the rain forest, a leading American expert has reported to the Ecuador court where Chevron is a defendant in a multi-billion dollar environmental trial.

The cancer assessment was presented on September 16 to the Superior Court of Nueva Loja in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, where Chevron is charged with dumping more than 18 billion gallons of toxic "water of formation" directly into the rainforest. The company also faces a potential $69 billion liability for the cancer deaths, an amount that accounts for slightly less than half of the top end of the plaintiff's assessment of total damages, estimated at $113 billion.

Dr. Daniel Rourke, a prominent American statistician formerly associated with the RAND Corporation, has concluded that 9,950 people living in the rainforest region in Ecuador where Chevron operated face a significant risk of contracting cancer in the coming decades. The number could spike higher as Dr. Rourke's analysis assumes a clean-up of the contaminated area will begin immediately and be completed in ten years – something that Chevron has thus far rejected out of hand.

"This study demonstrates that Chevron has created a critical human health catastrophe in Ecuador that puts thousands of people at risk of death," said Luis Yanza, who coordinates the legal case against Chevron for approximately 80 rainforest indigenous and farmer communities impacted by the oil giant's operations.

"As it is, hardly a day goes by where we don't receive a report of another cancer death in the area where Chevron operated," he said.

Chevron, which operated several oil fields in the Amazon from 1964 to 1990, is being sued by 30,000 rain forest residents for clean-up costs. The trial is taking place in Ecuador at Chevron's request after it was moved from U.S. federal court in 2002.

Several experts believe the damage caused by Chevron in Ecuador dwarfs the harm generated by the BP Gulf spill, and is probably the world's largest oil-related disaster. The contamination covers an area the size of Rhode Island and will take at least a decade to remediate once funds are in place, according to experts.

The human health problem in the area where Chevron operated is exacerbated by the fact the local population lives in close proximity to the hundreds of oil wells and waste pits that Chevron left behind when it departed Ecuador in 1992. Chevron never warned local residents of the dangers of exposure to the contamination and never fenced off any of its 916 toxic waste pits, which are considered hazardous.

Dr. Rourke's report uses actuarial life-table methodology to estimate the number of lives at risk of cancer as a result of exposure to the oil contamination.

The report utilizes Ecuadorian census data to estimate the population of the region, adjusted for growth rate since the oil operations began in 1964. The value of each excess cancer death was estimated at $7 million, a figure based on an average from the U.S. tort system and an economic concept of the "value of a statistical life" as employed by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Several peer-reviewed health evaluations had previously found that cancer rates in the region where Chevron operated were dramatically higher than in the rest of Ecuador. These reports can be found here <http://chevrontoxico.com/tags.html?tags=health+studies>.

When Chevron published a full-page ad in Ecuadorian newspapers attacking the health studies, more than 50 eminent scientists signed a letter <http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2005/0406-letter-arguing-that-chevron-misleads-about-health-impacts.html> published in the prestigious International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health defending the methods used to conduct the health evaluations and criticizing Chevron's efforts to undermine the studies' findings.

Chevron's own damages report, also submitted to the court on Sept. 16, found that the company had no liability and that the oil contamination from its former oil fields poses no harm to human health.

Chevron has been hit hard in the Ecuador trial in recent days.

The company's primary American technical expert in Ecuador, John Conner, suffered a major blow to his credibility when it was reported that he testified in Mississippi that the oil giant had never harmed even a single person in his two decades working as a consultant for the company. Conner also admitted that Chevron had paid his company $8 million in consulting fees, with up to $5 million coming from his work on the Ecuador matter.

After hearing Conner's testimony in Mississippi, a jury delivered a $19 million judgment against Chevron on behalf of five plaintiffs who suffered cognitive injuries from exposure to the company's leaking underground gas tanks.

True to form, in the dozens of expert reports Chevron submitted to the Ecuador court under Conner's supervision, not one has concluded that Chevron's operational practices in the South American nation had harmed even a single person.

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Chevron Hit Hard In Sworn Testimony Over Massive Ecuador Liability

Gibson Dunn Lawyer Flies Into Panic As American Expert Provides Devastating Evidence

Amazon Defense Coalition
6 October 2010 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or Karen@hintoncommunications.com

Denver, CO – One of Chevron’s lawyers at the law firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher flew into a panic during a recent deposition when an American consulting expert began to testify about the massive quantities of toxins dumped by the oil giant in Ecuador, where Chevron faces a multi-billion dollar legal liability, according to court papers filed recently.

Chevron is being sued by more than 30,000 residents for illegally dumping billions of gallons of toxic contaminants, poisoning an area of the Ecuadorian rainforest the size of Rhode Island and creating what is believed to be the world’s largest oil-related disaster. The lawsuit, originally filed in U.S. federal court in 1993, was moved to Ecuador at Chevron’s request in 2002. The plaintiffs recently submitted a damages assessment against Chevron of up to $113 billion in part to cover the costs of cleanup at 916 sites and compensation for an estimated 10,000 cancer deaths.

Faced with overwhelming scientific evidence of the contamination in Ecuador, Chevron recently returned to U.S. courts to seek discovery of 23 Americans associated with the case. This led to the deposition in San Diego on Sept. 10 of the American consulting expert, William Powers. `

In a legal brief filed on Sept. 28, lawyers for the Ecuadorian communities recount how Chevron lawyer Andrea Neuman – charged with trying to “rescue” Chevron from its massive Ecuador liability -- clearly panicked when Powers tried to testify about the oil giant’s responsibility for the contamination.

After Powers had been deposed for several hours by Chevron, a lawyer for the Amazonian communities suing Chevron indicated that he had some additional questions. Powers is considered a leading authority on oil field contamination and had visited the sites of Chevron’s operations in Ecuador on various occasions.

The mere suggestion that Powers might be cross-examined “set off a panic among Chevron’s counsel,” according to the brief of the Amazonian communities. No wonder – when Powers finally was able to speak, he testified that Chevron’s practices in Ecuador caused an environmental disaster that was at least 30 times larger than the crude discharged in the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

To avoid this damaging testimony, Neuman went to great lengths to shut down the questioning.

“First, Ms. Neuman claimed that the “office is closing” and therefore Mr. Wilson could not cross-examine Mr. Powers,” according to the brief filed by the plaintiffs.

Neuman then stated the questioning could not go forward because Chevron was not “notified” that it would happen – a remarkable assertion given that it is standard for depositions to conclude with a cross-examination.

Neuman then claimed the cameraman taking video of the deposition “has to pack up”. When that didn’t work, a Gibson Dunn colleague claimed they only had “five minutes” to listen to questions.

Finally, Neuman claimed that Mr. Wilson – who is from New York and is a partner in the firm of Emery, Celli, Brinckerhoff & Abady -- could not ask questions because he was not admitted to the bar in California despite the fact the Gibson Dunn lawyers had agreed to his participation earlier in the day.

“Notwithstanding this obstreperous conduct, and Chevron’s blatant attempt to hide the truth, Mr. Wilson insisted on fifteen minutes of cross-examination, during which the building did not shut down, the office did not close, the cameraman did not have to pack up, and no one had to leave the building,” the lawyers wrote in the brief.

Not surprisingly, the testimony from Powers was devastating for Chevron. Here are some highlights, with the questions being asked by Mr. Wilson:

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.

Gibson Dunn boasts on its website that its litigators in the Ecuador case – led by Neuman and Scott Edelman – are "Game Changers"; the firm cites a legal publication that "clients in deep trouble turn to Gibson Dunn for fresh, aggressive thinking and innovative rescues."

“Given Andrea Neuman’s conduct, Gibson Dunn’s ‘rescue’ operation for Chevron apparently doesn’t include acknowledging the truth about the reckless conduct of its client in Ecuador,” said Karen Hinton, a spokesperson for the Amazonian communities.

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Almost 10,000 Ecuadorians Face Risk of Dying From Contamination

Chevron argues the that lawyers for the Ecuadorian communities have submitted inflated damage claims as the oil giant seeks to derail the lawsuit against it for extensive oil contamination in the rainforest. That argument has now been turned on its head. Last week, several leading American technical experts submitted damage estimates on behalf of the Amazonian communities that found costs higher than those found in the earlier Cabera report, which calculated damages at $27 billion. One reason the damages assessment rose is because the American experts -- using official mortality and census data -- found that 10,000 Ecuadorians risk death from cancer in the coming decades as a result of Chevron’s contamination, even if the contamination is cleaned up over the next ten years. The truth is the Ecuador rainforest will never be the same due to Chevron’s contamination, and no amount of money will ever restore it to its original condition. But whatever can be done to address the contamination should be done – and Chevron, as the operator responsible for the contamination, should take the lead in fixing it just like BP is doing in the Gulf of Mexico. Below is the press release about the new economic valuation analyses of damages in Ecuador’s rainforest -- valuations prepared by American experts that put the lie to Chevron's claims about "fraud" in the Cabrera report.

Uterine cancer victim Rosana Sisalima with her granddaughter

at their home in San Carlos on November 24, 2004.

Rosana succumbed to cancer in 2006.

Chevron Faces Tens of Billions in Clean-up Costs
Top American Technical Experts Weigh In On High-Profile Damages Case

Lago Agrio, Ecuador (September 17) – A group of highly respected American technical and medical experts, using conservative assumptions, have concluded that it could cost Chevron up to tens of billions of dollars to clean up oil waste discharged into Ecuador’s rainforest and compensate local communities for the damage it caused over the 26 years it operated a large oil concession, according to valuation assessments submitted Thursday to the Ecuador trial court.

Relying on official Ecuador census and mortality data, as well as relevant studies, the analysis finds that what is believed to be the world’s largest oil-related catastrophe likely will cause nearly 10,000 Ecuadorians to be at significant risk of dying from cancer by the year 2080 even if Chevron cleans up in the next ten years. The numbers could rise substantially if no remediation takes place.

The assessments analyzed numerous categories of damages, including soil and groundwater contamination, drinking water, excess cancer deaths, natural resources damage, and health costs. While the high end of the damages range of $113 billion is substantially greater than the $27.3 billion damages number set forth in a report in 2008 by court-appointed expert Richard Cabrera, some categories of damages were found to be lower than those estimated in that report.

For example, the combined cost of clean-up for soil and groundwater contamination in the new analysis – which relied mostly on Chevron’s own internal environmental audits -- at the high end of the range was roughly $1.8 billion, compared to more than the $5 billion estimate in the earlier Cabrera report. The analysis found the existence of other categories of contamination, such as oil sediment in rivers, but they could not be accurately quantified.

The differences in the soil and groundwater remediation numbers is largely a function of the fact the new analyses used far more conservative assumptions than the Cabrera report. For example, the Cabrera report concluded soil should be cleaned to a depth of five meters, while the recent analysis assumed only four meters.

A large portion of the damages in the new analyses can be attributed to Chevron’s “unjust enrichment” – money saved by using sub-standard drilling practices – and compensation for potential excess cancer deaths that have a significant chance of occurring in coming decades due to exposure to cancer-causing crude oil. Most of the damages in the Cabrera report were from the same two categories.

“The new valuation analyses are different, in many ways, than the damage assessment report from 2008 but both present reasonable and sound assessments based on the evidence,” said Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the Amazonian communities suing the oil giant.

“The Ecuador court has more than enough evidence and expert analyses to determine the cost of remediating the extensive oil pollution that has devastated thousands in the region for decades,” Fajardo added. “There are more than 100 different expert reports in evidence, dozens of them produced by Chevron, which overwhelmingly demonstrate extensive contamination at all of Chevron’s former oil production facilities.”

The new damages analyses came in a supplemental report submitted by lawyers for the dozens of Amazon communities suing Chevron for what is believed to be the world’s worst oil-related disaster – larger than the size of the BP Gulf spill. Unlike the BP Gulf spill, the Ecuador disaster has been contaminating the rainforest ecosystem for almost 50 years.

Ecuadorian law provides that the court can consider the supplemental information when reaching a decision, but under Ecuadorian law the judge is under no obligation to adopt the estimates. Chevron, which has attacked the credibility of Cabrera’s damages assessment, had the opportunity to submit its own valuations analysis but the company previously indicated it would boycott the process.

Lawyers for the affected communities have asserted Chevron has been trying to sabotage the Ecuador trial by bombarding the court with frivolous motions and boycotting any part of the case that addresses damages. The indigenous and farmer communities first filed the lawsuit in 1993 in U.S. federal court, but it was shifted to Ecuador at Chevron’s request.

“The information in this submission is highly significant because it reflects clearly that there is a terrible oil-related disaster in Ecuador in the area where Chevron operated,” said Fajardo.

“What these analyses make chillingly clear is that thousands of Ecuadorian citizens may well contract and die of cancer in the coming decades because of Chevron’s contamination,” he added.

The analyses, based largely on technical information found in the 200,000-page trial record and relevant studies, found the following damages:

· Soil Remediation: A conservative estimate of potential costs to remediate contaminated soils at all of Chevron’s 378 former oil production facilities in Ecuador ranges from $487 million to $949 million depending on the clean-up standard used. The actual cost could be significantly higher.

· Groundwater Remediation: Based on data in the trial record, the range for clean-up of groundwater is $396 million to $911 million.

· Rivers and wetlands: Data indicates that sediment contamination exists, but no clean-up number was presented pending further investigation.

· Health Care: Using recent data from the World Health Organization and the Ecuadorian Ministry of Health, an estimated $1.4 billion will be needed to provide health care to the thousands of affected persons over the next three decades.

· Drinking Water: Degradation of the environment with petroleum hydrocarbons associated with Chevron’s production activities has been documented at numerous locations. The cost of a comprehensive series of regional water systems is estimated to be between approximately $326 million to $541 million.

· Excess Cancer Deaths: Actuarial life-table methodology demonstrates that the aggregate cost of excess cancer deaths due to exposure to oil contamination in the area where Chevron operated could be approximately $69.7 billion. This is the based on the value of a statistical life used by averaging relevant data used in the U.S. court system and by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ($7 million for each lost life), and comparing it with official Ecuador mortality data and census information. Up to 9,950 people in the affected area will face a significant risk of dying from cancer in the coming decades even if the area is remediated in the next ten years. Even if the analysis stops in 1990 – the year when Chevron ceased being the operator of the oil fields – the aggregate cost of excess cancer deaths is still estimated at $12.1 billion based on 1,732 deaths from cancer. (The earlier Cabrera report estimated 1,401 deaths from cancer, but he did not project future deaths.)

· Natural Resources Losses: This estimate is based on the evidence that concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons and harmful metals in soil, groundwater, and surface water have exceeded levels considered to be toxic to terrestrial and aquatic biota. While determining the exact values of service losses in the rainforest with precision is not possible, it is not clear that further studies would produce a range of plausible values different from the range posited earlier by Mr. Cabrera – approximately $874 million to $1.7 billion, depending on the methodology employed.

· Unjust Enrichment: Chevron’s unjust enrichment ranges from $4.57 billion to $9.46 billion assuming a 100% probability of detection and ultimate payment, and from $18.26 billion to $37.86 billion assuming a 25% probability of detection and ultimate payment. Given the evidence of Chevron’s malfeasance in Ecuador, the plaintiffs assume the company had at best a 25% probability of detection and ultimate payment, and therefore the unjust enrichment award should at minimum range from $18.26 billion to $37.86 billion. This is a conservative figure, as in reality it is highly unlikely that Chevron believed it had more than a 10% probability of detection and ultimate payment.

· Cultural Impacts on Indigenous Groups: Representatives of the Amazonian communities, noting the acute interdependence between indigenous groups and the rainforest ecosystem, analyzed the impact of hydrocarbon contamination on indigenous culture. The team reviewed economic valuations to repair the loss of cultural and ancestral practices, including a program to purchase unspoiled land, and to construct pools of native fishes and centers to restore flora and fauna. The cost for this restoration is estimated at $481.5 million.

The analyses were submitted by the following scientists and technical experts:
· Douglas Allen, who has 25 years of experience as an environmental consultant working in soil and groundwater remediation;
· Dr. Lawrence Barnthouse, one of the nation’s leaders in ecological risk assessment and a Fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science;
· Carlos Emilio Picone, a medical doctor certified in critical care medicine and Chief of the Pulmonary Section at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C.;
· Jonathan S. Shefftz, a financial economist from Harvard who has performed economic modeling on theories of unjust enrichment for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy;
· Dr. Daniel L. Rourke, who has extensive experience applying advanced statistical techniques to solve complex litigation problems; and
· Dr. Robert Paolo Scardina, a civil and environmental engineer and member of the faculty at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

The analyses in both English and Spanish, as well as background information on the scientists, can be found at http://www.chevrontoxico.com/

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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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Cancer Leads To Woman’s Death After Living Near Chevron Oil Site For 30 Years

Modesta Briones

The Chevron Pit is featuring the first of many personal stories about how the oil contamination left behind by Texaco has impacted the people living near the oil company’s former oil sites. Chevron purchased Texaco in 2001.

Our first story is about Modesta Briones, who passed away not long after she and her husband, Segundo Salinas, gave an interview to authors Lou Dematteis and Kayana Szymczak for their book Crude Reflections. Other stories can be found in this book and can be obtained here:

http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100896180

Modesta Briones and her husband Segundo Salinas
Texaco Parahuaco Oil Well #2/ Parahuaco

Modesta Briones: It started with a little sore on my toe, which grew a bit larger. The water near my house, where I washed clothes, was full of crude and the sore grew bigger, as if the flesh were rotting. It didn’t hurt, but I couldn’t stand its stink. I had a fever and chills.

Segundo Salinas: In Quito they said it was a cancerous tumor, and they had to amputate her leg, or the cancer would spread throughout her body and she could die.

Modesta Briones: When the doctor told me he was cutting off my leg, I was so sick that I thought I was going to die.

He amputated, and the doctor said I should return for a checkup, but I haven’t gone back because I don’t have the money.

I’m having a hard time getting used to living without my foot. I can’t walk with crutches. My husband, daughter and son help me, but it’s a hardship for them. Now, I no longer leave the house. Since the operation, I’ve only left my house once, to request an I.D. card. After losing my leg, I regret moving to the Amazon, but what can one do?

Segundo Salinas: We’ve lived here some 30 years. We moved here looking for a better future because there was unoccupied land for sale at a good price.

Texaco had already drilled five oil wells. In those days, the oil companies didn’t respect any laws. Nor did they respect us. They would say, “This is government land and we’ve made a deal with the government. And it doesn’t include you, so leave.” They would arrive, decide they wanted to drill somewhere, and then drill. They brought in machines and crushed our crops.

There are three toxic waste pits near my house, so many animals died. When my horses and chickens fell in, I pulled them out, but they stopped eating and died.

Some of the oil wells here have flares that burn off gas. The smoke rises, and when the rains come, black rain with a rusty smell falls back to earth, contaminating the land and the water.

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