May 8, 2009 4:29 PM
- Text
Amazon Crude
(CBS)
Chevron is America's third largest company behind ExxonMobil and WalMart. One way it became that big was by buying Texaco in 2001. Now, that purchase of Texaco has pulled Chevron into a titanic struggle in the Amazon.
The people who live in a remote region of Ecuador are suing Chevron, saying reckless oil exploration poisoned the most important rain forest on earth.
Soon, a judge in a tiny Ecuadorian courtroom will decide whether the oil company must pay as much as $27 billion in damages. That would make it the largest environmental lawsuit in history. Most everything is in dispute in this bitter struggle except one thing: powering American cars with Amazon crude has left a toxic legacy.
Beginning in the 1960's, Texaco came to northeastern Ecuador to tap into one of the largest oil reserves in the Americas.
Texaco was a partner with Ecuador's national oil company, Petroecuador. And over 23 years, Texaco pumped out one and a half billion barrels of oil. Hundreds of wells were drilled. And at each well site, pits were dug to hold toxic oil waste that comes up during drilling.
Generally two or three pits were carved out near the well site. Trouble is, when Texaco finished its drilling, the waste pits were abandoned by the hundreds and for decades.
Manuel Salinas' house is next to one of those pits. He's one of 30,000 people suing Texaco's owner, Chevron. "We couldn't drink the water," Salinas told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.
Salinas says the pollution leaked into his water well.
"It's a disgrace. They treated Ecuador like a trash heap," says Doug Beltman, who worked for the EPA on Superfund sites in the U.S.
He's now the scientific expert for the people suing Chevron.
"Are you saying that Texaco never could have gotten away with this in the United States?" Pelley asked.
"Oh, absolutely not," Beltman replied. "It wouldn't have happened in the United States. And if it had happened, they wouldn't have gotten away with leaving it here for 30 years."
In Texas, for example, pits like this are supposed to be temporary, isolated from fresh water, and soon after emptied and backfilled. But in Ecuador one pit 60 Minutes saw has been there for 25 years and we found it's actually designed to overflow into streams.
"They put these pipes in the side. So that as it rains, it fills up with water, contaminated water, it just dumps out into the jungle," Beltman explained.
"Well, it rains here in the rainforest all the time, so there's water pouring out of it now. And if you smell the water, you can clearly smell the oil pollution in it. Runs right down the ravine, where you are, and right down into the stream, not 50 yards down that way," Pelley observed.
When they stirred the bottom of the nearby stream, oil floated to the top.
Texaco left Ecuador in 1992 and today, Texaco's owner, Chevron says the pollution is now the responsibility of Petroecuador, Texaco's former partner. That dispute is the heart of the lawsuit.
The people who live in this river society call themselves "los afectados" - the affected ones. They use the waterways for washing clothes, bathing and drinking. Texaco acknowledged that it dumped, into the rain forest, billions of gallons of what is called production water. Production water is waste that comes up with the oil. In fact, it's often salty and laced with chemicals.
60 Minutes traveled down river in search of an Indian tribe which is part of the group suing Chevron. For centuries this has been the territory of the Secoyas.
We sat with two of their leaders who said they'd never seen oil until it was on the river. Humberto told Pelley oil looked like flowing black blankets and ruined the fishing.
The Secoyas took 60 Minutes to their community hut, where we saw the driving force behind the suit, Steven Donziger, a New York lawyer, far from home.
"These are people who never believed they had a right to sue an American company in their own court system," Donziger told Pelley.
"Yeah, but you know what Chevron says. They say that this is being driven by a New York plaintiff's lawyer, and they don't mean that as a compliment," Pelley pointed out.
"I'm well aware of that. They've taken out advertisements in the Ecuadorian press with my name trying to attack my reputation," Donziger said.
Asked what he thinks of that, Donziger told Pelley, "Well, I think that it puts me, in the membership frankly, of a very distinguished club of people."
The people who live in a remote region of Ecuador are suing Chevron, saying reckless oil exploration poisoned the most important rain forest on earth.
Soon, a judge in a tiny Ecuadorian courtroom will decide whether the oil company must pay as much as $27 billion in damages. That would make it the largest environmental lawsuit in history. Most everything is in dispute in this bitter struggle except one thing: powering American cars with Amazon crude has left a toxic legacy.
Beginning in the 1960's, Texaco came to northeastern Ecuador to tap into one of the largest oil reserves in the Americas.
Texaco was a partner with Ecuador's national oil company, Petroecuador. And over 23 years, Texaco pumped out one and a half billion barrels of oil. Hundreds of wells were drilled. And at each well site, pits were dug to hold toxic oil waste that comes up during drilling.
Generally two or three pits were carved out near the well site. Trouble is, when Texaco finished its drilling, the waste pits were abandoned by the hundreds and for decades.
Manuel Salinas' house is next to one of those pits. He's one of 30,000 people suing Texaco's owner, Chevron. "We couldn't drink the water," Salinas told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.
Salinas says the pollution leaked into his water well.
"It's a disgrace. They treated Ecuador like a trash heap," says Doug Beltman, who worked for the EPA on Superfund sites in the U.S.
He's now the scientific expert for the people suing Chevron.
"Are you saying that Texaco never could have gotten away with this in the United States?" Pelley asked.
"Oh, absolutely not," Beltman replied. "It wouldn't have happened in the United States. And if it had happened, they wouldn't have gotten away with leaving it here for 30 years."
In Texas, for example, pits like this are supposed to be temporary, isolated from fresh water, and soon after emptied and backfilled. But in Ecuador one pit 60 Minutes saw has been there for 25 years and we found it's actually designed to overflow into streams.
"They put these pipes in the side. So that as it rains, it fills up with water, contaminated water, it just dumps out into the jungle," Beltman explained.
"Well, it rains here in the rainforest all the time, so there's water pouring out of it now. And if you smell the water, you can clearly smell the oil pollution in it. Runs right down the ravine, where you are, and right down into the stream, not 50 yards down that way," Pelley observed.
When they stirred the bottom of the nearby stream, oil floated to the top.
Texaco left Ecuador in 1992 and today, Texaco's owner, Chevron says the pollution is now the responsibility of Petroecuador, Texaco's former partner. That dispute is the heart of the lawsuit.
The people who live in this river society call themselves "los afectados" - the affected ones. They use the waterways for washing clothes, bathing and drinking. Texaco acknowledged that it dumped, into the rain forest, billions of gallons of what is called production water. Production water is waste that comes up with the oil. In fact, it's often salty and laced with chemicals.
60 Minutes traveled down river in search of an Indian tribe which is part of the group suing Chevron. For centuries this has been the territory of the Secoyas.
We sat with two of their leaders who said they'd never seen oil until it was on the river. Humberto told Pelley oil looked like flowing black blankets and ruined the fishing.
The Secoyas took 60 Minutes to their community hut, where we saw the driving force behind the suit, Steven Donziger, a New York lawyer, far from home.
"These are people who never believed they had a right to sue an American company in their own court system," Donziger told Pelley.
"Yeah, but you know what Chevron says. They say that this is being driven by a New York plaintiff's lawyer, and they don't mean that as a compliment," Pelley pointed out.
"I'm well aware of that. They've taken out advertisements in the Ecuadorian press with my name trying to attack my reputation," Donziger said.
Asked what he thinks of that, Donziger told Pelley, "Well, I think that it puts me, in the membership frankly, of a very distinguished club of people."
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