From 1964 to 1990, Texaco designed,built, and operated an oil production system in the Ecuadorian region known as the Oriente. Originally, it was a pristine area and home to several tribes; the Cofan, Secoya, Kichwa, and the Huoarani. (Chevron Toxico) The tribes were still living their traditional life styles when Texaco started it’s oil operations in 1964. (Chevron Toxico) As stated before, after Chevron left the area in 1993, the local environment had became decimated and their way of life disrupted. The reason that Texaco, an American oil company, moved into Ecuador was simple.Cheap oil. By employing illegal costcutting practices, Texaco saved an estimated three dollars per barrel of oil. What happened was that Texaco, at the peak of their operations, had dumped an estimated four million gallons of produced water into the region’s streams and rivers every day.
According to the blog ChevroninEcuador, the total amount was an estimated 18 billion gallons of produced water along with an estimated amount of 17 million gallons of crude oil. Defined byan article in the New York Times, New Solutions for Oil,s Produced Water , produced water is “a briny fluid trapped in the rocks of oil reservoirs.”It can contain chemicals, salt, heavy metals, and residual fluids. It is created when underground oil is pumped aboveground.
Image of a member of the Secoya Tribe.
Local people bathing in a river.
Such practices have been outlawed from several oil producing states; California, Louisianain 1942 and Texas in 1967. (Chevron Toxico) Instead of reinjecting produced water back intounderground wells where it cannot pollute the water table, standard procedure in the 1970s,Texaco merely dumped it into the local water supply in order to save money and took advantage of the fact that Ecuador had no laws against such practices. This is damaging to the people of the Oriente, because unlike us Americans, there is little running water in their region. People are dependant on the rivers to bath, for their drinking supplies, to water plants and animal; even if the water is slick with oil, they have no choice. This quote from ChevronToxico sums it all:
“We got our drinking water from the rain, and when it didn’t rain, from the stream. It had a funny tasteand sometimes you could see oil floating on top. We bathed there and washed our clothes there. Weknew the water was bad for our health, but what could we do? There wasn’t water anywhere else.”–
-Woman living near Texaco Shushufindi oil field
The polluted water is not the end of the environmental offences. After Texaco left in 1993, the company left over a thousand toxic waste pits in the landscape and many of them are still there. These pits are unlined and full of toxic waste, many were built near inhabited areas.The toxic waste contaminates the soil and overflows in heavy rainstorms, adding to the pollutionin the already decimated water table. Since the 1930s, many US states, an example would beLouisiana and Texas, required such pits to have an impermeable lining such as concrete in order to prevent such leaching into the landscape. (Chevron Toxico)
A youtube video by Mitch Anderson of Amazon Watch and blogger of ChevronInEcuador, shows how these pits are designed to pollute. The full video can be seen athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXCLEDpojPE. It turns out that the waste pit at “Angua Rico 4” oil field has an over flow pipe, allowing the contamination to flow out into the local
“We got our drinking water from the rain, and when it didn’t rain, from the stream. It had a funny tasteand sometimes you could see oil floating on top. We bathed there and washed our clothes there. Weknew the water was bad for our health, but what could we do? There wasn’t water anywhere else.”–
-Woman living near Texaco Shushufindi oil field
The polluted water is not the end of the environmental offences. After Texaco left in 1993, the company left over a thousand toxic waste pits in the landscape and many of them are still there. These pits are unlined and full of toxic waste, many were built near inhabited areas.The toxic waste contaminates the soil and overflows in heavy rainstorms, adding to the pollutionin the already decimated water table. Since the 1930s, many US states, an example would beLouisiana and Texas, required such pits to have an impermeable lining such as concrete in order to prevent such leaching into the landscape. (Chevron Toxico)
A youtube video by Mitch Anderson of Amazon Watch and blogger of ChevronInEcuador, shows how these pits are designed to pollute. The full video can be seen athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXCLEDpojPE. It turns out that the waste pit at “Angua Rico 4” oil field has an over flow pipe, allowing the contamination to flow out into the local
Toxic Pits in Ecuador - Designed to Pollute
streams and rivers. Meanwhile, pits in Texas are meant to be temporary and isolated from freshwater. Afterwards, they are emptied and filled in. (CBS News.com – Amazon Crude – 60 minutes)
ChevronInEcuador, cited Douglas Beltman, an expert on oil contamination and formerecologist of the Superfund program from the American EPA;
"'Reserve pits' have been used to temporarily store drilling fluids and other wastes, such as unrecovered or spilled oil, before the wastes are treated and disposed of... Pits should not be covered with oil and should be closed when the well is completed."
So basically, these pits should not have been left lying around like poxmarks on adying corpse after Texaco left, open to the elements and infecting the landscape with oil like a swollen oozing pus-filled wound. Since its against the law in many American states, why did Texaco decided to leave these open and exposed pits behind?
As stated before, money was the reason that Texaco decided to cut costs in its processof getting rid of produced water. The same thing served as a motive in leaving those pits behind to rot in the landscape, killing humans, animals, and plants. According to ChevroninEcuador, they claim have a quote from an unnamed Texaco official who wrote an internal memo back in 1980;
"...the current [unlined] pits are necessary for efficient and economical operations of our drilling... operations. The total cost of eliminating the old pits and lining new pits would be $4,197,958... It is recommended that the pits neither be lined or filled."
However, the original source for this quote is unknown and repeated in many websitesso its validity is in question. But if the quote is valid, Texaco’s corporate greed knew no bounds. They may have saved 4, 197, 958 dollars but if the people of Ecuador gets their way, Chevron will owe the people of the Oriente, as much as twenty-seven billion dollars in damages. (CBS News.com – Amazon Crude– 60 minutes) Why does Chevron owe twenty-seven billion dollars
ChevronInEcuador, cited Douglas Beltman, an expert on oil contamination and formerecologist of the Superfund program from the American EPA;
"'Reserve pits' have been used to temporarily store drilling fluids and other wastes, such as unrecovered or spilled oil, before the wastes are treated and disposed of... Pits should not be covered with oil and should be closed when the well is completed."
So basically, these pits should not have been left lying around like poxmarks on adying corpse after Texaco left, open to the elements and infecting the landscape with oil like a swollen oozing pus-filled wound. Since its against the law in many American states, why did Texaco decided to leave these open and exposed pits behind?
As stated before, money was the reason that Texaco decided to cut costs in its processof getting rid of produced water. The same thing served as a motive in leaving those pits behind to rot in the landscape, killing humans, animals, and plants. According to ChevroninEcuador, they claim have a quote from an unnamed Texaco official who wrote an internal memo back in 1980;
"...the current [unlined] pits are necessary for efficient and economical operations of our drilling... operations. The total cost of eliminating the old pits and lining new pits would be $4,197,958... It is recommended that the pits neither be lined or filled."
However, the original source for this quote is unknown and repeated in many websitesso its validity is in question. But if the quote is valid, Texaco’s corporate greed knew no bounds. They may have saved 4, 197, 958 dollars but if the people of Ecuador gets their way, Chevron will owe the people of the Oriente, as much as twenty-seven billion dollars in damages. (CBS News.com – Amazon Crude– 60 minutes) Why does Chevron owe twenty-seven billion dollars
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