08 Dec 2004

Plaintiffs' Lawyers and Technicians Resort to Blatant Lies and Distortions to Defend Their Claims

Data from Plaintiffs' Own Technical Report Contradicts Their Claims - No Harmful Levels of Chemicals Found at Sacha-53 Wellsite

Independent Former US Regulator States Report Should Be Rejected As Conclusive Evidence

ChevronTexaco To Ask Court to Reject Plaintiffs' Report

NUEVA LOJA, Ecuador, December 8, 2004 - ChevronTexaco, the defendant in an environmental lawsuit brought by US lawyers on behalf of residents of the Oriente, today said the report issued last week by the plaintiffs' technicians, and promoted in a news conference by the plaintiffs' lawyers, was full of "blatant lies and distortions." Tellingly, the plaintiffs' laboratory analysis and data contradicts the plaintiffs' lawyers' claims of environmental and health impacts. The company also criticized one of the plaintiffs' attorneys for his unfounded and irresponsible claim that Texaco Petroleum Company (Texpet) lied about carrying out its remediation work, and for alleging that the company hid documents.

Ricardo Reis Veiga, vice president general counsel, Latin America Products for ChevronTexaco, said of the plaintiffs' most recent claims: "The statements made by Steve Donziger, attorney for the plaintiffs, and by their technician, amount to irresponsible and outrageous lies, and demonstrate that they are willing to substantially distort their data when the truth does not serve their purpose. Plaintiffs' attorneys' claim that there are harmful levels of chemicals at the Sacha-53 wellsite that could result in health impacts, when their own data clearly demonstrates just the opposite. They allege that we never remediated the site, but the overwhelming documentation, state records and photographic evidence prove otherwise. They accuse us of withholding secret documents, but it turns out they're referring to publicly available Petroproduccion documents that were never ours and which have nothing to do with the Sacha-53 site. In short, the behavior of the plaintiffs' lawyer and his technical expert is despicable, and we have asked the Superior Court to reject their report."

Veiga continued, "If anyone should be accused of abusing the process and hiding the truth it is the plaintiffs' lawyers because their technician has violated his most basic obligation to the court, which is to conduct objective and scientifically sound analysis and report on actual site conditions. Were this report and the behavior of the plaintiffs' lawyers and their expert to go unchallenged by the court, we would view that as a denial of justice."

Maria Remmert, a board-certified toxicologist and former environmental regulator for US agencies (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and Texas Railroad Commission) that regulate oil, gas and other US industries, stated: "The report issued by the plaintiffs is technically inaccurate, incomplete, and grossly misleading, because their data clearly do not support their claims. If this document had been presented to me during the eight years that I served as an environmental regulator in Texas, I would have rejected the report and directed the author to resubmit it after correcting its many incorrect and misleading statements and presumptions. As written, it does not constitute conclusive evidence."

Remmert continued, "First, when compared to U.S. and international standards for oilfield remediation, the data they present clearly indicate that there is no potential for health impacts at this site and that no further remediation is required to protect human health. Second, they provide data for only fifty percent of the samples they collected, so as a scientist, I must ask why they chose not to provide a complete report of the evidence gathered. Finally, while plaintiffs' publicly allege that high levels of harmful chemicals exist at the site, in fact, their own data tables show that no such substances exist."

Remmert provided additional examples of errors and misrepresentations found in the report:

  • Plaintiffs' attorneys' claim that they found Benzene (a known carcinogen) at the Sacha-53 site, but their own data shows that the compound is not present.
  • The plaintiffs' report also try to claim Poly Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) are present at the site, indicating that the site was not remediated, however, their data indicate no PAHs were detected, which directly contradicts their claim.
  • The plaintiffs' report erroneously claims that the presence of metals indicates that the remediation was inadequate and that metals are toxic at the concentrations detected. In fact, the metals present in soil do not pose a risk to human health as determined by standards established by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other U.S. regulatory agencies.
  • The plaintiffs' expert incorrectly used drinking water standards to claim that water treated and discharged from Texpet pits exceed regulatory limits. Texpet met all of the appropriate Ecuadorean water discharge standards of the time. Even today Ecuador still has separate standards for discharged water that is used for drinking.
  • The plaintiffs' report claims that chromium is a health hazard at the site, however, the toxic form of chromium, Cr VI, is not present in drilling mud as the plaintiffs claim. Furthermore, they have used the wrong analytical technique for Chromium. Most importantly, despite these errors, the levels of Chromium they report do not exceed any published U.S. regulatory standard for Chromium VI in soil and do not pose any human health risk.

"Overall, my analysis of this report indicates that the author of this report is either incompetent or is trying to intentionally mislead the public," concluded Remmert.

"Through their actions and statements, the plaintiffs' attorney and his technician have shown their complete disdain for justice," said Veiga. "They are trying to fool the public, the press, the Court and their clients, and that is just plain wrong."

BACKGROUND: ChevronTexaco is a defendant in a lawsuit sponsored by North American lawyers, alleging environmental and health damages resulting from the involvement of Texaco Petroleum Company (Texpet) as a minority partner in an oil consortium with Petroecuador. Texpet ceased its operatorship in 1990 and exited all oil-producing activities in Ecuador in 1992, while Petroecuador has owned and operated the fields exclusively for the past twelve years. As part of the trial, the Court began conducting inspections of 122 oilfield properties in the concession area in mid-August.

During the inspections that have taken place since then, separate technical teams working for the plaintiffs and ChevronTexaco have collected soil and water samples. The collection and analysis of the samples are governed by Sampling and Analysis Plans that were approved and signed by both plaintiffs' and ChevronTexaco's legal counsel, as well as the President of the Court.

Back to top