08 Aug 2006

Evidence from Two Years of Judicial Site Inspections Shows No Significant Health Risk from Oil in Areas Remediated by Texaco Petroleum Company

QUITO, Ecuador, Aug. 8, 2006 – Two years after the Superior Court in Nueva Loja began the process of inspecting 122 oilfield sites, the overwhelming body of evidence collected shows that the people of the Oriente region face no significant oil-related health risk from the areas remediated by Texaco Petroleum Co. (Texpet). This evidence clearly refutes the claims made by the plaintiffs' lawyers in the ongoing environmental lawsuit against Chevron.

Scientific Evidence Exonerates Chevron

As of May 1, the Court has inspected 42 oilfield sites and has received 34 reports from court appointed technical experts nominated by Chevron. These reports show:

  • Greater than 99 percent of all soil samples collected from Texpet remediated areas confirm that the remediation was effective and complied with the closure requirements set by the government of Ecuador and Petroecuador.
  • Greater than 99 percent of all drinking water tested during the inspections is free of harmful levels of petroleum related chemicals, exceeding World Health Organization and USA EPA standards.
  • Greater than 97 percent of the same drinking water samples contained nonpetroleum-related microbial contamination that could present a risk to the health of people consuming the water.
  • The inspections have revealed a pattern of environmental neglect by Petroecuador, which has exclusively run the oil fields for more than 16 years.

"The scientific evidence speaks for itself – all legitimate laboratory analysis verifies the effectiveness of the Texpet remediation program, and neither people nor the environment is at risk from oil contamination in the areas remediated by Texpet," said Sara McMillen, Chevron's senior environmental scientist for the litigation. "The scientific reports presented to the court prove the allegations against the company are absolutely false and illustrate the continued attempts by the plaintiffs' attorneys to distort findings and mislead the court and the public."

Plaintiffs' Attorneys Deliberately Seek to Deceive the Court and Derail the Judicial Process

The court has also received 32 reports from plaintiffs' technicians. However, in rebuttals submitted to the court, Chevron has shown the plaintiffs' technical reports lack credibility because of a pattern of distortion and misrepresentation. Specifically, the plaintiffs:

  • have failed to follow the court-ordered sampling and analysis plan they agreed to, raising serious questions about the integrity of their data and their conclusions;
  • only report on a portion of the samples they take – results from almost a third of the plaintiffs' samples are inexplicably missing;
  • falsely "infer" that drinking water, streams and rivers are contaminated without taking or analyzing water samples from the areas of alleged contamination;
  • falsely contend that metals in the soil are the result of Texpet's operations when scientific evidence shows that these metals occur naturally in the soil. They also falsely allege that these metals are responsible for levels of cancer and other diseases in the region, yet evidence presented to the court shows those claims cannot be substantiated;
  • base their arguments on data generated from samples taken from areas outside of Texpet's remediation. They collect samples in locations that are known to be Petroecuador's responsibility and falsely blame Texpet for any contaminants they find.

Plaintiffs' attorneys have also tried to block the court from carrying out further judicial inspections in what appears to be an effort to stop the court from seeing even more evidence that undermines their case. Thus far, the court has refused all of the plaintiffs' attempts to cancel inspections.

According to Rodrigo Perez, legal representative of Texaco Petroleum Co., "As the evidence refuting their claims accumulates, the plaintiffs' attorneys are now attempting to derail the judicial process by trying to cancel the very inspections they once demanded. However, the law is quite clear – all the sites must be inspected, and the court must make its judgment on the sum of all the evidence."

This recent legal tactic to undermine the Ecuadorian judicial process is one of many examples of efforts by the plaintiffs' attorneys to mislead, distort and deceive the court and the public since the beginning of the inspections. Perez notes numerous examples:

  • "Plaintiffs' attorneys have on three separate occasions prevented an Ecuadorian judge from inspecting the laboratory they use to analyze soil and water samples. This inspection was ordered by the court to determine whether the lab in question is simply capable of properly carrying out this work. What are they trying to hide?"
  • "Plaintiffs' reports draw conclusions without submitting data of any kind and instead use analytical methods that are known to give inaccurate and unreliable results, fail to analyze one-third of all samples collected; and use regulatory standards that did not even exist at the time Texpet carried out its remediation program to judge the effectiveness of that program. Clearly, plaintiffs' attorneys don't want you to know the truth."
  • "Plaintiffs' own expert Dr. Luis Villacreces Carvajal admitted to the court that he wrote the Sacha 13 inspection report without attending the inspection and without the scientific data being properly provided directly to him from an accredited laboratory as required by the chain of custody and as ordered by the court. Plaintiffs' attorneys don't follow the rules of the court."
  • "Health studies by Dr. Miguel San Sebastian, who is promoted by the plaintiffs, do not provide evidence that diseases were caused by petroleum. According to Dr. Michael Kelsh, a renowned expert on environmental health:"

    "Dr. San Sebastian's studies are not the type of studies that can provide information about disease causation, a point he acknowledges in many of his published studies…Given the many serious limitations, namely the lack of specific exposure information, the potential inaccuracies in disease assessment, and other potential causes of disease that are not evaluated, the studies conducted among communities in the Oriente region do not provide evidence of excess disease caused by activities associated with petroleum facilities and materials."
Court Sees Firsthand Petroecuador's Poor Environmental Performance

Throughout the course of the judicial inspection process, the court has seen considerable evidence of environmental neglect and substandard operating practices by Petroecuador, including numerous oil spills and discharges to rivers and streams, continued discharge of produced water due to failed reinjection systems, and contamination of shallow groundwater due to leaking reinjection wells.

Specifically, the court witnessed:

  • During the judicial inspection of the Guanta-6 well site, the president of the Superior Court of Nueva Loja observed nearby a large spill still left unremediated by Petroecuador more than two months after it occurred.
  • At the Shushufindi 45A well site, evidence of a break in the produced water reinjection system was observed during the judicial inspection. Government officials later confirmed that a casing leak in the reinjection system had contaminated groundwater for a period of one year.
  • At the Lago Agrio 11-A well site, Petroecuador's irresponsibility for the environmental condition of the site was clearly evident during the inspection. A fresh oil spill, an asphalt spill and storage deposit were present on site, highlighted by several satellite images clearly showing these spills did not exist before 1990.

"In the face of Petroecuador's indisputable and appalling environmental record over the 16 years they have run the oil fields, and the fact that Petroecuador has never fulfilled its remediation obligations under the 1995 agreement with the Government, we must ask why the plaintiffs' attorneys have steadfastly refused to pursue a lawsuit or claim against Petroecuador, or to force the state oil company to improve the environment," said Perez. "One has to wonder whose interests these plaintiffs' attorneys are really representing."

View the summary of Judicial Inspection Evidence and the Findings as of May 1, 2006 (PDF, 139KB)

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