Chevron Ecuador Case | The Chevron Ecuador Lawsuit Trial & Chevron's Views & Opinions | The Amazon Post

Canada’s Nortec Minerals Corp. may receive the first mining permit granted by Ecuador in five months, signaling the Andean country is ready to allow companies to resume operations under a new law.

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The second and final parliamentary debate of a new water bill to regulate water resource management in Ecuador is due to begin May 4, amid stark divisions among indigenous movements and between them and the government of left-leaning President Rafael Correa.

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The Chevron Pit, a blog “maintained by the team suing Chevron,” has dedicated two consecutive posts to unfounded allegations that Chevron “lied to Columbia Journalism Review writer Martha Hamilton.”  Clearly unhappy with a Columbia Journalism Review critique of “60 Minutes’” coverage of the Ecuador lawsuit, the Amazon Defense Front’s current efforts are only displaying the organization’s complete lack of credibility.  The first round of misrepresentations are documented here. In the latest barrage of misinformation, the “Pit” claims that “it looks like Chevron also lied to her about the drinking water well site near the oil well site.”

According to the Front: “A water sample taken in the trial directly from this freshwater well showed toxic levels of likely carcinogens and harmful heavy metals that are derived from oil, including benzo[a]pyrene, indeno[1,2,3]pyrene, and cadmium. The U.S. government has determined that each of these chemicals are likely or probable carcinogens, as reflected in a toxic substance registry maintained at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.”

We are at a loss to identify the “water sample taken in the trial.” Chevron’s data does not support this assertion and neither does the Front’s.  In fact, the following is a copy of the Front’s water data for samples collected at well site Shushufindi-38. The analysis was performed by Quito-based HAVOC laboratory and row “SSF38‐A2‐GW1‐NF(1.50)m” is their sample from the water well.

There’s a reason the Front makes claims without showing any data – the water well shows no exceedances of United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) drinking water criteria.  As displayed below, the Front’s result for cadmium (cadmio in Spanish) is 0.001 milligrams per liter (mg/L).  The USEPA National Primary drinking water regulation for cadmium is 0.005 milligrams per liter (mg/L).

Likewise, the following are the Front’s PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or HAPs in Spanish) results.  Column “A051124” refers to results from the water well.

The Front’s result for benzo[a]pyrene (pireno in Spanish) is 0.000031 milligrams per liter (mg/L).  The USEPA limit is 0.0002 mg/L.

The Front’s result for indeno[1,2,3]pyrene is 0.000012 mg/l.  There is no USEPA drinking water standard for indeno[1,2,3]pyrene.

So if the Front’s own data undermines the assertions it makes through its blog, what other accusations are being made that can’t be supported?  We already know that the Front’s lawyers submitted fabricated expert reports at the beginning of the trial.   If there was any merit to the Front’s lawyers’ case, they wouldn’t need to resort to making up evidence as they go along.

Last week, we posted a blog entry that detailed two recent Petroecuador spills. In the post we asked why the Amazon Defense Front, Amazon Watch and the Rainforest Action Network have never condemned Petroecuador for the company’s spills and ongoing environmental mismanagement.

After learning about the spills, these groups, who claim to “work to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin” largely remained silent.  No press releases issued.  No press conferences held.  No campaigns mobilized.  No lawsuits filed.  Instead, only Amazon Watch spoke up, choosing to respond by blog post. Below is an excerpt from the posting, where the author states that the Amazon Defense Front has in fact gone after Petroecuador:

“First of all, the Amazon Defense Coalition – or the Frente – as well as indigenous groups throughout the area have in fact gone after Petroecuador and other oil companies operating in the region on numerous occasions, demanding clean-up of spills, and a general increase in responsible operations.”

This is a dubious claim as we know of no instance in which the Frente has taken on Petroecuador for its operational practices.  In fact, a lawyer for the Frente, Pablo Fajardo, is on the record calling for Petroecuador to stop its long overdue remediation work in the region because it was hurting his case against Chevron. The Frente assuming such a position is not especially surprising since it is the named financial beneficiary of the lawsuit in Ecuador.  Moreover, another lawyer for the Frente, Cristobal Bonifaz, told reporters in Ecuador that his clients had provided a sworn declaration to the government of Ecuador that they would refrain from suing Petroecuador in return for the government’s assistance with their lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Amazon Watch has continually turned a blind eye to events in Ecuador.  Could that be explained by the fact that Amazon Watch has been continually funded by the American trial lawyers suing Chevron?  Could this ongoing financial relationship also explain why Amazon Watch has never called on Petroecuador to clean up its portion of the oil fields, as the company has repeatedly promised to do?

Rather than provide factual information to support its claims, Amazon Watch resorts to the “trust us” retort.

Until there is evidence of these groups going after Petroecuador, one has to question if these lawyers and activists really are advocates of the environment and the indigenous people they claim to represent. Maybe they are more interested in taking Chevron to the cleaners than actually cleaning up the Amazon.

The Ecuadorean government has restarted negotiations for a deal on the financing for a nearly $2 billion Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant, Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy Miguel Calahorrano said Tuesday.

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President Rafael Correa said over the weekend that his government is studying how to better focus fuel subsidies, including for domestic gas for cooking.

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Producers said today that smuggling sugar through neighboring Colombia, and the speculation it generates, is causing a partial sugar shortage

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Chevron Corp. has gone to court seeking the unused footage from a documentary film about the $27 billion lawsuit against the oil company in Ecuador.

Chevron, based in San Ramon, has asked a federal judge in New York to force filmmaker Joe Berlinger to grant the company access to more than 600 hours of footage left out of the movie “Crude,” which was released last year. Berlinger is fighting the company’s request.

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