New Report Confirms Texaco’s Massive Contamination of Ecuador Rainforest & Chevron’s Effort to Mislead Court

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New York, NY -- A highly respected U.S. environmental engineering firm recently found illegal and dangerous levels of contaminated soil and drinking water at well sites in the Ecuadorian rainforest, where only Texaco, now owned by Chevron, operated from 1964 to 1992.

The findings by the New Jersey-based Louis Berger Group (LBG) are similar to findings released in dozens of earlier expert reports during an eight-year Ecuador trial that documented massive contamination by Texaco.

The LBG report also offers additional evidence that Chevron intentionally misled the Ecuador court about the contamination, which continues over 20 years later to harm the residents and their environment.



“It’s time for Chevron to own the truth about Texaco in Ecuador. Texaco’s pollution is today’s nightmare for Ecuadorians living in the rainforest,” said Pablo Fajardo, the Ecuadorians’ lead attorney.

In 1993, indigenous groups and farmers sued Texaco in a U.S. court, but in 2002 that court ruled the lawsuit should be tried in Ecuador. In 2003, the Ecuadorians re-filed their case there. (Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.) Ten years later, Ecuador’s Supreme Court upheld two lower court rulings against Chevron, awarding the Ecuadorians $9.5 billion in damages.

Hoping to stop the Ecuadorians from collecting their damage award, Chevron filed dozens of retaliatory lawsuits back in the U.S., claiming fraud, and a separate arbitration claim against the Republic of Ecuador, demanding that the government pay the damages. (Chevron has no assets in Ecuador. As a result, the Ecuadorians have filed enforcement lawsuits now underway in countries where Chevron operates.)

Hired by the Ecuadorian government to defend itself in the arbitration dispute, LBG reviewed all of the tests Chevron submitted to the Ecuador court and conducted its own tests, the results of which are strikingly similar to those of another environmental engineering firm, Stratus Consulting of Boulder, Colorado.

The Ecuadorians hired Stratus -- a small but widely known company in the environmental world -- as their consultants in the Ecuador trial. Back in the U.S., Chevron counter-sued Stratus on fraud charges; pressured the firm’s American clients to fire Stratus and convinced its insurer for legal liability to drop coverage, pushing the company to the brink of bankruptcy. (See here for more details.)

In exchange for dropping the lawsuit, Chevron forced Stratus to recant some of its work – a similar pressure tactic taken against Patton Boggs, the law firm who at one time represented the Ecuadorians. (See here for more details.)

In business for 60 years, LBG has high-profile corporate and government clients across the globe. Whether Chevron will attack the much-larger LBG remains to be seen, but the firm’s conclusions (below) will be problematic for Chevron in Canada, Brazil and Argentina where the Ecuadorians have filed enforcement lawsuits underway now:

• From 1964 to 1992, Texaco violated Ecuadorian law, its drilling agreement with Ecuador and generally-accepted international standards in place during that time by using substandard practices designed to pollute and building “hundreds of uncontrolled, contamination sources.”
• Even Chevron’s own sampling and analysis program conducted during the trial confirms the contamination, which continues to harm the environment today and is “likely causing significant health problems for people” living there, over 20 years since Texaco left.
• “Toxic and carcinogenic” contaminants are present today in areas where people live and work.
• During the trial, Chevron artificially lowered toxic levels by using a test that does not measure contamination. It also used “composite sampling,” essentially undercounting hydrocarbons, and mixed clean soil with dirty in its test samples.
• Chevron also conducted unauthorized pre-inspection (PI) tests at most sites to avoid taking samples from contaminated areas during the official judicial inspections (JI). It did not submit the PI tests to the court.
• Chevron’s claim that it found clean perimeters for all the pits tested during the JI is “inherently false” because its inspectors took samples outside the perimeters, upstream where the toxins cannot travel and from surface dirt, avoiding toxins deeper in the ground.

Chevron argues that Ecuador’s PetroEcuador is the only source of the contamination. The Ecuadorians have countered that as the sole operator and builder of the well sites and open-air pits, Texaco (now Chevron) is responsible for cleaning up what Texaco left behind.

LBG’s investigation at five well sites where only Texaco operated produced additional evidence that proves Chevron misled the Ecuador court:

Lago Agrio 2: During unauthorized pre-inspections (PI), Chevron identified a pit where the contamination had migrated from its side or bottom to a nearby stream but did not report this finding to the Ecuador court. Texaco built this pit in the late 1960s, closed the site in 1992 and agreed to clean it in 1995. In PI reports, Chevron said it was “highly contaminated.” LBG found illegal and unacceptable levels of carcinogenic metals, along with other toxic chemicals, at the site and several hundred meters downstream from the pit. A family lives 10 meters from the contamination. See photos on page 16 of LBG report. (See here.)

Shushufindi 25: In March 1973, Texaco opened the site and later said it cleaned the pits. LBG tests found “persistent” illegal levels of toxins in groundwater, soil, sediment and surface water at locations “where people can potentially be exposed,” resulting from seepage from a Texaco “remediated” pit.

Yuca 2 and Aguarico 2: Two well sites that Texaco claimed to have cleaned have illegal levels of toxic petroleum hydrocarbons, metals, and chemicals, including lead and barium, both carcinogens, in groundwater, surface water, sediment and soil. At Aguarico 2, one test showed levels 31 times higher than allowed by Ecuador law. At Yuca 2, 11 times higher.

Guanta 6: Texaco closed this site in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Petroecuador never operated there. Chevron did not collect samples between the pit and a nearby stream during the trial, but LBG found oil-saturated sediment in the stream. Its testing found illegal contamination in groundwater, surface water, soil and sediment.