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Canada Clears Way for Ecuadorean Case Against Chevron Over ‘Amazon Chernobyl’

September 6, 2015

Canada Clears Way for Ecuadorean Case Against Chevron Over ‘Amazon Chernobyl’

  A protestor shows his black painted hand as he carries an Ecuador flag to protest against Chevron and the oil contamination in Ecuador’s Amazon region during a joined global demonstration in Madrid, Spain, in 2013.. (Andres Kudacki / AP)

Canada’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that Ecuadorean villagers can go after Canadian assets of the US-based oil major Chevron. The lawsuit has been one of the most bitterly contested environmental cases in history, involving a contamination that environmentalists have dubbed the “Amazon Chernobyl.”

From Al Jazeera:

The plaintiffs, who include about 30,000 villagers and indigenous people, decided to go after the energy giant’s assets in Canada, Brazil and Argentina after the company contested a ruling by Ecuador’s highest court to pay $9.5 billion to clean up the contamination site.

Communities in the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador allege that Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron in 2001, dumped some 16 billion tons of oil and toxic waste in the Amazon rainforest as a cost-saving measure between 1964 and 1992, Telesur reported. That’s 80 times the amount of oil spilled in the 2010 British Petroleum Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, the Latin American news website added.

Ecuadorian villagers and indigenous communities affected by the contamination allege that it has resulted in illness and death, Telesur reported in June, and that they are still suffering the consequences of Texaco’s actions.

Plaintiffs claim that Texaco attempted to hide the dumping by covering nearly 1,000 oil pits with vegetation. People eventually built homes over some of the pits, and began coming down with mysterious illnesses, it is claimed.

“It has been 33 years … and I never knew that this was a covered pit,” local resident Serbio Curipoma told Telesur.

 

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