Oil Contamination in the Amazon

This article is a compilation of numerous articles written between 2000 and 2006.

In the 1960s, the United States of America convinced the Ecuadoran government that it would become wealthy if our oil companies could dig for oil and our consulting firms could build an infrastructure and modernize the country. The oil we were interested in was in Ecuador's rich and plentiful Amazon forest. This forest is much smaller than the commonly known Amazon we normally associate with Brazil.

Chevron Corporation, whose predecessor company, Texaco Petroleum Company (known as Texpet), first drilled for oil in Ecuador in 1967. For 20 years, this company, and others, mowed roads into the pristine forests, dug hug holes, dumped oil in the many amazonian rivers, and took away the livelihoods of over 10 indigenous tribes.

In 2003 a group of Amazon Native Americans from Ecuador's rainforest region is appealed to the U.S. Second Court of Appeals in New York for permission to try a class action suit against Chevron Texaco Corp., formerly Texaco International. The tribes claimed the company poured billions of gallons of toxic waste into the region while extracting oil from the Ecuadorian Amazon between 1967 and 1992. In addition, Texaco used environmentally hazardous practices during oil exploration, methods they claim the company would not have used in the United States.

Further, the tribes claim the Ecuadorian Pipeline, constructed by Chevron Texaco, has leaked petroleum into the environment spreading widespread devastation and enormous public health threats. Following years of unsuccessful persuasion to convince Texaco to voluntarily clean up their act, the tribes are now using their last line of defense against the oil giant.

In 2003 article in E Magazine, in a courtroom "crawling with conga ants and abuzz with mosquitoes," 70-year-old peasant farmer Briceno Castillo, standing near a black, putrid-smelling mud puddle told how, 35 years ago, he came here to the Ecuadorian rainforest, whacked out a space and planted good crops. Then the oil companies came, he said, and left a mess that killed everything.

While Texaco fights to win this lawsuit, more evidence piles against them. A 2004 study linking childhood Leukemia and oil exploitation in the Ecuadorian Amazon was reported in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health.
Incidence of childhood leukemia in populations living in the proximity to oil fields and those living in areas free from oil exploitation in the Amazon basin of Ecuador showed that there were 91 cancer cases among children (0-14 years) in an area that was free from cancer incidence before oil exploration occurred.

Cancer was not the only problem. In areas where the only water source is an outdoor well that has long since been contaminated by oil and oil by-products, indigenous tribes are acutely aware they are poinsoning themselves to death. The people use this water to cook, to wash and to drink, not because they want to, but because there is no alternative. There are reports of people suffering acute skin problems - irritation, redness and regular eruptions of boils and abscesses. Some have difficulty breathing.

And while the lawsuit continues on, people continue to fall sick and die. Pregnant mothers miscarry. Still other suffer terrible ailments caused by ingesting oil-laden water.

And it's not just Chevron who is at fault.

On May 4, 2007, Amazon Watch and EarthRights International accused Occidental Petroleum, of violating Peruvian and international law by dumping an estimated 9 billion barrels of toxic waste in the area since it started prospecting in the early 1970s. The waste was allegedly dumped directly into rivers and streams used by the Achuar tribe for drinking, bathing, washing and fishing. Medical research documented in the report showed dangerously elevated levels of lead and cadmium in the Achuar population.