Ecuador hopes for settlement in ChevronTexaco case
Date: 28-Feb-02
Country: USA
Author: Manuela Badawy
Ecuadorean Attorney General Jose Ramon Jimenez Carbo told reporters a U.S. appeals court is set to rule on March 11 on a 1993 case accusing Texaco, now part of ChevronTexaco Corp. , of dumping some 30 billion gallons of toxic waste between 1971 and 1992 while extracting oil from the Ecuadorean Amazon.
A lower court had originally dismissed the suit on grounds it should be considered in Ecuador, where the plaintiffs are located, instead of the United States.
The case then went to Ecuadorean courts, but the South American nation's laws stipulate that its courts cannot weigh a case once it has been filed abroad, said Jimenez.
In 1998, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court ruling and remanded case to the trial court for reconsideration. But in 2001 a federal judge once again dismissed the lawsuits.
Jimenez said he is backing the affected communities so they can resolve their health problems linked to the alleged toxic waste.
"I am supporting the Amazon communities to receive a fair compensation for all the damages inflicted on them," Jimenez said after a speech in New York.
"They are still seeing cases of people with skin cancer stemming from the dissemination of waste products because they didn't use the latest technologies," he said.
Plaintiffs in the case claim Texaco dumped toxins-laden water into rivers and landfills and onto roads, causing a wave of cancers, birth defects and crop damage in the parts of Ecuador in which Texaco operated.
ChevronTexaco officials were not immediately available for comment.
Jimenez said the total damage figure could reach between an estimated $120 million to $150 million. He added he had presented a friend of the court brief as part of the effort to help the indigenous groups.
If the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals dismisses the case it would likely go back to Ecuadorean courts.
The Committee for the Defense of the Amazon has a Web site, www.tecacorainforest.org, to publicize its case against the oil major.