In quiet courtroom, the stakes are high

By Tom Knudson - Bee Staff Writer

Published Saturday, October 25, 2003

LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador -- The trial of ChevronTexaco that continued Friday in this grimy border town bore little resemblance to American-style jurisprudence.

Inside a small office near the main courtroom, a witness sat in a simple wooden chair as the judge stood peering down at him, crisply reading questions prepared by lawyers.

Nearby, like mannequins, stood the authors of those questions: attorneys for the defense of the California-based multinational oil company and attorneys for the plaintiffs, the 30,000 rain forest residents who accuse one of ChevronTexaco's subsidiaries of fouling large parts of their land with oily wastes.

Oil cleanup company employee Sergio Tandaso stands by an open pit, left, that he says was left by ChevronTexaco near Lago Agrio, Ecuador.
Sacramento Bee/Bryan Patrick

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Nobody shouted: "Objection, Your Honor!" Under Ecuador's laws, they could do little but watch.

"In the U.S., lawyers dominate courtrooms," said Steven Donziger, who represents the rain forest clients. "Here, the process is about judges and witnesses. The whole proceeding is much less of a spectacle."

Nonetheless, this case is quietly dramatic, as lawyers begin to file evidence -- some being made public for the first time -- and to call a range of witnesses, including not just scientists, but rain forest Indians and Ecuador's former minister of mines and energy.

The lawsuit charges that a subsidiary of Texaco, which merged with Chevron to form ChevronTexaco in 2001, used substandard technology in its Ecuador operations. It maintains the company dumped toxic "production water" and other oily wastes into unlined pits, contaminating large areas of jungle and harming fish, wildlife, small farmers and jungle tribes.

Those are charges ChevronTexaco flatly denies.

This is a trial with no cross-examination, no sustained objection, no jury of peers. The decision about what could be a cleanup claim of more than $1 billion will lie with Judge Alberto Guerra Bastidas alone. On Friday, he addressed concerns about judicial corruption that arose in pretrial publicity.

"Honor gave me my destiny to be in front of this case," Guerra Bastidas said in an interview with The Bee inside his Spartan chambers. "My wealth is not going to increase, not even by one dollar, from this trial."

Part of Friday's proceedings focused on a new report funded by the national oil company -- Petroecuador -- that examined more than 600 waste pits created from 1971 to 1992 by the Texaco subsidiary, TexPet, and its partner, Petroecuador.

From 1995 to 1998, Texaco spent $40 million to clean up more than 250 of the pits -- an effort the company defends but that rain forest residents and their lawyers contend was inadequate.

The new study, kept under wraps in the court but obtained by The Bee, examined all 627 pits and found pollution at both untreated and cleaned-up sites. At one waste pit that had been cleaned up by Texaco, the study found 80 centimeters -- more than 2 feet -- of crude oil remaining and made this simple comment: "remediation bad."

The study's researchers also interviewed more than 1,000 families living near polluted sites.

One farmer, asked how he used oil-contaminated water, responded that he used it for "drinking, cooking, bathing and washing clothes." Asked how many animals had died from drinking water, he responded: six cows, five horses and one chicken.

The interviewer also inquired about the man's family and made this note: "Señora with strong skin (rash) from time to time ... . She feels the rash a lot and she feel pain (to) the bone."

ChevronTexaco lawyer Arturo Carvajal, who attended Friday's proceedings, declined to comment. But at a news conference earlier this week, the company defended its cleanup effort.

"We completed the work," said Ricardo Reis Viega, vice president and general counsel for Latin America. "And we have been released of any additional work that might be necessary."

Donziger said the report documents an ongoing contamination problem across the region. "The (pits) they supposedly cleaned are still very problematic," he said.

Friday's court proceeding, although unusual in form, included one drama familiar to U.S. courts: challenges to the credibility of evidence and witnesses.

Judge Guerra Bastidas, reading an attorney's question: "Say which of the institutions supported this research (about) the reach of the effects of the pollution in the wells and drilling stations before 1990?"

Witness Roberto Bejarano, a biologist who helped prepare the report: "I understand it was an inter-institutional deal between Petroecuador and the Front for Defense of the Amazon."

Carvajal -- the Texaco lawyer -- smiled. The Front for the Defense of the Amazon is a regional environmental group.

Donziger, though, said the more than 1,500-page document is sound. Members of the environmental group were tapped, he said, because they know the area and are trusted by the Amazon Indians and farmers in the region.

"The study speaks for itself," he said. "It is simply a documentation of every one of the 627 toxic waste pits. Until now, no one had ever documented every pit."

The trial is set to continue next week with an eclectic list of potential witnesses, yet no clarity on how many will actually be called, and when. Among them is Benigno Martínez, who farms southeast of Lago Agrio. He believes that seven of his horses died after drinking water polluted by oil waste. His wife, Maria Villasis, bears the scars of abdominal surgeries she fears are related to drinking the polluted water.

Martínez and the bones of one of his dead horses were featured in The Sacramento Bee series "State of Denial," published last April, about California's reliance on resources from elsewhere -- including oil from the Amazon. Ecuador is California's second-largest source of crude oil, after Saudi Arabia.

Last year, Martínez said he wanted to tell the government about his woes. Next week, in Lago Agrio, he may get his chance.

About the Writer
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The Bee's Tom Knudson can be reached at (530) 582-5336 or tknudson@sacbee.com.

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