Indigenous Ecuadoran woman humbles US oil giant with $9.5 Billion judgement for environmental damage

[JohnWxy]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110223/ts_alt_afp/ecuadorcourtcompanyenvironmentchevronusnative

RUMIPAMBA, Ecuador (AFP) – She has no legal training, and doesn't speak the Spanish that dominates government in Quito but indigenous villager Maria Aguinda helped bring a landmark judgment against US oil giant Chevron for polluting the rain forest she calls home.

The diminutive grandmother whose modest home sits near marshes clogged for decades in sticky oil has been at the heart of the David-and-Goliath case, and spoke out after Chevron was slapped last week with a $9.5-billion fine, among the heaviest ever handed down for environmental damage.

"Before I die they have to pay me for the dead animals, and for what they did to the river, and the water and the earth," the 61-year-old Aguinda told AFP at her home in Rumipamba, a town in remote Orellana province where pollution caused by 30 years of oil drilling and petroleum accidents had become a sad fact of life.

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Texaco operated in the area between 1964 and 1990, and was bought in 2001 by Chevron, which inherited Texaco's legal nightmare.

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"Mary Aguinda et al" are the opening words of the suit launched in 1993 on behalf of 30,000 residents of Orellana and Sucumbios provinces, in which they charge Texaco dumped billions of gallons of toxic crude during its operations, fouling rivers, lakes and soil and causing cancer deaths in indigenous communities.

(more)


PSSSST CALIFORNIA AIR RESOURCES BOARD....PETROLEUM DOES HAVE LAND USE IMPACTS (ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION DUE TO NON-BIODEGRADABLE TOXIC WASTE). AND THERE IS NO CLEAR CONCLUSION ON HOW LONG THE FOULING OF THE ENVIRONMENT LASTS.

[ClarkUSA]

1. Amazing woman. I hope the monies are spent honestly.

[Jim__]

2. I really hope she gets her money. But oil companies can usually pay somebody off. - n/t

[JohnWxy]

3. Right! Just ask Stanford ($100 million from Exxon Mobil) and Univ Calif Berkeley ($500 mil BP)

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/10/big-oil-u">Big Oil U - Mother Jones


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-washburn24mar24,0,6286060.story">Big Oil buys Berkeley

This is shameful. The core mission of Berkeley is education, open knowledge exchange and objective research, not making money or furthering the interests of a private firm. In the last two decades, however, Cal and other universities — increasingly desperate for research dollars — have signed agreements that fail to protect their essential independence, allowing corporations excessive control over their research.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/15/big-oil-goes-to-college-university-industry-research-collaborative/">Big Oil Goes to College - article

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/10/pdf/big_oil_lf.pdf">Big Oil Goes to College - Center for American Progress report


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x275956">...and then there's California's Love Affair with Big Oil