Chevron vs. Indigenous Tribes in Ecuador
Over 23 years, Texaco (a partner of Ecuador’s national oil company, Petroecuador) pumped out 1.5 billion barrels of oil from the Ecuadorian Amazon. They drilled hundreds of wells, and created several waste pits at each well. Then, after extraction was complete, they abandoned the wells and pits. It’s been decades since then, and the drilling sites have contaminated groundwater and rivers/streams, and have been linked to increased occurrences of cancer, organ failure, spontaneous abortion, and death.
According to a former EPA Superfund employee, the levels of environmental damage created by Texaco would not be tolerated in the US. It disgusts me that they’ve avoided remediation, at the cost of fellow humans’ lives, for the sake of greed; they failed to follow industry standards for environmental safety because they knew they could get away with it. Learning about this issue has certainly piqued my interest in environmental remediation and pollution and the role of corruption and lobbying in international affairs.
According to a former EPA Superfund employee, the levels of environmental damage created by Texaco would not be tolerated in the US. It disgusts me that they’ve avoided remediation, at the cost of fellow humans’ lives, for the sake of greed; they failed to follow industry standards for environmental safety because they knew they could get away with it. Learning about this issue has certainly piqued my interest in environmental remediation and pollution and the role of corruption and lobbying in international affairs.