“Ecuadoreans Won’t Back Down in Fighting Chevron-Texaco Over Amazon Oil Disaster” – November 1, 2017

…About 80 times larger than BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill, the “Amazon Chernobyl” was not the result of equipment failure or company negligence. According to a 2013 ruling by Ecuador’s Supreme Court, Chevron-Texaco — which drilled for oil in the country from the 1970s to the early 1990s — intentionally dumped billions of gallons of difficult-to-refine crude and toxic formation waters into open, unlined pits and directly into rivers and streams surrounding its operations. To this day, this waste disposal cost-prevention measure continues to release harmful substances, such as benzene and mercury, into the Amazon…The Ecuadorean plaintiffs, along with the NGOs Amazon Watch and Earth Rights International, among others, countered that Kaplan’s decision is the real product of fraud, given that his decision rested on a witness paid $2 million by the company who afterward admitted he lied under oath. Judge Kaplan also held undisclosed investments in the company during the trial…Despite these irregularities, however, a U.S. appeals court, affirmed Judge Kaplan’s decision in August 2016…