U.S. Water News Online
QUITO, Ecuador -- ChevronTexaco has filed a claim against former partner Petroecuador, demanding that the state-owned company share expenses in a lawsuit accusing Texaco of polluting the Amazon jungle, a company representative said.
The California-based oil company filed the request with arbitrators at the American Arbitration Association in New York, company vice president and legal adviser Ricardo Reis Veiga said.
"Based on the contract, Petroecuador has the shared obligation for ... whatever damages that could come out of this lawsuit,'' Reis Veiga said. "The decisions of the arbitrators cannot be appealed &emdash; they are final and obligatory.''
The ongoing lawsuit, brought by 88 people representing 30,000 poor jungle settlers and Amazon Indians, opened in a rural Ecuador court in October after spending a decade winding through U.S. courts. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled in 2002 that the case should be heard in the country where the damage allegedly occurred.
The plaintiffs want ChevronTexaco to pay to clean up contamination and provide medical care for people harmed by pollution. They estimate the costs could reach $1 billion.
The plaintiffs allege that Texaco chose to cut costs during the 1970s and 1980s by dumping 18.5 billion gallons of oily wastewater brought up by drilling into more than 600 open pits and streams in the Amazon jungle.
The company says the lawsuit is unfounded and that it complied with a government cleanup plan.
Texaco merged with Chevron in 2001 and ChevronTexaco is based in San Ramon.
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