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ChevronTexaco on the defensive
Suit in Ecuador alleges drilling by Texaco caused environmental damage in Amazon
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
ChevronTexaco accused of damaging Amazon
March 3, 2005 - When Chevron merged with Texaco in 2001, it inherited a simmering environmental dispute in Ecuador that could cost the company billions.
Texaco had dumped crude oil and water into open pits in a corner of the Amazon where the company drilled between 1964 and 1992.
Now the combined company, based in San Ramon, is fighting a suit in Ecuador charging that Texaco left pollution that has poisoned the region's drinking water and sickened residents.
Today, representatives of activist ChevronTexaco shareholders will fly to Ecuador to tour the region at the heart of the dispute, near Lago Agrio. They will meet with residents and monitor pollution tests central to the court case.
ChevronTexaco representatives will also be on hand to meet with the shareholders and spell out their side of the case.
"We'll talk with anybody," said Russell Yarrow, external relations manager for ChevronTexaco. "Essentially, we'd like them to be able to separate propaganda from proof."
The suit could cost ChevronTexaco $6 billion, which the plaintiffs argue is needed to clean up the area.
"There's a huge gap in the information from what the indigenous people say and what the company says, so this delegation will get an opportunity to meet with both sides," said Leila Salazar with Amazon Watch.
The San Francisco nonprofit group, which wants ChevronTexaco to clean up more of the area, organized the trip. Participants, however, have to pay their own way.
While there, they will also visit another part of the Amazon where Burlington Resources of Houston wants to drill for oil, sparking protests from residents.
ChevronTexaco argues that tests at its former sites have so far failed to turn up harmful pollution levels. The company also insists that Ecuador's state oil company, which still pumps crude in the region, agreed years ago to clean up most of the sites and is now trying to renege.
The small delegation includes one representative of California Controller Steve Westly. Two other people on the trip work with investors who use their cash to push for ethical changes in the companies whose shares they hold.
Leslie Lowe directs the energy and environment program at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which represents the investing arms of many Catholic and Protestant institutions.
Some of the center's members have filed a ChevronTexaco shareholder resolution seeking a report on the company's activities in Ecuador. Shareholders rejected a similar resolution last year.
The company's environmental record, she said, will affect its future ability to sign oil production agreements elsewhere. That makes the company's behavior in Ecuador relevant to long-term investors, prompting her to sign up for the trip.
"Is the company doing the socially responsible thing that will allow it to operate in these countries?" Lowe asked.
As part of the tour, Lowe and her companions will observe an inspection of one of the sites involved in the suit. Under the supervision of an Ecuadoran judge, ChevronTexaco and its opponents are checking for contamination at 122 locations. Each team runs its own analysis of soil and water samples, submitting results to the court.
So far, the two sides have reported very different results. ChevronTexaco, for example, says it hasn't found cancer-causing benzene in its samples and adds that the plaintiffs haven't either.
Steven Donziger, an attorney representing Ecuadoran residents in the suit, says the plaintiffs' tests have turned up benzene and other potentially harmful chemicals.
E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com.
Compassionate Friends remember loved ones
By KARIN WILLIAMS, kwilliams@phoenixvillenews.com
12/12/2005 - PHOENIXVILLE - Compassionate Friends, a group of parents who have lost children to illness, violence or accidents, gathered in Reeves Park Sunday to remember their loved ones.
Candles were lit and the names of the deceased were read, each followed by the sound of a gong.
Emma Valenteen, who founded the group in 1991, addressed the crowd, which had gathered by the Third Avenue gazebo.
Valenteen, who lost an 11-year-old daughter to aplastic anemia in 1983, buried her son on Saturday, following his death last week. She did not attend the last group meeting, but said nothing was going to keep her from attending Sunday's candlelight ceremony.
A poem was read by Compassionate Friends member Michael Dolla, who lost a daughter, Asia Marie, in 2003. Asia Marie, who suffered from mental retardation, cerebral palsy and epilepsy, has a foundation which has been created in her name, Asia Marie's Angels. The foundation, whose Website is www.asiamariesangels.com, raises funds for families with special-needs children.
Following the poem, candles were passed out and lit, each person lighting the flame of someone nearby until all candles were burning. As the individual names of the departed children were read by Kim Hunter, whose son Paul drowned in August, friends and family members raised their candles in memory of the deceased. Each name was followed by a gong.
Tymeka and Tymeisha Meningie, who are 15 and 16 years old, respectively, sang a heart-wrenching rendition of "Precious Child," a song written for the Compassionate Friends.
Lyrics of the song read, In my heart you live on/Always there never gone/ Precious child, you left too soon/ Tho' it may be true that we're apart/ You will live forever in my heart.
The girls, who have been singing since the ages of two and three, are the daughters of Compassionate Friends member Shirley Meningie,
After the reading, bagpiper William Willis exited the park as he played "Amazing Grace."
Valenteen, who joined a Compassionate Friends' group in Valley Forge following the death of her daughter Marianne, began the Phoenixville chapter at the request of Phoenixville Hospital staff.
"I was asked by Phoenixville Hospital to start the group because of the overabundance of children committing suicide in this area, and they didn't know how to handle their parents," said Valenteen.
Originally, Valenteen's group met at the hospital, but parents who had lost children at the medical facility were not completely comfortable being there, and so the group moved to the First Presbyterian Church at Main and Morgan streets. They have remained there for the last 14 years.
The group puts out a newsletter six times a year, each complete with birthdays and anniversary-of-passing dates, ensuring the mention of each child at least twice per year.
For more information on Compassionate Friends, contact Emma Valenteen at 610-933-2346.
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