After 17 years of legal wrangling, a judge is expected to pronounce sentence soon on the largest environmental lawsuit in history. In the ultimate David and Goliath battle, 30,000 indigenous and mestizo (mixed ancestry) settlers in Ecuador’s oil-rich Amazonian region have accused petroleum company Texaco (owned since 2001 by Chevron) of causing what they call a ‘rainforest Chernobyl’.
They allege that Texaco dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste water and spilled 17 million gallons of crude oil into the rainforest during its operations in the Lago Agrio area, in northeast Ecuador, from 1964 to 1990. According to the class action lawsuit, Texaco’s inadequate waste management practices left the region’s soil and water contaminated, creating health problems such as cancer and birth defects.
