Toxitur in Lago Agrio

Upon touching down in Lago Agrio, it was soon apparent that at least some of the ill rumors about the town were true. Soeren and I started off the visit with a wild goose chase to find the office of an agency that calls itself "Frente de la Defensa de la Amazonia" on a Friday evening when most businesses were beginning to close down. Our goal was to locate someone in charge of the agency (vaguely mentioned in an Ecuador guidebook) and ask them for whatever information they could give us, with the hope of actually seeing some big bad oil company devastation first-hand. A tall order on a weekend, especially via an unsolicited cold-call.

After 30 minutes in the back of a police truck escort (yes, my second time in South America) we managed to find the place, which was of course closed. We did manage to locate some phone numbers, however, and got in touch with president of the Front, who was at the time in the smallish jungle town Coca, a few hours south of Lago Agrio. He agreed to meet us the following morning.

I was thrilled. Saturday morning, I began to realize the influences that oil had on this place. My breakfast menu had three options: Desayuno Regular, Americano, or Petrolero (the first two are very common in South America). I of course got the Petrolero, which of course came with meat. The name of a hotel across the street was "Hotel Oro Negro." Many working-age people on the street wore jackets or shirts branded with either Texaco or PetroEcuador. The city also clearly had a delinquency problem, was broken down economically, and was recently in the papers because of a public demonstration. I knew I was in for some drama.

It turns out that the person who would meet is us is Jose Fajardo, the president of the Amazon Defense Coalition (interchangeable with Frente de la Defensa de la Amazonia). The organization was created in 1993 and has served as the central front for a legal case against the Chevron-Texaco corporation. In 2003, Ecuadorian plaintiffs (led by Jose´s brother, Pablo) filed a class action lawsuit against Texaco, representing representing 30,000 indigenous Ecuadorians. The suit claims that during three decades of drilling for oil in an inhabited area of the Ecuadorian Amazon (ending in 1992), Texaco dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic by-products from the drilling process directly into rivers and streams (30x+ more crude oil than the Exxon Valdez spill). Cancer and other health problems continue to abound in the surrounding areas.

The kicker of the case is that it is being tried in Ecuador, a win for the "good guys" and the first time a case against a transnational corporation has been tried outside of its home country. The trial is now in the phase of damages assessment where a group of expects will place a dollar value on cleanup efforts. The figure is looking like $6 billion that Texaco would have to pay for basic environmental remediation. The damages assessment is expected to be turned over to the court this fall, with a final decision to come several months later. After that, the plaintiffs expect YEARS of appeals from Texaco before the damages award is actually dispersed.


So it goes. What seems to be making people especially mad is that the Texaco legal defense team seems to be using "stalling" tactics to delay judgment of the case. Who knows why they are doing it, but it has been reason enough for the Front to organize a manifestation in Lago Agrio recently to get some attention from the public. A couple thousand people turned out to form some human chains around the first oil derrick that Texaco put up in the 70´s. The resulting images made it to the recent Live Earth show in New York, and the lead lawyer in the case (Jose´s brother) did some shoulder rubbing with Sting and Weird Al Gore.



Pretty good story, right? So Jose gave us some great background on the communities affected and the various means by which the Front tries to help them out. He also offered to show us some sights, in what he called the ToxiTur. We hired a driver to take us out to the small town Shushufindi, one of the nearby areas affected by the drilling.

He gave us the rockstar tour. Or rather, Presidential. Among the recent tour participants have been Sting´s wife, Darryl Hannah, and the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa.


I should know what these things are called but I don´t (note I call the petroleum "gas" in the clip because I am confused. Must be the fumes). The point is that they burn excess petroleum. The main issue here is that Texaco initially built them LOW (just a few feet off the ground). Occasionally, large pools of oil would catch on fire producing LARGE smoke clouds. The resultant (carcinogenic) particulate matter would wind up in the rain water, which indiginous people have a habit of collecting from their rooftops when fresh drinking water is scarce...



One of the 800 reserve pits that Texaco left behind. These pools are normally formed during the drilling process to dispose of rock cuttings and drilling mud. They are supposed to be lined with plastic to protect the environment, and are supposed to be sealed off after drilling is complete. This is an example of neglect on both accounts. Some reserve pit sites Texaco did cover over, but did not adequately contain the surfaced oil. It migrated and resurfaced, sometimes in the backyards of families.


Looking like a million bucks.


An example of backyard migration. This man has multiple forms of cancer (skin and ocular) and has been living on his property for over 20 years. He showed us where petrol-mud has sprung up (a 6-foot deep swamp slowly pooled up in his backyard) and also yanked on his eyelid for us to show us where he was lacking nerves, I think. The fumes are apparently much less tolerable in hotter weather (it was a tepid day in the jungle).



An artsy picture of one of the old "highways" that Texaco put up when they were building a drilling infrastructure. Rather than asphalt based, dirt paths were simply mixed with petroleum to reduce dust as construction equipment moved in and out of the drill sites. What was not foreseen (one would hope) is that locals would use these paths daily for their own business. On hot days, the petroleum would heat up and emit carcinogenic gases. Cervical cancer rates of young girls in this area skyrocketed during this period -- the "good guy" explanation being that they walked these paths daily to schools, work, etc, without knowing that they were exposing their reproductive organs to cancer causing agents. Nasty stuff.


The ubiquitous pipelines that line the highways.

Quite a day it was. If anyone would like further information, just let me know.