ECUADOR WANTS REOPENING OF TEXACO LAWSUIT
- By SCOTT NEUMAN
- United Press International
- Fri, 24 Jan 1997
- NEW YORK -- Ecuador asked a New York federal court
- Thursday to reopen a lawsuit against Texaco Petroleum Corp. for
- alleged environmental contamination of the country's Amazon
- rain forest.
- The class-action suit was originally brought by Ecuadorean
- Indians who said they are suffering serious health effects from
- the contamination.
- The case was dismissed in November by U.S. District Court in
- White Plains, N.Y., on the grounds that the government of
- Ecuador was not a party to the suit.
- Ecuador's Attorney General Leonidas Plaza Verduga told a news
- conference that Texaco and its subsidiaries, Texpet and
- Petroecuador, contaminated more than 600 rain forest lagoons
- with known carcinogens associated with the oil-drilling process.
- Texaco is accused of failing to take routine measures to prevent
- groundwater contamination, allegedly saving 3 to 4 dollars per
- barrel of oil.
- Texaco spokesman Yorick Fonseca said the company is surprised
- by Ecuador's ''complete reversal'' in light of a settlement signed
- in 1993 between Texpet and the previous Quito government.
- But the current government of Ecuador regards the settlement --
- in which Texaco agreed to clean up a limited number of
- contaminated sites -- null and void because it was never
- approved by Ecuador's attorney general at the time.
- Ron Mader, Publisher
- El Planeta Platica: Eco Travels in Latin America
- http://www.planeta.com/
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- Carl Gutierrez-Jones,
- Department of English
- University of California
- Santa Barbara, CA 93106
- E-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu