Respectfully, Karen, I think you missed the point of the post, which was precisely to put aside the question of who should pay and ask a different question: why hasn’t the site been cleaned up, regardless of legal liability? I’ve written lots and lots of posts about various aspects of the legal case: this one intentionally deals with a different issue.

Thanks for commenting, Karen. I think you misread me when you claim that I think people living near oil pits have cause for complaint only if the pits are contaminating their drinking water. Of course that’s not what I think. That said, it was not clear to me that anyone actually lived near the Aguarico 4 pit, so it seemed to me that if anyone did suffer an individualized harm on account of that pit, it would have been through, e.g., pollution of drinking water sources. That’s not a statement about the law (it may not be necessary for an individual to be able to show individualized harm in order to hold a polluter liable), but just about the facts.

I don’t think it’s just US commentators who think the Ecuadoran government or Petroecuador could or should do the clean-up. I think that’s the view of the Ecuadoran government itself, which—if I understand its position correctly—says it wants to do the remediation but can’t for legal reasons. And, as I point out, I think Ecuadoran law contemplates the state doing the cleanup and looking to the responsible party for payment thereafter.

And, to answer Ted’s questions as to why Aguarico 4 hasn’t been cleaned, I would say, there are a lot of reasons but the better question is who is going to clean it up now and who is going to pay for it.

With that out the way, Ted asks the question why no one has cleaned up Aguarico 4. Five things are clear to me: 1) Texaco could have prevented the pollution by using widely-accepted drilling & exploration procedures, instead of working on the cheap. 2) Texaco’s remediation, which is Chevron’s main line of defense, was worthless. 3) Chevron could have ended this long ago by doing the right thing. 4) Previous Ecuador governments were both inept and corrupt. They didn’t care about the poor people trying to live with Texaco’s mess. 5) Under Correa, more pits have been cleaned than ever before. It’s not perfect but it’s a start.

And, who are we to question the government when the US government allowed BP to spoil the Gulf Coast by lax oversight. And, last I read, BP paid for the vast majority of the cleanup costs, not the American taxpayers.

But in Ecuador, Chevron, its supporters and most reporters believe the Ecuadorian people—via their government—should pay for all or part of the cleanup, medical care and clean water. If someone wants to help me understand that, OK, but I really don’t get that.

In its arbitration, Chevron is asking that the entire damage award be paid by the Ecuadorians, causing further pain, because $9 billion is a lot of money in Ecuador, tho, it’s chump change for Chevron.

Ted writes most people wouldn’t want to live near an oil-filled pit, IF it were contaminating the water. Well, I say most people would not want to live near an oil-filled pit period. If the pit is not contaminating the water, it is a safety hazard for many other reasons and should be cleaned and covered. This lowering of standards by US observers because the damage is in the jungle and impacts poor, uneducated people speaks volumes about Chevron’s effectiveness indoctrinating some observers and reporters about how its rights have been violated, when the real victims are the Ecuadorians.

Clearly, the Government is partly to blame in the same way the US government is to blame for allowing oil companies to do shoddy work offshore. The only difference is the US has the power to, as the Obama Administration said, “put its boot on the throat” of BP, while Chevron sneers at and ignores its legal obligations in Ecuador.

Finally, Ted, whatever you do, don’t stop quoting James Craig. His latest leaps to the top of my “Stupid Things Chevron Says” list. Instead of just denying that Texaco covered with dirt an oil-filled pit to hide it, he says, “There’s no indication in aerial photographs that the pit at Aguarico 4 was ever covered.”

Right. That’s the best you got, Craig?