| #1 Stephens seems to have this story pretty much correct. Virtually ALL the environmental damage in Ecuador in the last 30+ years is entirely due to the Ecuadoran national oil company, not Chevron (or Texaco). There were probably some fairly minor problems from 'standard oilfield practice' of the earlier era, but Texaco (& Chevron) remediated them. Operating rules, and then later operations, were established by the Ecuadorans, and their corruption and incompetence led to some later environmental damage (significant but not devastating: understand that most of the oil that ever existed leaked back into the environment naturally - oil is a part of the environment, and whole communities of deep-ocean fauna have developed around submarine seeps.) Probably the best thing we can do for those poor Ecuadorans is hurry up and extract the rest of their oil and bring it to the US so it won't cause them any more pollution risk. |