Chevron Ordered to Pay $19 Billion for Environmental Damage 18 billion gals of toxic waste Rainfores

http://www.care2.com/causes/success-chevron-ordered-to-pay-19-billion-for-environmental-damage.html

by Colleen Hodgetts July 27, 2012 8:00 pm

Thanks to your actions, Care2 members, we celebrated a major victory in Ecuador this week.

Chevron has been ordered by an Ecuadorian court to pay more than $19 billion in environmental damages, $1 billion more than originally decided, after an Ecuadorian court adjusted the amount on appeal.

Over the course of 26 years of oil drilling in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, U.S. oil giant Chevron deliberately dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the rainforest. The contamination devastated the homes of some 30,000 indigenous people and large areas of the rainforest, leaving local people suffering a wave of cancers, miscarriages and birth defects. In spite of the tremendous suffering caused by this toxic pollution, Chevron refused to clean up the catastrophe.

It has taken years of litigation to hold Chevron accountable and force them to compensate the victims of their environmental destruction.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/success-chevron-ordered-to-pay-19-billion-for-environmental-damage.html#ixzz21v9wkjgi

FULL story at link.