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- From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Subject: Texaco Poisons Ecuador
- Message-ID: <1992Dec18.210036.7852@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Date: 18 Dec 92 21:00:36 GMT
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- Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit
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-
- TEXACO POISONS ECUADORANS
-
- By Charles Tucker
-
- A continuous, long-term oil spill in the Amazon forest of Ecuador
- is destroying the forest and the life system it supports there.
-
- Texaco has extracted more than a billion barrels of oil in 25
- years of pumping in the jungle. But the U.S.-based multi-national
- corporate giant has ignored the effects on the surrounding
- communities and the delicate ecosystem of the region. Ecologist
- Judith Kimerling made this assertion in a report issued by a
- group called SALVAM (Save the Amazon).
-
- "Indigenous communities in the region have lost their livelihood:
- there are no animals to hunt, the rivers are dead and lack fish,
- and they can't plant because the land is now sterile. Residents
- of the area suffer headaches, lung, skin and intestinal diseases,
- and birth defects," Kimerling reported.
-
- There have been continuous minor and major oil spills over
- hundreds of miles of oil pipeline through the region, according
- to the report. In 1989 one such accident dumped 294,000 gallons
- of oil into the Napo River.
-
- As a result 31 Quechua communities in the area lost their crops.
- But they received no aid or indemnification whatever.
-
- "Just in the past two months there have been three oil spills at
- Texaco facilities," the report continued. The biggest affected 21
- communities. "The cause of the spill was human error, but [it]
- was worsened by the lack of a containment plan to limit and clean
- up the spill to the extent possible, and aid those affected."
-
- A "firm" agreement between Texaco and the Ecuadoran government to
- protect the people's right to a contaminant-free environment has
- been completely ignored. The problem affects not only Ecuador,
- but all humanity, the report emphasized.
-
- (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
- source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
- St., New York, NY 10010; email: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org; "workers"
- on PeaceNet; on Internet: "workers@mcimail.com".)
-
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- NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit
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