The footage, provided to Vice News, was part of a package of 47 DVDs containing internal videos from the company, which were mailed to the group with no return address in April 2011. A note included with the DVD’s read, "I hope this is useful for you in the trial against Texaco/Chevron! A friend from Chevron."
In 2011, Chevron was found liable for $19 billion to cover cleanup and damages due to the Amazon oil contamination in Ecuador that took place from 1964 to 1990 by Texaco, which was subsequently bought by Chevron. The liability was reduced to $9.5 billion two years later.
Later that year, Chevron filed a countersuit in the United States under RICO, claiming that Steven Donziger, the lawyer representing Ecuadorian residents and Amazon Watch, had committed mail and wire fraud, money laundering, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. In 2014, Judge Lewis Kaplan of New York ruled in Chevron’s favor, finding the environmental group guilty of attempting to extort money from the company and obstructing justice. An appeal is scheduled to be heard by a three judge panel on April 20.
“After 22 years of litigation, Chevron has vowed to fight the Ecuadorian indigenous and farmer communities until ‘hell freezes over’ and then ‘fight it out on the ice.’ Meanwhile, the affected people continue to live with the pollution, and lack of potable water and healthcare. Don’t let Chevron get away with the environmental crime of the century,” a statement from Amazon Watch reads following the footage.
The sample of footage released to the public appears to show Chevron workers looking for clean soil, but repeatedly finding crude oil. Donziger states that the inspections shown were done in anticipation of Ecuadoran court officials visiting the area. He claims the workers were looking for “clean areas” for the court to test, in an area that Donzinger claims was already classified as remediated by Chevron and the government of Ecuador.
A spokesperson for Chevron maintained that there was nothing improper happening in the videos, yet Donzinger has faced what he describes as “stunning efforts” by Chevron to suppress the footage.
"These videos are Chevron's property, and are confidential documents and/or protected litigation work product," one of Chevron's lawyers wrote in a February 15, 2013 letter to Donziger's attorneys, obtained by Vice. "Chevron demands that you promptly return the improperly obtained videos and all copies of them by sending them to my attention at the above address."
The video compilation also includes interviews with locals, reportedly conducted by employees of Chevron. A woman describes how the company came in after the spill while she was only a child and just covered up the petroleum with dirt. She claims that the water in the area continues to kill cows to this day.
It happened "more than 20 years ago," the woman explains, "but I still remember it, how there was oil over everything. The cows still die there. They came, threw some dirt on top of the crude oil, and there it stayed."
In another interview, a gentleman describes losing three of his daughters who would often play outside and end up covered in the crude oil. He believes the oil pollution to be the cause of their early deaths.
"They clearly show Chevron technicians finding massive amounts of contamination at sites the company had previously claimed had been remediated…. Chevron should be ashamed of its behavior, which our team considers to be not only unethical, but criminal,” Donzinger told Vice.
