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Article: Ecuador : Chevron and Cultural Genocide in Ecuador.
- Article from:
- TendersInfo
- Article date:
- November 5, 2009
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Al Bawaba (Middle East) Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: manish03
Traces of paradise are still visible. From the air, the rainforest region in northern Ecuador--known as the Oriente--appears as silvery mist and swaths of verdant green.
But beneath the cloud cover and canopy, the jungle is a tangle of oil slicks, festering sludge, and rusted pipeline. Smokestacks sprout from the ground, spewing throat-burning fumes into the air. Wastewater from unlined pits seeps into the groundwater and flows into the rivers and streams.
This nightmarish landscape is the legacy of Texaco. Between 1964 and 1990, Texaco (which was acquired by Chevron in 2001) drilled roughly 350 wells across 2,700 square miles ...