O’Dwyer’s PR Report: Chevron’s battle over oil clean-up winds to close

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/odwyers/201002/#/10

Chevron’s battle over oil clean-up winds to close

by Kevin McCauley

February 2010

A high stakes PR battle between Chevron and the environmental community moved to the streets of Houston in January as organizers of a marathon booted activists from the George R. Brown Convention Center. The protesters had set up a booth to distribute materials critical of the energy giant’s human rights record in Ecuador.

The Houston confrontation was the latest installment in the epic 17-year battle between Chevron and the people of the Amazon region over widespread environmental contamination that may have resulted in the cancer-related deaths of about 1,400 people.

A court in Ecuador last year ruled that Chevron was liable for $27B in damages, making it the biggest environmental lawsuit in history. Chevron maintains the contamination occurred after its Texaco unit departed Ecuador in 1992. It claims Texaco did its part in cleaning up the pollution, spending $40M in remediation money with the expiration of its contract.

Chevron believes the Government of Ecuador and Petroecuador, which used the Texaco constructed oil production system, are responsible for the mess that has ruined soil and groundwater.

The Financial Times (Jan. 18) portrayed the legal squabble as “an Amazonian publicity battle.” It noted that Chevron is bucking the usual legal route of reserving comment for the courtroom.

Chevron, instead, “has taken the unusual step of elevating the case on the world stage.” It has posted videos in its defense on YouTube and has paid Google for ads keyed to the words “Chevron” and “Ecuador.”

Those ads link to a video that allegedly shows a $3M judiciary bribery scheme and to a site that tells “the truth about Ecuador” and informs viewers why Chevron cannot get a fair hearing there.

Dispute in Houston

The Rainforest Action Network paid for a table at the Expo site of the Chevron Houston Marathon to distribute “I’m Running for Human Rights” stickers and pass out information that blames Chevron for not cleaning up more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater and roughly 17 million gallons of crude oil allegedly spilled in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Police were called in and they ejected the RAN runners. RAN contends the action violated the First Amendment rights of the runners. RAN’s Maria Ramos is outraged that marathon organizers “would deny the rights of participants to appease a corporate sponsor that is clearly ashamed of its human rights records.”

The group claims that Steven Karpas, Managing Director of the CHM, said the protesters were kicked out because “higher ups at Chevron are freaking out.”

That is not what Karpas told O’Dwyer’s. “It was not what I said. The decision to ask RAN to leave our Expo was completely mine. I did this in my role as Managing Director of the Houston Marathon Committee and without any communication or directives from Chevron. It was unfair of RAN to give the impression that Chevron was behind me asking RAN to leave. They were not,” said Karpas via email.

Karpas holds no ill will toward the RAN people. “They were cordial and non-confrontational. I know they were just doing their job, as I was. I do appreciate how they conducted themselves when asked to vacate their booth.”

Though RAN got the boot from the Expo, it’s happy with the media coverage of the event. Brianna Cayo Cotter of RAN says the Houston Chronicle, Houston Press and local TV ran items about the eviction.

The AP report got major pick-up, including the New York Times, which had “Houston Event Ousts Group Critical of Race Sponsor” as its headline.

Capitol Hill firepower

Chevron, which had agreed to abide by the Ecuadorian court’s decision, filed in September an international arbitration claim with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague under the rules of the United States Commission on International Trade Law.

The company also wants U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to withhold trade preferences for Ecuador.

It has hired high-powered lobbyists such as Parven Pomper Strategies (Brian Pomper helped craft the Andean Trade Partnership Act), Breaux Lott Leadership Group (former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott leads the Chevron team) and Ogilvy Government Relations to make its case in Washington.

Those lobbyists are countered by Karen Hinton, who runs Hinton Communications in Washington. She told O’Dwyer’s that she was hired by the Amazon Defense Coalition in 2008 to counter the “uptick” in Chevron’s lobbying and PR activity.

She believes Chevron feels threatened by the administration of Ecuador’s leftist President Rafael Correa, who kicked the U.S. military from his country, and told the American press last summer that Ecuador is “no one’s colony.” “Correa is not an oil man,” said Hinton.

Chevron claims on its Website (www.theamazonpost.com) that Correa has “openly sided with the plaintiffs who are suing Chevron.” The Chevron site says the Government of Ecuador turned to leftist PR firm, Fenton Communications, to polish its image in the U.S. Chevron sees that hookup as a sign of collusion since Fenton has worked with Amazon Watch, which donates money to Hinton’s client, ADC.

ADC, in Chevron’s view, is the “named financial beneficiary in the environmental lawsuit in Ecuador.”

Hinton rips the assumption that the long legal struggle is a battle to line the pockets of trial lawyers. Hinton says the lawsuit is a class action suit that is designed to benefit the peasants who live in the “concession area.” The money earned from Chevron will be plowed into Ecuador to benefit the people through the construction of healthcare facility and systems to deliver clean drinking water, according to Hinton.

She expects that Chevron will soon run out of stalling tactics and the saga will come to an end this summer.

GRAPHIC: Pictures 1 through 9, Amazon Watch’s chevrontoxico.com features a video that accuses Chevron of a “Rainforest Chernobyl,” a widespread contamination in the Ecuadorian Amazon that may have resulted in the cancer-related deaths of about 1,400 people.