Californians still suffering from groundwater and well pollution by the now-banned gasoline additive MTBE should take note that Chevron has adamantly refused to settle a multibillion-dollar Ecuadoran lawsuit over widespread water and ground pollution. The pollution is laid to Texaco, which Chevron bought in 2001 fully aware of Texaco’s accused misdeeds in the Central American nation.
“At no point" will the company settle out of court, Chevron representative Jaime Varela said at a news conference Thursday. Those are words that resonate in California, a major party to a class action lawsuit against MTBE that is likely to be heard this year.
MTBE, produced by Chevron’s chemical arm, leaked from gas station tanks and spread widely before it was banned in 2004. Given that California accounted for more than 30% of MTBE use, its problem is substantial. Estimates of the cost of the national MTBE cleanup range up to $30 billion.
The major oil companies failed in a bid last year to get a law through Congress that would have erased their MTBE liability. It has settled a number of individual suits brought by cities and water districts, but 80 lawsuits from California, New York and a handful of other states have been rolled into a class action being argued, probably this year, in a New York court. The Albany Times Union wrote a good wrapup of the case last April, including damning evidence that the oil companies’ own engineers begged them not to use MTBE because it would contaminate groundwater.