Ecuador Orders Chevron to Apologize, Pay $8.6 Billion to Clean up Pollution

In what is believed to be the "largest-ever judgment in an environmental case," according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, an Ecuadorian judge has ruled that Chevron Corp. must pay $8.6 billion to clean up oil pollution that occurred in the nation's rainforests between 1965 and 1992. Chevron has also been ordered to publicly apologize for the incident by March 1, or else face a doubling of the judgment.

When Chevron acquired Texaco Inc. in 2001, it also acquired Texaco's history of environmental abuse in Ecuador. Such damage includes billions of gallons of waste water and oil that Texaco allegedly dumped into open pits and wildlife habitats in the Amazon rainforests. Reports say the damage was so extreme that the event has been dubbed "the Amazon's Chernobyl." The pollution is also estimated to have killed at least 1,400 people.'

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