18.02.2013 Views

hLpb5

hLpb5

hLpb5

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

not reflect substantial differences in costs between the U.S. and Ecuador, and are often<br />

meaningless outside the larger U.S. regulatory context. For example, the report asserts that the<br />

cost of remediating the pits-including the imaginary ones-would be $2.2 million per pit. This<br />

is 25 times greater than Petroecuador's average actual cost of ongoing pit remediation at $85,000<br />

per pit.<br />

171. Other intentional errors abound. Even though Cabrera did not take a single<br />

sample of drinking water and despite the existence of literally dozens of public drinking water<br />

systems in the concession area, the report assesses $428 million in damages for potable water<br />

systems. The conspirators also included $8.4 billion in damages for "unfair profits" TexPet<br />

allegedly earned, a penal levy that the Lago Agrio Plaintiffs never requested in their complaint,<br />

and included allocations such as millions of dollars to create a husbandry farm to produce<br />

hunting game for local residents.<br />

172. Finally, the RICO Defendants relied on unreliable, manipulated sampling data<br />

that they selected in order to maximize their damages claims. While claiming to use independent<br />

laboratories, the RICO Defendants actually processed much of the material themselves, often at a<br />

makeshift lab in a hotel room, which they referred to as "Selva Viva Labs." This work was so<br />

shoddy, however, that they sometimes had to simply "lose" reports that would not stand up to<br />

any review. They would also change their analysis when the results were not coming out the<br />

way they wanted. For example, in 2004 they stopped analyzing for certain contaminants because<br />

they realized that the presence of those contaminants in the samples would "show that the<br />

contamination is much more recent than we would desire," thus indicating that the source was<br />

Petroecuador activity after TexPet ceased operations.<br />

173. The Cabrera Report also unilaterally expanded the scope of Cabrera's mandate<br />

and went far beyond the expertise of his publicly disclosed team by addressing additional issues<br />

unrelated to the Lago Agrio Plaintiffs' claims for environmental remediation and medical<br />

monitoring. Despite the failure to identify a single individual with cancer or produce a single<br />

medical report, the report initially assessed $2.9 billion for "excessive cancer deaths" and then<br />

69

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!