Amazon Defense Coalition: Chevron Lawyer Stumbles in 60 Minutes Interview over Ecuador Oil Contamination

Posted on Friday, May 8, 2009 Updated on Friday, May 8, 2009

This is a story that deserves wide circulation. Makeup doll blowback:

Amazon Defense Coalition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2009-05-04

Karen Hinton, 703-798-3109
karen@hintoncommunications.com

Sylvia Garrigo Compares Makeup on Her Face to Heavily Contaminated Toxic Waste Pits; “Public Relations Disaster” for Chevron

Watch the 60 Minutes program online

New York (May 4, 2009) – Chevron shocked the public relations and legal worlds Sunday by allowing a relatively unknown in-house lawyer to stumble through an interview trying to defend the company on 60 Minutes against charges that it is responsible for the world’s largest oil contamination in Ecuador, where it faces a $27 billion liability.

The spokesperson, Sylvia Garrigo, did not disappoint the company’s detractors – she quickly made the bizarre claim that trace amounts of oil in the makeup on her face was no more harmful that the toxic sludge filmed by 60 Minutes in hundreds of unlined waste pits Texaco built in Ecuador’s rainforest that are still polluting soils and groundwater, according to an independent court expert.

One viewer who posted comments on the internet compared Garrigo’s performance to satirical appearances by Dan Akroyd on Saturday Night Live. Another found it shocking that Chevron did not put forth David O’Reilly, the company’s CEO, to defend the company in what 60 Minutes called the largest environmental legal case ever.

Sadly for Chevron, Garrigo’s performance had nothing to do with satire.

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