Indigenous Peruvians Win Appeal in Federal Lawsuit Against Occidental Petroleum for Contaminating Amazon Rainforest, Poisoning Communities
Indigenous plaintiffs from the Peruvian Amazon won their appeal today in the landmark human rights and environmental contamination lawsuit against Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the case should be heard in Los Angeles, Oxy's hometown. A district court judge had previously ruled that the case should be litigated in Peru…The lawsuit accuses Oxy of causing severe injuries by knowingly dumping a daily average of 850,000 barrels of toxic wastewater into the tropical rainforest inhabited by the indigenous Achuar people of northern Peru over a 30-year period…The plaintiffs allege that these outdated practices caused widespread lead and cadmium poisoning, among other health impacts.