A Louisiana jury has ordered Chevron to pay $744.6 million to restore coastal wetlands in southeast Louisiana damaged by decades of oil and gas operations, reports AP. The verdict follows a landmark case brought by Plaquemines Parish, making it the first of many similar lawsuits to go to trial.
The case focused on Texaco’s operation, acquired by Chevron in 2001, which were found to have violated Louisiana’s coastal management laws. Jurors agreed the company failed to repair damage from dredging canals, drilling wells, and dumping billions of gallons of wastewater into the marshlands, contributing to coastal land loss.
“No company is big enough to ignore the law, no company is big enough to walk away scot-free,” said lead plaintiff attorney John Carmouche during closing arguments.
A 1978 law required oil companies to restore affected areas, even if operations were ongoing, by securing permits and following environmental standards. Chevron, however, did not obtain the necessary permits or clean up pollution, the lawsuit claimed.
Plaquemines Parish was awarded $575 million for land loss, $161 million for contamination, and $8.6 million for abandoned equipment. With interest, the restoration total exceeds $1.1 billion. The parish originally sought $2.6 billion.
Chevron plans to appeal. “Chevron is not the cause of the land loss occurring” in the parish, said Chevron’s lead attorney Mike Phillips, calling the verdict “unjust” and citing legal errors. He also argued the law did not apply retroactively to actions taken before it was enacted.
Chevron reported over $3 billion in earnings in Q4 2024.
The broader impact of oil on Louisiana’s coast
Louisiana’s coastal parishes have lost over 2,000 square miles of land in the past century, and experts point to oil and gas infrastructure as a key driver. Canals dug by companies fragment wetlands, while wastewater degrades soil and vegetation, weakening natural defenses against hurricanes and sea-level rise.
Chevron maintained that levees preventing sediment from the Mississippi River are the main reason for coastal erosion. “The way to solve the land loss problem is not suing oil companies, it’s reconnecting the Mississippi River with the delta,” Phillips told jurors.
Still, the court found Chevron responsible for worsening the crisis. The parish’s restoration plan includes removing contaminated soil and restoring degraded marshlands—steps the company argued were unrealistic and inflated the cost of damages.
“Our communities are built on coast, our families raised on coast, our children go to school on coast,” said Jimmy Faircloth Jr., an attorney representing the state. “The state of Louisiana will not surrender the coast.”
The ruling could pave the way for more oil firms to be held accountable. Plaquemines alone has 20 similar lawsuits pending, and the state is running low on coastal restoration funds. Supporters say the verdict could help replenish these resources as settlements or judgments come in.
Despite resistance from oil companies, even Louisiana’s pro-industry Governor Jeff Landry has backed the legal efforts, which have faced failed legislative and legal attempts to derail them.
Tommy Faucheux, President of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association, criticized the ruling, saying it “undermines Louisiana’s position as an energy leader” and warned that companies could be “sued retroactively tomorrow for following the laws of today.”
But Carmouche and his team remain focused on using litigation to fund environmental recovery. “If we continue to be successful in our efforts, these parishes, and Louisiana, will have sent a clear message that Louisiana’s future must be built around a new balance between our energy industry and environmental necessities.”
