Hannah fights for Achuar

Daryl Hannah, environmentalists protest in Westwood, demanding that Occidental oil company clean up Amazon

The actress and representatives of several groups say the firm's operations in Peru left behind toxics that continue to contaminate an indigenous people's waters.During the 30 years that the oil company operated in the Peruvian Amazon, activists claim, it dumped hundreds of thousands of barrels daily of toxic oil byproducts and wastewater into rivers and streams used by the indigenous Achuar people for drinking, bathing and fishing.

"The Achuar are a traditional indigenous community," said Atossa Soltani, executive director of Amazon Watch. "They drink the water from the rivers and streams; and the fish they catch--(now) when they cut open a fish it smells like oil, it's stiff like cardboard and it tastes like oil, but they still eat it . . . There is not a supermarket in the middle of the Amazon."And:Actress Daryl Hannah, who has starred in including "Kill Bill" and "Grumpy Old Men," was at Wednesday's mock cleanup wearing plastic blue wash gloves and carrying a bucket adorned with a skull and crossbones. Hannah said she had been to the Peruvian Amazon and witnessed the problems firsthand.

"The reality is these people are really dying of lead poisoning and cadmium," Hannah said, adding that Occidental shareholders would probably pressure the company to act if they knew the extent of damage. "No one in their right mind would think this is acceptable."