Oil giant Chevron must pay $744.6 million in damages its oil and gas projects have caused to southeast Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, a jury ruled April 4.

The verdict, which Chevron said it plans to appeal, marks an end to the first trial of 42 pending lawsuits filed approximately 12 years ago, according to an April 4 report.

The Plaquemines Parish community filed a lawsuit against Chevron in 2013, asking for $2.6 billion in damages at the time. The parish has an additional 20 pending cases against other oil companies, surrounding accelerations to the disappearing coastline, the report said.

Jurors found that oil company Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron in 2001, violated Louisiana’s coastal resources regulations by dredging canals, drilling wells and dumping billions of gallons of wastewater into the marsh.

“No company is big enough to ignore the law, no company is big enough to walk away scot-free,” the plaintiff’s lead attorney John Carmouche told jurors during closing arguments.

A 1978 Louisiana coastal management law mandates sites used by oil companies must be cleared, revegetated, detoxified and otherwise restored as near as practicable to their original condition after operations conclude, the report stated.

The state’s coastal wetlands play a key role in offering the area a measure of protection from hurricanes but are among the most critically endangered environments across the country, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Following the decision, Chevron’s lead trial attorney Mike Phillips said in a statement that “Chevron is not the cause of the land loss occurring.” He said the law does not apply to “conduct that occurred decades before the law was enacted.”

Phillips called the ruling “unjust,” adding that there were “numerous legal errors.”

The jury awarded various compensations to the Plaquemines community on April 4, including $575 million for land loss, $161 million for contamination and $8.6 million for abandoned equipment.

“From the time these lawsuits began a decade ago, oil and gas activity in Louisiana’s state leases and inland waters has declined to nothing. Drilling is nil, production is a shadow of its former self, and service companies have been starved into bankruptcies,” said Mike Moncla, president of Louisiana Oil & Gas Association, which Chevron is a member of, in an April 7 statement.

“This decision against industry is yet another black eye for our state,” Moncla said.

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