An oil spill contaminates 21,000 hectares of the Ecuadorian Amazon

Indigenous and ecological activists warned of the arrival of traces of oil contamination on the banks of the Coca River.Ministry of Environment (/Ministry of Environment /EFE)

A black headband stands out against a green blanket of vegetation in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

It is the oil slick that propelled into the air, as if it were a puncture in a giant hose, the leak from the OCP pipeline (Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados) that has left hundreds of indigenous communities in the last three days without water or food. the province of Napo, in Ecuador.

The large pipeline that carries export oil began to leak oil on Friday night when a breach in the pipeline was opened by a two-meter rock fall in a day of heavy rain. It happened in a section that was not buried but exposed. The Ecuadorian Ministry of Environment says that there are 21,000 hectares affected, of which 16,000 are in the protected area of ​​the Cayambe-Coca National Park.

The remediation task by the direction of the Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline has already begun. The responsible company assures that it has already removed the oil that could be contained in pools created to retain the filtration, but admits that some traces of crude oil reached the Coca River. In addition, he explained that the automatic detection system identified the rupture instantly and stopped the pumping of crude oil, although the reception system is maintained to guarantee the supply of hydrocarbons in the country and exports.

The spill in the Piedra Fina area puts at risk a natural area already damaged by a process of regressive erosion of the Coca River.

The strong flow of the Amazon river has eaten away at the slopes and in 2020 this caused oil spills when the pipes of the Trans-Ecuadorian Oil Pipeline System (SOTE), managed by the public company Petroecuador, and the OCP itself broke.

“This is the result of the state-of-the-art technology that the Government wants to continue developing in oil exploitation.

We come to this place where our brothers bathe and fish and it is not fair for a government to say that this is not contamination,” Marlon Vargas, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon, ironically reproached in a video with the river background.

What for the company operating the pipeline are "small traces" that have reached the river, for the representatives of the indigenous communities are 300 kilometers affected from the area of ​​the spill to the entrance to the intangible area of ​​Yasuní, which is part of the Yasuní National Park, specially protected from extractive activities.

According to Luis Xavier Solís, from the Alejandro Labaka Foundation, this entire route is inhabited by Kichwa communities, who usually get their supplies from natural water sources to eat, maintain their hygiene and drink.

The executive president of OCP Ecuador, Jorge Vugdelija, promised through a video broadcast on social networks to carry out the tasks of remediation of contamination and reparation to the communities.

There are a hundred towns that are home to tens of thousands of people and complain that they have not yet received full compensation for the spills two years ago.

According to the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment, this area is the natural habitat of the Andean cusumbo (a species of coati), chonta deer, rock roosters and various species of amphibians.

The Government asked the company that operates the pipeline to collect information on the magnitude of the disaster, specifying the extent of the environmental damage and the impact on health, in order to guarantee repair actions, but also to define the corresponding sanctions.

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