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Four oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon have affected more than 30 indigenous communities in recent weeks, where more than 6,000 people live, who feed themselves and obtain water from the rivers and lagoons now contaminated by the oil slick.
The spills occurred in the Loreto and Amazonas regions: three at points on the Norperuano Pipeline and another at an oil lot.
In protest at the State's lack of attention to the emergency, leaders of the affected localities blocked the passage of boats on a river and in October others traveled to the capital to complain about the lack of food, the loss of fishing as a means of life, and the disruption of their activities.
The first occurred on September 10 and affected five communities of the Chapra Nation;
the second originated on the 16th in the community of Cuninico, which in 2014 suffered great devastation due to a leak of 2,500 barrels from the same pipeline;
and the third was detected on the 21st of that month by the indigenous population in a fluid collection area of oil lot 192 called the Shiviyacu Battery.
That area, located in the community of the José Olaya Achuar people, also suffered other spills in the past decade.
Regarding this discharge, the environmental prosecutor's office reported that in three days it affected six kilometers until it reached bodies of water.
On Saturday, October 22, another spill contaminated the Wawiko River in the province of Bagua, Amazonas, and harms some 15 towns.
In recent years, several spills have affected the Amazon regions of Loreto and Amazonas, where indigenous peoples and settlers live on the banks of the rivers with little access to services such as health.
According to a 2020 Oxfam report, between 2000 and 2019, 65% of spills were the result of corrosion and failures of state oil infrastructure or private companies, and 23% were sabotage by third parties.
However, the Energy and Mining Investment Supervision Agency indicated in 2021 that 41% of spills were caused by attacks.
As a result of the increase in contaminated areas, former workers in the hydrocarbon sector and former local authorities have opened businesses to clean up and remediate the damage with which they are benefiting economically, Peruvian investigative journalists and indigenous leaders denounce.
A staple covers the corrosion in the Norperuano Pipeline that caused damage in the district of Morona, territory of the Chapra indigenous people. Sacred Basins
Meanwhile, those affected complain about the lack of help.
A week after the spill in Cuninico, that community received water and food from the PetroPerú company that operates the Norperuano Pipeline.
But the assistance was only enough for two days, as reported by the apu (indigenous chief) Wadson Trujillo.
Due to the serious spill in 2014 and the effects on the health of the inhabitants, this community obtained precautionary measures in 2017 from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for the protection and integrity of life.
Five years later, they are still exposed to damage and protection does not come.
The pipeline originating from the leak belongs to the state-owned PetroPerú.
The indigenous federations and the Supervisory Agency for Investment in Energy and Mining have indicated that, despite being 50 years old, the pipeline of more than 850 kilometers has barely received maintenance.
According to the Agency for Environmental Assessment and Enforcement (OEFA), the spill of some 2,500 barrels of crude oil on September 16 in Cuninico contaminated some 848,400 square meters of water in the Cuninico streams and the Marañón River, along 147 kilometers in those who reside in 17 other communities.
On September 24, the Ministry of the Environment declared an environmental emergency.
“272 families live here: PetroPerú delivered humanitarian aid to 200 families a week after the spill and we have not had any further communication,” the Cuninico community authority denounced by telephone.
"No one has communicated with the Loreto Regional Government and the Urarinas municipality delivered bottles of water only once," she adds.
only rain water
Due to the serious spill in 2014, the Ministry of Housing installed an emergency water plant in Cuninico that supplied community pools for 30 minutes a day.
However, according to the beneficiaries, the source was the river itself and the polluted streams.
“Each person can fill half a bucket [of 12 liters] a day and it is not enough for everyone.
The construction of a water plant in charge of the municipality of Urarinas advanced to 70%, but it was not finished due to misappropriation of funds, a case for which several former officials are being investigated, according to what the head of the office told América Futura of the Ombudsman's Office in Loreto, Abel Chiroque, who announced that this body will ask the Ministry of Housing to resume the project.
Meanwhile, residents are using rainwater, according to Trujillo.
The indigenous chief of Cuninico claims that, despite obtaining favorable court rulings and precautionary measures, the State does not monitor the people exposed to oil contamination or build health and sanitation infrastructure.
Although the number of patients has increased among the families of Cuninico, the health module is a small environment made of prefabricated material with two nurses and a technician.
"80% here have colic, allergies, headaches and fever," laments Trujillo.
“Since the first day of the spill, all our activities – tilling the land or attending classes – have been paralyzed.
If there is no food or water, everything is in an emergency: I would not want anyone to be in our situation.”
Monsignor Miguel Ángel Cadenas, bishop of Iquitos —the capital of the Loreto region— assures that the spill has affected the populations because it is the spawning season of the fish in the lagoons.
"They don't feel heard," he remarks.
For this reason, the leaders of the affected communities blocked the Marañón River two weeks after the spill to request attention from the State, but received no response.
New victims
Although other spills have been reported in the Morona district of Loreto, the Chapra indigenous communities had not been affected until the September 10 spill.
“My father tells me that 50 years ago, when the people came to lay the pipeline, they told him that the structure was going to be changed every 30 years,” says Olivia Bisa, a 33-year-old sociologist and president of the Autonomous Government of the Chapra Nation, which represents five communities and about 500 families.
The tube was never changed.
And now the oil has reached a creek where they raised fish for sale.
According to her testimony, this is because PetroPerú did not place containment barriers and the crude oil dispersed.
“We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner from nature.
The Chapra nation is dedicated to artisanal fishing and agriculture: we have seven lagoons for the repopulation of aquatic species and one of those projects allowed us to survive the pandemic because we provided fish to PetroPerú contracting companies,” says Bisa.
A community member from Cuninico, in the northern Amazon of Peru, at the foot of the spill on September 16. Meyli Saboya
The sociologist says that since then they have only received food aid from an NGO.
After more than a month without receiving answers from the state company, the representative of the Chapra communities traveled to the capital, where she met with congressmen and journalists before finally being heard by the company.
On October 13, the president of PetroPerú's board of directors, Humberto Campodónico, acknowledged in a meeting with Bisa that the spill was caused by corrosion and not sabotage, and announced that cleanup operations would begin on October 20;
but they have not complied with it.
“A socio-environmental emergency”
The rapporteur of social, economic and environmental rights of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Soledad García Muñoz, described in a recent visit to Peru as a "socio-environmental emergency" the situation of the victims in the Amazon and that of those affected since January by the Repsol spill in the sea off the central Peruvian coast.
"It is an environmental emergency, characterized by oil spills and deforestation and the consequences on the healthy environment," she said.
For her, the lack of responses to the vulnerable populations that have suffered the spills is due to the "institutional and democratic instability" that the Andean country has been experiencing for about five years and the lack of continuity of public policies with a human rights approach.
“I had the opportunity to be on a boat with fishermen (affected by the January spill in the Ventanilla Sea) seeing oil stains in the sea and dead animals floating, and I saw the desperation of these men and families who today do not have work. and that they see an omitted State and a company that is not being subject to the corresponding measures in the face of a similar event,” he said.
Finally, the rapporteur made a call to cooperate with Peru and asked that the institutions protect nature and the rights of the communities that are "in extremely high vulnerability."