Twelve months later, the crisis is environmental and humanitarian. The fishermen are still paralyzed in the middle of the summer campaign, perhaps the most crucial, and they wonder how the situation will evolve in the short term. However, the Government responds with lassitude
Source: Oceana
The black liquid still bites the rocks, splashes the sand, and floats among the waves as part of the coastal landscape. It is a perfidious tattoo of the largest environmental catastrophe that occurred in the Peruvian sea, where the Repsol company spilled, in January 2022, about 12,000 barrels of oil.
The consequences have been cited repeatedly: two protected natural areas affected, 48 contaminated beaches and at least 2,500 fishermen directly affected, according to the most current data from Oceana. (although the number could exceed 5,000 according the sector).
“It has been monstrous and revealed […] the lack of foresight of the company that supposedly operates to the highest standards. And on the side of the government, which does not carry out adequate supervision and ignores many mandatory elements of the legislation," he told Mongabay, a portal specialized in environmental journalism.
View of satellite chlorophyll concentration off the coast of Peru, the site of the massive oil spill. Source: Mercator Ocean My Ocean viewer for Copernicus, mass concentration of chlorophyll-a in sea water mg/m3.
The crude oil spread through waters and coasts up to 140 kilometers north of the La Pampilla refinery, paralyzing fishing and tourist activities. "With a good valve and an adequate monitoring system," Riveros points out, "the spill probably would not have passed beyond Ancón and it would have been easier to contain it." But the oil company only undertook some actions on the third day and "with personnel who did not have adequate training or protection," according to the organization's biologist.
In two days, information about the spill went from just seven gallons to 6,000 barrels, until the firm finally admitted that 11,900 ended up in the ocean.
Source: AFP
“[Initially, Repsol] pointed out that there was an affected area of approximately 2.5 square meters. In the final report, which was presented days later, it indicated that it was more than 10,000 hectares”, qualifies Katherine Melgar, director of Environmental Supervision in Energy and Mines of the Agency for Environmental Evaluation and Control (OEFA).
These arbitrary actions founded the list of fines imposed by the environmental agency: the most recent -three- were raised in the last week by the equivalent of 5.7 million dollars and are based on the "administrative responsibility" of the company.
The first, for 91,926.40 soles (24,000 dollars), responds to the failure to send information on the situation of environmental damage. The second, for 18.8 million soles (about 4.8 million dollars), for non-compliance with the recovery and cleanup in the bay area of the Protected Natural Areas and in other affected marine areas. And the third, for 3.78 million soles (988,000 dollars), for not cleaning up the spilled hydrocarbon or carrying out the water and sediment check samples.
Source: Repsol Peru
To date, OEFA has imposed six fines on Repsol in the framework of seven administrative sanctioning procedures, three of which were challenged before the Environmental Control Court. Three other procedures are within the legal term to file a challenge, which expire this month.
Until last October, the sanctions rose to more than 10 million dollars after the accident classified by the United Nations as "the worst environmental disaster in recent history."
In the civil courts, meanwhile, a lawsuit for 4,500 million dollars from the Peruvian State against the company and five other solidarity companies has been processed since 2022. 3,000 million dollars are claimed for environmental damages and 1,500 million for moral damages to affected consumers, users and third parties. Regarding this lawsuit, the firm has said that "it is unfounded, inadmissible and incongruous."
For the rest, the Prosecutor's Office is investigating eight executives, who cannot leave the country, including the president of Repsol Peru, the Spaniard Jaime Fernández-Cuesta Luca de Tena —the other executives are Peruvians—, and the expert opinion applied to the pipeline Submarine oil discharge into the Ventanilla Sea (PLEM) showed that the infrastructure was broken due to deficiencies in its manufacture, according to a document accessed by La República.
Weak response
The environmental and humanitarian crisis was aggravated by the lassitude of the State. “The handling of the entire situation caused by the spill has been terrible and inadequate,” former Environment Minister Gabriel Quijandría told Mongabay.
“We are going to defend and clean up the sea, this company has to pay for the damages,” ex-president Pedro Castillo proclaimed, standing on the shore, facing the disaster. However, a month before he was imprisoned after orchestrating a self-coup, dozens of artisanal fishermen raised banners and threw dead fish dyed black to demand follow-up from the Executive.
Source: Repsol Peru
“He only allowed the fishermen to divide and not be able to face this injustice together,” says Oceana. That is why they joined the protests against the Executive and Congress, whose investigative commission on the spill was scheduled to present its updated final report on Friday. The Commission of Andean Peoples, in charge of this document, recommends the termination of the contract for the sale of Petroperú shares to the consortium led by Repsol.
“In March [2022] the Ombudsman had estimated more than 15,000 people affected, and the register is made up today of approximately 10,000 people. We have a list of claims linked to the activity of artisanal fishing and other administrative ones, we want results, ”he demands in dialogue with AFP.
So now "each fisherman must negotiate on his behalf against a big company like Repsol", summarizes Oceana. A year after the disaster, some victims have become taxi drivers, street vendors or bricklayers. The summer campaign, perhaps the most important, is lost.
The spill of about 12,000 barrels of oil occurred on January 15 of last year when the Italian-flagged tanker "Mare Doricum" unloaded crude oil at the La Pampilla refinery. Photo: Ministry of the Environment.
This week it published a study by the Environmental Resources Management (ERM) firm on physicochemical and hydrobiological sampling on the affected beaches: according to the company, "100% of the points analyzed comply with the most demanding international quality standards and with national regulations ”, “the sea is clean of hydrocarbons” and the spas, “accessible, without risk” to health or the environment.
The black liquid, however, still bites the rocks, splashes the sand, floats among the waves as part of the landscape.
The diver Víctor Rojas has not read that study, but he has seen that, from time to time, some officials arrive, take a photo, simulate an inspection, and leave. He has not learned that the Peruvian Society of Environmental Law (SPDA) will present two documentaries on the tragedy that displaced him —'The silence of the sea' and 'A greeting to the sea from Ventanilla'—, nor that there is an interactive portal —History of a spill—where the magnitude of the catastrophe is explained in detail. But he has witnessed another recurring scene: most of the fishermen from his town leave at dawn or at dawn just to look at the sea.
They look at the sea, said Rojas. They look at it and also leave.
New CO2 Tax Poses Severe Threat to Danish Fisheries Denmark
The impending CO2 tax is set to have devastating consequences for Danish fishing, warns Svend-Erik Andersen, chairman of the Danish Fisheries Association, in an interview with TV2.
The broadcaste...
NOAA: 'A Few Surprises in Alaska’s Marine Environment in 2024' United States
NOAA Fisheries releases their annual Ecosystem Status Reports including a new report card for the northern Bering Sea which shares some promising news about sea ice conditions
The Gulf of Alaska and ...
Kyokuyo Completes Construction of U.S. Imitation Crab Meat Factory United States
Kyokuyo Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President: Makoto Inoue) has announced the completion of a state-of-the-art imitation crab meat production facility in the United States.
Built by i...
.jpg)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Print
