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Oil
company accused of dumping waste in Amazon
By
Andrew Gumbel
A
US oil company has been accused of contaminating an area
of the Peruvian Amazon where it and its successor company
have drilled for oil for the past 32 years, creating misery
for the local Achuar people and widespread lead and cadmium
poisoning.
A report issued by a coalition of protest groups including
Amazon Watch and EarthRights International yesterday accused
the company, Occidental Petroleum, of violating Peruvian and
international law by dumping an estimated 9 billion barrels
of toxic waste in the area since it started prospecting in
the early 1970s.
The "produced waters",
as the waste is technically known, were allegedly dumped
directly into rivers and streams
used by the Achuar for drinking, bathing, washing and fishing.
Medical research documented in the report showed dangerously
elevated levels of lead and cadmium in the Achuar population.
"Oxy's activities fell far short of the accepted industry
standards throughout the course of their operations, as the
company discharged massive quantities of contaminated waters
into local streams, stored wastes improperly, and caused periodic
oil spills," the report alleges.
Occidental turned over the oilfield in the Corrientes river
basin to the Argentinian oil company Pluspetrol in 2000, and
has since divested itself of all its Peruvian petroleum interests,
but the report said the pattern of spillage and poisoning continued
unabated.
"Oxy's destructive patterns, and the resulting human
rights and environmental harms, have continued on Pluspetrol's
watch," the report alleges.
Occidental did not return a phone call seeking comment. The
company is holding its annual general meeting in Los Angeles
today, when the groups behind the report plan to hold protests.
This is not the first time a western oil company has been
accused of human rights and environmental violations in the
Third World. EarthRights International previously brought a
lawsuit against Unocal for alleged abuses in Burma, and won
a court settlement on behalf of the indigenous peoples in US
federal court in 2005.
Amazon Watch, meanwhile, has thrown its support behind a lawsuit
in Ecuador pitting indigenous peoples against Texaco (now part
of Chevron), which stands accused of failing to safeguard the
disposal of waste materials, poisoning the groundwater and
causing debilitating skin conditions, respiratory illnesses
and cancers in the local population. The company has contested
the action. An Ecuardorian court is expected to rule imminently
in that case.
The Achuar tribe straddles the Ecuadorian and Peruvian borders,
and has ample experience of fighting western oil companies.
A year ago, the Ecuadorian government seized indigenous lands
where Occidental was drilling for oil - a move that Occidental
is still fighting to have overturned.
"My people have suffered for 35 years from Oxy's presence," Andrés
Sandi Mucushua, the president of the Federation of Native Communities
of the Corrientes river, said. "Oxy has extracted petroleum
from our ancestral territory, contaminating and destroying
it. We have seen our rivers, farms and animals sicken and we
have become ill and died from the contamination. It is important
that Oxy shareholders are told what Oxy has done in the Peruvian
Amazon."
Occidental first signed a contract with the Peruvian government
to drill for oil in the Amazon in 1971. Large-scale production
began four years later in an area designated as Block 1AB.
It became Peru's largest onshore oil field, producing as much
as 42 per cent of Peru's total oil output, about 115,000 barrels
of crude per day.
The report's authors said that blatant disregard for the well-being
of the local population was a common feature of oil company
activity in many indigenous areas around the world. The executive
director of Amazon Watch, Atossa Soltani, said that companies
were on notice that if they didn't take steps to clean up their
mess they ran a risk of being taken to court.
Occidental's decision to get rid of its remaining drilling
rights in Peru was widely interpreted as a response to the
accusations of environmental and human rights violations. Occidental
itself, meanwhile, characterised the move as a business decision.
"Oxy needs to move decisively and rectify its past mistakes
by helping to clean up the toxic mess and assist the Achuar
with their health problems," Mr Soltani said. "Otherwise
Oxy will face further negative publicity and potential legal
actions."
Andrew
Gumbel is journalist
with The Independent, UK, in
Los Angeles. Petroleumworld
not necessarily share these views.
Editor's
Note:This article was published by The Independent, 04 May
2007 .
Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest of our
readers.
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