Oil Pipeline Rupture in Ecuador’s Amazon Region Causes Environmental Disaster

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – At the start of April, one of the most devastating oil disasters to affect the country in the past 15 years occurred in the Ecuadorian Amazon region. An earthquake triggered a landslide in the provinces of Sucumbíos and Napo, which caused two pipelines to rupture.

As a result, at least 2.5 million liters of oil leaked out and contaminated the Coca and Napo rivers – food sources for the indigenous and riverine peoples living there.

With the coronavirus crisis, the disaster went largely unnoticed by the media. Tens of thousands of people in the area lost their livelihoods amid the pandemic. The oil industry and the government deny all blame.

The origin of this catastrophe is the rupture of the Trans-Ecuadorian Oil Pipeline System (SOTE) and the Shushufindi-Quito-Polyduct, which connects boreholes in the east of the country and the capital Quito. As a result of the rupture, at least 15,800 barrels of oil flowed into the Coca River on April 7th, 2020 – around 2.5 million liters.

In February, after the Cascada San Rafael, Ecuador’s tallest waterfall, suddenly disappeared due to a massive landslide, geologists had warned that the area could slide further and affect surrounding infrastructure such as pipelines of the state-owned oil company Petroecuador and private company OCP. Despite the government and local authorities having been warned of a potential catastrophe, they now describe it as “force majeure”.

While national and international media only covered the coronavirus crisis in April and May, the government managed to keep public attention the environmental catastrophe at a minimum, and attempted to escape any legal responsibility. The oil spill affected over 2,000 families of indigenous and river communities.

At least 120,000 people are deprived of access to clean drinking water. Amid the pandemic, these families are no longer able to use the river water, cannot eat the food they grow, have been forced to stop fishing, and cannot bathe or wash their clothes in the river.

The stricken inhabitants of the region face multiple disasters. In addition to the insufficient supply of food and drinking water, the Covid-19 pandemic, an outbreak of dengue fever and flooding due to the heavy rainfall in recent months, the communities are now also affected by the massive pollution caused by leaked oil.

On April 29th, the river and indigenous communities went to Court and asked for an injunction. The injunction was intended to compel the government and the companies responsible, Petroecuador and OCP Ecuador, to ensure the supply of drinking water and food in the contaminated area and to repair the environmental damage.

They also called for adequate healthcare services. However, the hearing was suspended on June 1st and has not been resumed. Since then, those affected have been waiting for a legal solution.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Lina María Espinosa, stated that “the measures taken so far have been insufficient and ineffective” and complained of “a lack of transparency in data disclosure. And the companies make decisions without consulting the communities.”

The SOTE pipeline system, one of which has ruptured, has been in operation since 1972. Nearly 500 kilometers long, it crosses the Andes and carries crude oil to the Pacific Ocean, which then ends up in refineries around the world. On its path, the pipeline crosses dangerous ground.

“This is a critical region with seismic activity. There is a road and a hydroelectric dam on the Coca River, and the oil pipelines are very close together. It was foreseeable that there could be damage to the Coca River if anything were to happen to the pipelines,” said Andrea Encalada, a researcher at the University of San Francisco de Quito.

As the Coca River flows into the Napo River, the pollution quickly spread downstream. “This really is an economic, health, and environmental emergency,” Encalada added.

Currently, approximately 68 percent of Ecuador’s Amazon region, which covers 12 million hectares, is under concessions to the oil industry. It is estimated that there are over 4,000 oil wells in the region. “In the beginning, there were no environmental or social regulations to address the indigenous population. The indigenous peoples have completely disappeared during these decades,’ said Carlos Mazabanda of the NGO Amazon Watch.

For Mitch Anderson, founder of Amazon Frontlines, the current leak amid the pandemic will not be the last. Data from the Ministry of Environment, analyzed by Amazon Frontlines, shows 1,169 officially reported leaks between 2005 and 2015 in Ecuador. Of these, 81 percent occurred in the Amazon region.

The OCP company resumed oil pumping operations after completing a technical assessment following the landslide, the operator said last week.