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This Friday, July 15, six months have passed since the oil spill at the Ventanilla port terminal, considered the worst ecological emergency recorded on the Peruvian coast. Both the real impact at an environmental level and the outlook for thousands of people affected remain uncertain to this date, which is why numerous complaints have been filed, branded as ineffective.
“The situation is stuck,” said the scientific director of the environmental organization Oceana Peru, Juan Carlos Riveros, regarding the blockade that he considers exists by not having an official report of the damage caused by the oil spill, six months after the catastrophe. .
On January 15, some 11,900 barrels of oil fell on the Peruvian Pacific coast, about 30 kilometers north of Lima, the capital. The spill occurred while the Italian-flagged tanker ‘Mare Doricum’ was unloading crude from the Spanish oil company Repsol at the La Pampilla refinery in Ventanilla.
From there, a storm of guilt and responsibilities began. The Repsol company attributed the event to the agitation of the sea due to a volcanic eruption in Tonga, on the other side of the Pacific. A version of the facts that has been denied since then, especially by the recent report of the parliamentary commission in charge of investigating the causes of the oil slick.
But it is another report that is expected now, as explained by Juan Carlos Riveros of Oceana Peru: the report of the Agency for Environmental Assessment and Enforcement (OEFA).
When this type of environmental catastrophe occurs, after the first cleaning stage comes a stage of “remediation” of the damaged ecosystems. After this, a second phase, which can only be carried out based on a detailed report on the damage to waters, beaches and living organisms, in order to know the real impact of the accident.
a locked situation
“That the situation continues like this in six months is criminal,” said the specialist from Oceana Peru.
The Spanish oil company Repsol affirmed, for its part, that it will continue “waiting for the OEFA evaluation report”, and remarked that “this is of vital importance, since, from this report, the plans for rehabilitation, where appropriate, and additionally because it affects the reactivation of productive and recreational activities in the affected areas”.
For this reason, the impact of the spill has not yet been remediated, for which techniques such as the application of microorganisms that eliminate the toxicity of crude oil residues or solvents that help restore biological order may be used.
Long-term affected populations
The situation continues to be very critical for people who lived from the sea. The oil spill affected more than 700,000 residents and forced the closure of twenty beaches in the middle of the Peruvian summer.
This left fishermen, restaurant owners and employees, people who rented umbrellas on the beaches and those who sold food or soft drinks to bathers without income.
The January disaster also caused long-term contamination of two protected nature reserves, killing thousands of animals, including endangered species.
Grants and fines
So far, Repsol says it has paid an advance of seven million dollars as compensation in the form of bonds to 5,500 people affected by the disaster, after signing an agreement in March with the Peruvian government.
But the state has taken legal action. A complaint filed on May 13 by the government agency for the defense of competition (Indecopi) demands compensation from the group of 4,500 million dollars. The oil company called this claim “baseless” in mid-May.
In a Press release published on Friday, June 24, the group reacted to the Peruvian Congress report by “categorically denying” its conclusions.
On Thursday, July 14, the OEFA imposed a first fine within the framework of the five sanctioning administrative procedures followed against the company, in this case for five million soles (1.2 million dollars) for failure to identify the areas affected by the spill.
With EFE, AFP and local media
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