Toxic Shock Syndrome

Phew.


I don´t know quite what I was expecting when I decided to head up to Lago Agrio for a closer look at petroleum production. The idea was, ¨well, we all use petrol, it´s not really something that can be avoided like sweat shop shoes or eggs from battery hens or any number of the screeds of things my heavy conscience has eliminated from my life. I´ve been witness to some beautiful treasures rambling around Amazonia, the butterflies, the bears, and now it´s time to get real and discover some of the horrible truths the well organised collection of regional tourist pamphlets have left off their suggested itineries.¨ Or something like that. I was also particularly inspired by the May-June issue of Ecuadorian magazine ¨Terra Incognita¨, an Amazonia themed issue to commemorate 40 years of petrol drilling which included this incredible map, detailing the extent to which Amazonia is riddled with all manner of petroleum production.


If you can´t read Spanish, just pretend you can, the words are pretty similar. As you can see, the whole eastern side is thoroughly owned by petroleum exploration. Right, thought I, time for this jaded traveller to get some perspective and a bit of a kick in the guts to motivate my save the world streak. Off to Lago Agrio I go, home of the Ecuador´s first drilling site.

Hands down, the scenes I saw and the stories I heard yesterday made for the most horrific day of my life. I cried all the way back to Quito. I´m close to tears now.

The orange and yellow lines that follow from Esmeraldas to Lago Agrio (on the map silly) are giant pipe lines or oleoductos. They´re utterly enormous, rusty, high pressure worms (think ´Beetleguise´) that carry crude from the fields to the coast. Another smaller silver pipe transports gas in a similar fashion. They weave all over the landscape, through farm pastures, alongside people´s houses, around water ways, through national parks. They also have a habit of showering their ´black gold´ though farm pastures, alongside people´s houses, around water ways, through national parks. The way in which these ugly tubes have been integrated into people’s lives is quite remarkable. Many houses and small bars whose entrance from the road has been blocked by these dangerous eyesores have built sties in order to pass over them. It took me a long time to remember the word sty. I was aided by a nursery rhyme.

These pipe lines connect a huge number of processing and storage facilities that litter the landscape with giant hypodermic towers and concrete barrels, and blacken the air with plumes of diesel smoke.

The town of Lago Agrio itself was, in essence, created by Texaco. After the discovery of oil, the hauling in of the pipe lines, the displacement of jungle nationalities and the creation of roads needed to transport the machinery and personal, Ecuadorians flocked to the fields to make their fortunes. But for one reason or another, possibly the huge discrepancy in pay between locals and foreigners, there just wasn´t enough whiskey and Levis to go around.

I was warned on more than one occasion of the dangers of such crushed dreams small town poverty, by locals that is, not hysterical travel agents. Though the neighbouring town of Shushufundi is home to only 15 thousand inhabitants, its crime statistics in terms of murder and kidnapping rival those of Quito, home to 2 million. More horrific details on this and background on the current case against Texaco can be found in the May edition of Vanity Fair.

I personally found Lago to be a fairly friendly little town. I had a wander around the giant oil tanks and refinery at the end of the main street, and found that the security guard at Petroecuador had a rather non-threatening, almost chivalrous way of telling me my photos were considered stealing in the eyes of the company. Of course, I didn´t understand, my Spanish is Just Terrible, and thanked him kindly for warning of the threat of my camera being stolen.

It was pretty apparent that I wasn´t going to get too far, even with my biggest smiles, feigned misunderstandings and Nancy Drew detective skills, so I hired the help of Cesar, a local guide who had worked in the petroleum biz almost twenty years, transporting personnel and thousands of meters of piping around the area. Our first stop was the site where it all began, Lago Agrio station Numero uno.

There´s still oil down there, but the site is currently dormant, as it´s being repaired at present.

Nearly 2 kilometres of thumb thin piping are needed to suck the oil up from the well below. Open pools of crude and water are found to the back of the photo, under the trees. The rivers that surround this drilling site are rusty brown and haven´t supported any life in the last twenty years at least.


Once a well is dried up, the area is abandoned, leaving Olympic swimming pool sized pits where little but grass will grow. Now´s not a bad time to revise that map of drilling sites above. On more than one occasion Cesar pointed out houses actually built upon former pit sites. If such areas will only support grass, some fairly big questions can and should be raised about their suitability for human inhabitants.

The photo to the left is from a site a little further up the hill from Lago Agrio Numero Uno. Most of the fields I saw were incapable of supporting so much growth, so one can only conclude that there must be something utterly delicious in that water, hmm?



The next stop was Selva Viva, an environmental organisation, where I was given 20 minutes to talk to Emergildo Criollo, of the nationality Cofan, an indigenous peoples of Amazonia, a key member of FEINCE (Federacion Indigena de la Nacionalidad Cofan de Ecuador), and a man heavily involved in the case against Texaco. For Emergildo, the biggest problem is the contamination of the rivers, the ground and the medio ambiente, or general environment (air, animals, plant life).

He talked of the illnesses that came with petroleum, the wrenching stomach and head pains, blistering skins, widespread cancer that, for the first time in the histories of their people, could not be cured by their Shamans.


What an utter blow to the lifestyle for these people, to their culture, their traditions and their identities. Puff the Magic Dragon skulked back to his cave to morn the pile of scales at his feet.


At no point did ANYONE inform them of the dangers of continuing their relationship with their water ways as they always had. No one suggested the stop bathing in, washing in, or drinking their former life streams that were rapidly becoming contaminated with dangerous petro-chemicals. Somehow it never occurred to anyone to mention to this nation of fishermen not to consider the dead fish they found along the river banks a blessing. All the while their people were dying of cancer 8 hours and unimaginable sums of money away from the nearest hospitals (particularly difficult for a people whose livestock and lively hoods were fleeing with the fish) and their women were giving birth to children with yams where two fingers should be.


Two of Emergildo´s children died as a direct result of the contamination. One of terminal birth defects, and the other in fits of blood vomiting after swallowing river water while swimming.


All this, and the demands the Cofan people seem, to me at least, fairly reasonable. They want the toxic sludge removed from the pools of crude, instead of just covering it with dirt to leach into the soil and waterways, to clean up the trails of petrol sediment, and to compensate for the contaminated waterways and air supply by building a hospital for their sick and dying closer than Quito.


And what say Texaco lawyers? Apparently cancer is caused by the people´s lack of hygiene, and chromium from a local sweet factory. They have considered 10 thousand parts per million to be a safe level of toxins and carcinogens for humans, twice that stated in their contracts, 10 times greater than that stated in Ecuadorian law, and 100 times greater than United States recommendations. Furthermore the discrepancies between the levels of toxic and carcinogenic particles per million in the waterways recorded by Texaco in 1998 and the court measurements in 2006 are huge. Lago 02 for example was considered to contain less than 5000 parts per million by Texaco estimates, but was recently found to have 325 000 parts per million in 2006 by a judicial investigation. The results of further such investigations and more images can be found here.


Of course, Texaco is only the first step for groups such as FEINCE, set to fight the oil companies. Once the rulings for the Texaco case are through, due somewhat optimistically in 2008, these groups will set to work avenging the all the contamination affected lives battling all the other oil companies working in the area. Texaco was the first to drill, and, assuming the court ruling demands compensation for these people, these groups will have an easier time battle other petrol giants such as Petroecuador, considered by everyone I talked to have less concern for the wellbeing of the jungle dwellers and river users than Texaco. And to your right, river users, in Rio Aguarico, the main river that runs by Lago Agrio, connecting all the toxic streams in the area. And look- a family taking a break from the oppressive 35 degree heat.


This absolute denial on the part of the oil companies that there is any relationship between their work and the sudden onslaught of terminal diseases, including rates of cancer in drilling town San Carlos 150% higher than the national average, and the utterly despicable neglect to inform anyone of the potential dangers of carrying on jungle life as usual was the biggest ´swindle´ of all for Jose Farjardo, president of FDA (Frento Defenso de la Amazonia), a collective of organisations that work to school the inhabitants of Amazonia on defending their rights. They work on the case, but also have a ´school of leaders´, which teaches, essentially, self defence skills against bullies invading your turf. Proactive. I really like that.


His office was a wealth of information, including an incredibly moving series of photographs taken by Lou Dematteis and Kayana Szymczak on the Chevron ´legacy´. Sadly the online version doesn´t include the personal testimonies of the people, all of which seem to include how utterly unwittingly they exposed themselves to the quimicos. He also gave me a really good grilling about who I was and what I was doing, should I be working for the defence to exterminate his efforts, and possibly him.


Apparently the environmental damage around Lago Agrio is nothing compared to that of the surrounding national parks and Coca, a little further south. Sadly I only had a day to investigate, but nevertheless, Estación Guanta proved to be fairly good case study in environmental horrors. It involved a bit of sneaky detective work to get to these places, pretending my guide was my boyfriend (HIS idea, and a trick I hadn´t pulled since I saw someone I´ve rapidly forgotten in DEKA with some girl in a Queens uniform).




A petrol spill can look like this. There is a house less than a kilometre to the left.




This is one of the only active drills in the area. The tubes are apparently 6 inches in diameter, and the oil is at such a pressure that it just spurts right out of the ground on its own accord. That plume of diesel to the right occurs at 10 second intervals.


This is a where they let the excess gas out. Funny that word excess, as there are gas shortages in Quito.

These containers store petroleum and are literally on the main street of Lago Agrio, just across from the refinery at which I´d been reprimanded for snooping. Cesar referred to them as time bombs, though the use of such terms, to me, seems to mock the degree to which this entire area is contaminated.


So what´s the message here? I really don´t know. I have never wanted to believe that we are helpless to change the evil ways of the world, but how can positive change come from all this horror?


In the least I want you to have a good think about YOUR petrol usage. At present there aren´t too many viable options for family transport, and certainly not for air travel, but there´s definitely room for you to lessen your involvement in the massive human cost of petroleum exploration by minimising your petroleum wastage. Perhaps even more importantly, I hope my horrible, horrible day will inspire you to talk about these injustices and provide you with some links to share with those who don´t have the opportunity to see all this first hand.

It´s very real. It´s very sad. It needs to be addressed by all of us.