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Issue 3: The Poisoning of San Carlos

On the Record - The Fight for the Amazon
Vol. 16, Iss. 3
March 4, 2001
The Poisoning of San Carlos

Contents:

• From the Editors: Pollution Most Foul
• Indigenous Leaders Step in as Ecuador Crisis Claims More Lives
• Special Report: The Poisoning of San Carlos
• References and Resources
• Glosssary

From the Editors: Pollution Most Foul

Ecuadorian oil deposits are part of the Western Hemisphere's richest oil fields, stretching from southern Colombia through Ecuador to northern Peru.

After several decades of intermittent exploration by various international oil companies, Texaco discovered oil in the northern Oriente in 1967 between the Napo River and the border with Colombia. Texaco started drilling in 1972. By the time it withdrew in 1990, the company had extracted nearly 1.5 billion barrels of oil and drilled 300 wells.

But Texaco left behind a foul legacy. In the third issue of this series, Peter Lippman visits the epicenter of pollution -- the small town of San Carlos. He finds that 30 years of dumping has created a public health catastrophe that persists to this day. And incredibly, despite epidemiological studies and lawsuits, the dumping continues. So does the sickness.

• This series of 'On the Record' is accompanied by a web map of Ecuador, an illustrated web version of the series, and a glossary of organizations (with links) mentioned in the series, all of which can be found on The Advocacy Project website.
• Also visit the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CDES) partner page.

Indigenous Leaders Step in as Ecuador Crisis Claims More Lives

The powerful national indigenous organization CONAIE has stepped into the middle of Ecuador's growing crisis by demanding that the government adopt an emergency program for agriculture, roads, and electrical systems in the two provinces of Orellana and Sucumbios, which have been paralyzed by demonstrations since February 25.

In a communique issued Thursday CONAIE also demanded that the consortium of companies that is building the controversial OCP (Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados) pipeline pay proper compensation to communities through which it will pass.

CONAIE's statement raises the possibility that the current crisis in the northeast could evolve into another nationwide confrontation between the embattled government of President Gustavo Noboa and Ecuador's powerful indigenous movement.

Meanwhile two demonstrators were reported killed and at least ten wounded as troops were sent into the two provinces to re-take the streets and oilfields that have been seized by protestors.

The government has declared a state of emergency in the provinces, which has resulted in the suspension of freedom of movement, expression, and association. The government has also suspended the operation of Radio La Jungla, accusing it of 'inciting violence.' The radio station had described the army's actions as 'state terrorism' and called on protestors not to respect the state of emergency.

The government's aggressive response is clearly alienating local political leaders, many of whom sympathize with the protesters. The governors of the two provinces and the mayors of many of the main towns, support the protests. One mayor was reported to have led an attempt by a group of 200 people to take over the Payamino oilfield last Thursday with dynamite and weapons. Many local elected leaders are now in hiding, fearing arrest by the army.

After demonstrators torched the headquarters of the electric company in Coca, General Jorge Mino -- the Ecuadorian Army Commander who has been sent to restore order -- accused the mayor of committing arson and ordered her capture.

The unrest is fueled by a deep sense of resentment in the two provinces. Because of their oil, Orellana and Sucumbios make a huge contribution toward Ecuador's income, but they are also among the poorest and most neglected provinces in the country. Two-thirds of the inhabitants lack safe drinking water, and only 25 percent have access to health services. Furthermore, the two provinces are not linked to the national power system -- and electricity is only available for two or three hours daily. The local power system, like the roads and the schools, requires urgent repair.

To make things worse, Lago Agrio suffers from a chronic crime problem. Residents fear the consequences of an influx of new refugees from Colombia.

At the end of last week, government officials and leaders of the protests were struggling to start negotiations, but so far without success. Parliament established a crisis committee, but provincial leaders were insisting on an end to the state of emergency before any talks could begin.

Special Report: The Poisoning of San Carlos

San Carlos is a town without glamour. It could be the scene of the crime at the end of a moody western film. Aside from the well-kept church that gleams in the broiling sun, the rest of the town is a collection of tumble-down wooden houses. Thin palm trees provide no shade. The grocery store/refreshment stand has no windows, and its display cases are wooden cabinets from the 1940s.

Through the middle of this town runs an oil pipeline -- a thick metal pipe, two feet off the ground, on which someone has painted, 'No More Contamination! We Want Clean Water.' Not even a dog stirs in the afternoon heat, and there is a faint smell of oil in the air. It is a reminder of the insidious public health hazard that threatens every living thing in town.   San Carlos is in the northern part of Orellana province, which is at the epicenter of Ecuador's Amazon oilfields and one of the two provinces shaken by the current unrest. Clean water is probably the rarest commodity around.

About a thousand people live here, and in April last year I was present when officials from the Amazon Defense Front met with members of a small community organization in San Carlos to advise them about local development. Sitting in a shady corner of the thatch-roofed meetinghouse afterwards, community leader Hugo Urena reflected on the ever-present threat to health. 'We are suffering from head and throat pains,' he said. 'There are children born with birth defects, with migraines, or eye pain.'

Urena explained that it was not always this way in San Carlos. When Texaco first came to the region 30 years ago, people thought that it would bring prosperity, that they would have better jobs, more money, and better schools and houses.

But Texaco took far more than it gave. The company sank over 30 oil wells in San Carlos municipality and built its refineries a short distance from the town. For every barrel of oil that is produced, there is another barrel of toxic 'production water.' Texaco holds a patent for reinsertion technology, but instead of re-injecting hazardous wastes deep into the ground where they would not threaten the environment, Texaco left the hazardous by-products in unlined 'pools' scattered throughout the jungle.

When the oil pits overflowed, Texaco would hire local workers to bale them out and pour the waste into nearby waterways or onto the roads to 'keep down the dust.' Barefoot children would play on those roads, and then wash their feet off with gasoline. Or the excess would simply be burnt off, sending thick black clouds of smoke into the sky and causing the rain to turn black.

The liquid waste from these pools leached into the lakes, the rivers, and the groundwater, leaving petroleum hydrocarbons in every source of drinking and bathing water available to the citizens of San Carlos.

Around 15 waste pools still remain in San Carlos municipality. 'There used to be more,' said Hugo Urena. 'but when a campaign for reparations from Texaco was begun, they covered up some of them with dirt. Now, when it rains hard the oil from those covered-up pools overflows and leaks onto the roads and into the streams. We can't fish or bathe in the water anymore.'

The road from San Carlos to the oil refinery is lined with coconut palms and red-yellow heliconia flowers. It leads past banana farms and little settlements of wooden hovels, tarpaper shacks without the tarpaper.

The state-owned oil company Petroecuador operates a complex here. It measures about one square kilometer and has a fence around the perimeter. Inside, there are big pillbox refineries and two smokestacks with great gas flames coming out of them.

I visited this complex and saw what is commonly called an 'oil pool.' Richard Moreno, a driver for the Amazon Defense Front, warned me that taking photographs could risk trouble from the guards.

The two oil pools behind the refineries are about the size of Olympic swimming pools. They are full of foul black liquid, water and oil waste together. Nothing lives in them. They are surrounded by grass, and some birds forage nearby. Above each pool a foot-wide pipe is suspended, and a huge, bright orange flame sends black smoke into the sky. The swampy oil pit with its acrid smell, together with the flame and smoke that can be seen several kilometers away, create a scene that is thoroughly offensive and depressing. One cannot help but think of the sickness that it has caused.

Hugo Urena's own father died of cancer a few years ago. He told me that four gas burners burn in the area, night and day. 'The smoke from these burners puts sulfur and other bad chemicals into the environment. The oil companies are still dumping chemicals around here, and our people and animals are still getting sick.'

San Carlos has been poisoned. The signs are everywhere. Shoeless children, indigenous and colonos (Mestizo settlers from other parts of Ecuador) play on oil-drenched dirt roads and bathe in contaminated streams.

There is no plumbing outside the immediate center of San Carlos, so almost all water used for living comes from streams, or from the Huamayacu River, which runs through the town. Families use the water for washing and drinking. Cattle drink bad water from the streams or waste pools, and then get sick and die.

In 1999 the University of London conducted an epidemiological study in San Carlos and found higher rates of stomach cancer, cervical cancer, and lymphoma than anywhere else in the region. In some cases, the rates were 30 times that considered normal.

San Carlos is not alone. Vast areas of the northern Oriente have been polluted, and hundreds of other towns and villages have been exposed to the same health hazards. In 1993 the New York-based Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) sent a scientific investigative team to the Oriente. It found that hydrocarbons had polluted the waters at rates between 10 and 1,000 times the level allowed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Their March 1994 report, 'Rights Violations in the Ecuadorian Amazon,' presented a shocking study of Texaco's disregard for human health in the region [1].   The CESR survey reported that the Huamayacu River in San Carlos contained hydrocarbons at 188 times more than the acceptable limit for drinking water. It turned up a deadly pharmacopoeia of poisons in the region: heavy metals, toluene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), tetrachlorodibenzo-dioxins (TCDDs), and other hydrocarbon by-products of oil extraction.

These poisons are present in the waters of the Oriente at levels that are far beyond those permitted in the United States. For some of these compounds, the maximum allowable level in drinking water is zero. CESR's experts investigated water sources below waste ponds that had been covered up with dirt, and discovered poisons at levels that were often thousands of times higher than the maximum.

The CESR report lists a shocking array of sicknesses resulting from these poisons, from skin lesions to cancer. Through inhalation, skin contact, and ingestion of poisons in food and water, they are capable of causing dermatitis, warts, eczema, skin cancer, adverse effects on the respiratory system and nervous system (headaches, dizziness, loss of consciousness), pneumonitis, adverse reproductive and developmental effects, low birth weight, anemia, leukemia, and brain tumors.

Dr. Aaron Bannett, a medical consultant on environmental health hazards, visited the Oriente in 1995 and reported seeing 'sickly and underdeveloped [children]. Many had skin rashes of a macropapular and blistering nature. ...There was a high incidence of spontaneous abortions, and there were illnesses that one would not expect in the rainforest such as the terminal lung cancer of a forty-year-old nonsmoking male. Many people spoke to me about the premature death of cows and pigs living near the contaminated sites, dying after drinking contaminated water...The people were confused as to what food or drink would be safe.' [2]

In many towns and villages of Sucumbios and Orellana provinces (the northernmost provinces of the Oriente), skin rashes, headaches, digestive problems, and birth defects are common, as are infant mortality and spontaneous abortion. According to the September 1999 'Yana Curi' report, (local language for 'Black Gold'), dozens of nearby towns report premature deaths and similar diseases associated with contamination. [3]

The people of the northern Oriente have no way of avoiding the poisons. Considering rain to be the safest source of water, they catch rain in used oil barrels -- already contaminated with dangerous substances -- and use it for drinking and bathing. Poisons have accumulated in the tissue of the fish they eat and the game they hunt. And decent medical care is almost nonexistent in the area, with the main hospital in Coca understaffed and ill-equipped to treat the chronic illnesses that have shown up there.

The Threat to Indigenous Communities

Before the first barrel of oil was even pumped out of a well, hundreds of exploratory roads were cut through the jungle in the Oriente's northern Sucumbios and Orellana provinces. These roads opened up the region to colonization, in a few short years, by more than 250,000 Mestizos (people of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent) from the crowded coastal and mountain regions of Ecuador.

A land tenure law from the 1960s encouraged this migration, promising free land to anyone who would cultivate it. Since the easiest way to prove cultivation of land is to clear it, this resulted in the sudden clearing of large areas of tropical jungle. Much of this territory was taken away from indigenous communities that had traditional ownership but no official documents to prove it.

This exposed the indigenous communities of the Oriente to outside cultures and influence in a way that had not taken place since the Spanish conquest. Their fishing and hunting grounds were also poisoned. The results were catastrophic. Members of impoverished communities began to leave their villages for work in the new oil cities such as Coca and Lago Agrio.

The cumulative effect was the gradual extermination of Ecuador's indigenous population, in a sort of modern version of the smallpox plagues spread by earlier conquerors. By the 1990s, the Tetete nation had disappeared, and the Huaorani, Zapara, Cofan, Siona, and Secoya, once numbering in the hundreds of thousands, were now reduced to a total of several thousand or less. A 1991 study by the World Bank found that the Cofan nation was 'near cultural extinction.' [4]

The assault on the jungle was thorough. Seismic detonations, used to search for oil deposits, eroded the land and scared away the wildlife. According to the Rainforest Action Network, Ecuador's jungles are being cut down by new settlers and oil developers at a rate of almost a million acres per year, or 2.5 percent of the forest each year -- a pace estimated to wipe out the Oriente forest completely in 40 years.

References and Resources

[1] 'Rights Violations in the Ecuadorian Amazon'
[2] Affidavit from Dr. Aaron Bannett:
[3] 1999 'Yana Curi' report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
[4] James F. Hicks et al., Ecuador's Amazon Region: Development Issues and Options, (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1990), 30.

• For additional background, see:

For a very useful map of Ecuador with provinces, towns, indigenous areas, and the block system, see PetroEcuador's website. Click on 'mapas,' then on 'Mapa Catastral,' then on 'Provincias,' 'Bloques,' and 'Novena Ronda' (Ninth Round).

'Texaco on Trial' by Eyal Press, Nation Magazine

For more sources see our Ecuador resource list.

Glossary

Block--A concessionary piece of territory where exploration and drilling rights are leased by the Ecuadorian government to an oil company.

CONAIE--Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Amazon, led by Antonio Vargas.

CONFENIAE--Confederation of the Nationalities Indigenous to the Amazon of Ecuador.

FDA--Amazon Defense Front (Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia).

HUAORANI, ZAPARA, SIONA, COFAN, AND SECOYA--Pre-Incan indigenous  communities of Ecuador whose numbers are threatened by oil development.

IMF--International Monetary Fund.

Manta-- Port city on the Pacific, location of U.S. air base covering operations for Plan Colombia.

Mindo-- A small Andean town not far from Quito, on the slope of Mt. Pichincha. Location of the Mindo Cloud Forest Reserve, through which the new pipeline is set to pass.

OPIP--Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza.

Oriente--The Ecuadorian Amazon; eastern half of Ecuador.

Pastaza--A central province of the Oriente.

Plan Colombia--An economic and military plan to eradicate drug activity in Colombia and strengthen the state. The United States has contributed $1.3 billion to this plan since 2000. Spillover effects are being felt in Ecuador.

Yasuni Park--A national park in the central Oriente inhabited by Huaorani; part of it is protected.

In the next issue: Risky Business

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