A court in Ecuador has fined US oil multinational Chevron US$ 8.6 billion for polluting a large part of the country’s Amazon region. Speaking to the BBC, company spokesperson Kent Robertson said the case was an “extortion scheme”, blaming Ecuador’s state-run firm Petroecuador for ongoing problems.
“Justice does exist,” said Guillermo Grefa, a Kichwa representative to the Assembly of Affected Communities who brought the class action suit on behalf of 30,000 residents of the Amazon region. “I can now dream of drinking clean water, water with no oil residue, and that the earth will begin to clean and heal.”
The oil firm Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, is accused of dumping toxic waste into local streams and rivers between 1972 and 1992. Campaigners say crops were damaged and farm animals killed, and that local cancer rates increased. Chevron says Texaco spent US$ 40 million cleaning up the area during the 1990s and spent US$ 5 million on community projects. In 1995 Chevron negotiated a settlement with the Ecuadorian government absolving the company of any further responsibility.
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Although more than 3,000 people have been infected, health officials affirm there are signs that the cholera outbreak in central Haiti may be stabilising.
Officials indicate that the disease is a serious threat to the 1.3 million survivors of January’s earthquake who are living in tented camps surrounding the city.
The poor sanitary conditions make them vulnerable to cholera, which is caused by bacteria transmitted through contaminated water or food.
The director general of Haiti’s health department, Gabriel Thimote, said yesterday (24.10.2010) that the number of people who had died in the outbreak was rising, but more slowly than during the previous 24 hours.
“We have registered a diminishing in numbers of deaths and of hospitalised people in the most critical areas,” he told reporters.
“The tendency is that it is stabilising, without being able to say that we have reached a peak,” he added.
Haitian officials said more households were following advice on drinking clean water and taking care with personal hygiene.
Source: BBC News Latin America & Caribbean, 25 October 2010
Posted in Emergencies, Haiti, Hygiene promotion, Sanitation, Uncategorized, Water-related diseases
Tagged Cholera, Haiti, urban sanitation, water pollution
Some 557,000 people in Costa Rica drink water that is contaminated with fecal material or chemicals, especially hydrocarbons, according to tests carried out by national water utility AyA. The figure represents 13% of the population connected to a potable water system.
Read full article on: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 03 Mar 2010
Posted in Costa Rica, Water quality, Water supply
Tagged AyA, drinking water, water pollution
A recent water and sanitation sector analysis reported that in 2001, Honduras had reached water coverage of 80% of its total population and 70% of those living in rural areas. But the same study revealed that water quantity and
quality are not adequate, and suggested that the existing infrastructure poses a serious health risk to citizens. An alarming 90% of the water supply is intermittent and unreliable.
This study found that only 44% of the water provided is effectively disinfected and that there is a lack of adequate water quality control and monitoring, especially in rural areas.
Many rural communities have no water infrastructure whatsoever.
Sanitation coverage in Honduras is improving, reaching 68% of the total population but only 50% of the rural populace. There is virtually no sewerage service in rural areas, where latrines are the only practical option for the safe
disposal of human waste. Half of the rural population has no sanitation facilities at all.
Water For People helps people in developing countries improve their quality of life by supporting the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities and health and hygiene education programs.
Water For People–Honduras supports 15 to 20 communities each year, helping approximately 15,000 people and plans for growth over the next five years, with a goal of achieving 95% water and sanitation coverage in the three
districts in which it works. It will also work on increasing hand-washing practices by 50%.
Typical projects include protected springs, gravity-fed water systems, pumped water systems, storage tanks, and pour-flush latrines.
Working closely with its in-country staff, Water For People has developed an ambitious strategic plan to make a more meaningful impact in meeting the water and sanitation needs in Honduras between 2007-2011.
Source:
http://www.waterday.org/?uid=paa07D0BCA855AC0D6CB
Related news: Output-Based Aid: challenges for OBA Facility for the water and sanitation sector in Honduras, Source Weekly, 22 January 2010.
Project Contacts
Water for People
6666 W. Quincy Avenue
Denver , CO 80235
United States
Phone: 303.734.3490 • Fax: 303.734.3499
www.waterforpeople.org/site/PageServer?pagename=About_Departments
info@waterforpeople.org
The European Union (EU) has donated 14mn euros (US$21.0mn) to carry out environmental mitigation works in Bolivia’s Huanuni river basin. The Bolivian government issued a decree declaring a state of emergency in the Huanuni river basin due to toxic waste dumping by local mining firm Huanuni in late October 2009.
Read the full article on BNamericas.com [subscription site], 23 Nov 2009
Posted in Bolivia, Financing, Water quality
Tagged European Union, Huanuni river basin, mining industry, water pollution
One protester has been killed and many more are injured following clashes between indigenous tribal people and Ecuadorian police over proposed water and land rights laws.
The demonstrations near to Macas in Ecuador saw the indigenous protesters blockade a bridge linking two key provinces.
Actions around the country began on 27 September 2009 over indigenous fears the government’s new water laws would privatise water sources, give priority access to water to [the mining] industry and slash regulations for water contamination.
According to the protesters local police, backed by a helicopter, opened fire on demonstrators armed only with ‘ceremonial’ spears.
The attack has left at least one confirmed dead, Bosco Wisum, a teacher and member of the Shuar nation, and some 49 civilians and police injured.
President of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon [CONFENIAE], Tito Puenchir, called the attack the start of a ‘civil war’ and called on the United Nations to intervene.
President Rafael Correa appealed for calm on national radio calling for ‘dialogue’ with the protesters. ["The problem is not the water law, or the mining, or the autonomy of the region," he said. "I fear that, deeper, there are motives of destabilization", Correa said]
On Monday 5 October, Correa and indigenous leaders met and were able to hammer out an agreement to address their concerns. The meeting produced a six-point agreement, which the President is expected to sign on 13 Ocrober 2009.
Firstly, the parties have agreed to institutionalise a permanent dialogue between the government and the native communities.
There will also be a commission set up to work on the Water bill and try to reach an intermediate agreement between the government’s plans and the indigenous groups.
A thorough analysis of possible modifications to the mining law, will be conducted and, finally, a commission, comprising two delegates each from the government the indigenous groups, will investigate the death last week of protester Bosco Wisum.
Indigenous groups had a leading role in overthrowing two previous Ecuadorian presidents.
A BBC article comments that, even though they are not as powerful as they used to be, native communities have grown stronger from this conflict.
Source: Luke Walsh, ediie, 02 Oct 2009 ; Francisca Pouiller, Mining Weekly, 08 Oct 2009
Contamination levels in Mexico’s water resources could be considered a matter of national security, project coordinator with the inter-American center for water resources CIRA, Carlos Díaz, told [news agency] BNamericas. According to [...] national water authority Conagua, over 95% of Mexico’s bodies of water are contaminated to some degree.
“Authorities have grown accustomed to taking water-related issues lightly. The strategies that have been implemented have been erratic and have not produced the expected results. Society needs to change its attitude, not just the government,” Díaz said. “Water resources are in a state of alert in two-thirds of the country [because] only a very low percentage of wastewater is treated, and existing treatment plants have very low levels of efficiency, [treated wastewater] is not reused adequately and the overuse of aquifers has increased greatly.
To combat the situation, CIRA is preparing a proposal for the integrated management of water resources in these basins, which Díaz is coordinating.
Source: Renzo Dasso, BNamericas [subscription site], 24 Feb 2009
Photo: ChevronToxico
[...] About 230,000 people live in Ecuador’s northeastern rain forest side by side with oil wells and pools of drilling waste [left behind over a period of 40 years by] Texaco Inc. and Ecuador’s state-run oil company, PetroEcuador.
[The pollution has caused] one of the worst environmental and human health disasters in the Amazon basin [and] depending on how an Ecuadorean judge rules in a lawsuit [it could result in] the costliest corporate ecological catastrophe in world history.
If the judge follows the recommendation of a court- appointed panel of experts, he could order Chevron Corp., which now owns Texaco, to pay as much as $27 billion in damages.
[F]or for a quarter of a century, until 1990, Texaco discharged 16 billion gallons of wastewater that’s a byproduct of drilling. [..] From 1990 until 2007, government-owned PetroEcuador released wastewater into the environment.
[...] In November [2008], a team of engineers, doctors and biologists submitted a court-ordered report concluding that Texaco’s pollution had caused 2,091 cases of cancer among residents and led to 1,401 deaths from 1985 to 1998.
The panel had previously concluded that Texaco polluted streams and drinking water in a 4,972- square-kilometer area and caused economic and social damage to people who live near the wells.
Update : Chevron has to contest the claims in the Nueva Loja court of justice on 11 February 2009. Chevron spokesman James Craig said, the company was concerned about President Rafael Correa’s political interference [Source: BNamericas (subscription site), 05 Feb 2009]
Related web sites: ChevronToxico – Clean Up Ecuador Campaign ; Chevron Ecuador
Read more: Michael Smith and Karen Gullo, Bloomberg, 30 Dec 2008
Business News Americas – Water & Waste
