Oil Spilled Into Ecuador's Rivers Reaches Peru | Environment News Service
ens-newswire.comInteresting oil spill. The state owned pipeline broke from a landslide caused by heavy rain (and, I presume, a very poor site assessment - the line is on the side of an active, landslide vulnerable volcano, which abuts a major river used for drinking water and agriculture. Brilliant.).
Oil spilled from Petroecuador’s Trans-Ecuador pipeline after a May31 landslide in the Andean foothills has reached the Peruvian Amazon.
The landslide that destroyed a 330-foot section of the pipeline is blamed on heavy rain in the province of Sucumbios near the El Reventador Volcano, one of Ecuador’s most active volcanoes.
The broken pipeline spilled some 11,000 barrels, or 420,000 gallons, of crude oil into the Quijos River, a well-known whitewater adventure river on the eastern slopes of the Andes.
The oil was carried east into the River Coca, a tributary of the Napo River, which flows into the Amazon River.
The oil has polluted drinking water in the city of Puerto Francisco de Orellana, also known as Coca, a city of 80,000 and the capital of Orellana Province. Clean water is being supplied by tanker truck.
Petroecuador has also distributed food rations and cans of drinking water to the residents of 13 other Ecuadorean communities affected by the spill.