We have seen it before in Ecuador. The abuses by the petroleum industry, the illnesses of the people and the birth defects of the infants. This is nothing new. It is all too familiar.
14 October 2019
By Uki Goni
...Fracking accidents happen regularly in Vaca Muerta (Dead Cow in Spanish), one of the world’s largest shale oil and gas reservoirs. In 2018 alone, there were an estimated 934 incidents at 95 wells.
There have been leaks from drilling sites, and claims from local people of water pollution and increased ill health affecting them and their livestock.
For Argentina’s leaders there is a bigger picture. They believe the shale reservoir can rescue the country from its ongoing economic crises.
“This province will transform us into a world power,” the president, Mauricio Macri, said on Tuesday to a crowd of 3,000 people in Neuquén, referring to the nearly 2,000 fracking wells that have been drilled there since the discovery of the deposits was announced in 2011.
Twenty companies own a total of 36 concessions in Vaca Muerta, covering a combined area of about 8,500 sq km (3,300 sq miles).
The Argentine oil company YPF leads the pack with 23 areas, of which 16 are operational, in partnership with the US firm Chevron....
...But Campo Maripe claims the problem is not seepage from below, but from above. “They drilled about 400 wells contaminating everything. They dug pits next to the wells where they dumped the waste without any treatment and threw limestone on it to cover it up. We lost our best land.”
Albino, Mabel and other family members say they have suffered a multitude of health problems since the fracking began.
“One of our sisters and her husband died of cancer in 2017,” says Mabel. “The fracking has affected our bones, which become decalcified. I had to have a titanium spine implant; another sister also needs one. Albino had an operation on his arm because of bone loss.”
Both siblings claim doctors have privately told them the cause is contamination from the wells. “They are scared to talk,” says Mabel. She says one worried doctor asked her: “Are you recording me?”
“Last year, the grandson of another sister was born with his intestines outside his body. They had to operate [on] him to put them in,” says Mabel....
