For the Sápara Peoples of the Ecuadorian Amazon, “Sinchi”, or “sacred” is the term that best describes their ancestral language and forests. Though abundant with meaning, the Sápara never had a word for “sacred”. There was simply no need for it until they faced the threat of possible extinction. The term “sacred” became crucial in the Sápara’s battle to garner attention and support from those around them.
The Sápara ultimately succeeded in gaining the attention they needed. But now they face what is arguably an even greater threat at the hands of the oil industry and a government that eagerly backs it.
Despite having promised representation and protection of what is considered by many to be the best constitution in the world, the Sápara employ headstrong acts of resistance through international activism, conservation efforts, and partnerships. They also use a solar-powered communication system to fight the long and arduous battle against the encroaching oil industry in their ancestral homeland. Revival of their at-risk language and culture is now a critical priority for this small but strong-willed Amazonian nation.
THE MYSTICAL SÁPARA OF THE AMAZON
The Sápara Peoples are traditionally semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers in what is now the Pastaza Province of Ecuador. The heart of their territory lies “at the confluence of the Pindoyacu and Conambo Rivers and the Tigre River” but their territory has been found to cover the Pastaza River to as far as Curaray, all within the outskirts of Ecuador and Peru. At the time of contact, the Sápara were 200,000 strong. Everything about the Sápara, including their language, ceremonial practices, and cosmovision, has been influenced by the rainforest and rivers, which, according to Ulrich Oslender, author of The Geographies of Social Movements, are “central to all economic, domestic, and social activities.” It is important to understand that “nothing is or will be more valuable than pristine watersheds”, particularly in the Amazon.
Relying on a sustainable agricultural system, the Sápara have a long history of farming banana, manioc, papajibra, and chonta. Those who have studied their culture agree that it is “largely one of self-subsistence, with community members growing their own crops and hunting in the forest for monkeys, tapirs, wild pigs and fat worms.”
Like many other indigenous nations, the Sápara underwent a timeline of decimation. Four centuries of Spanish conquest, slavery, forced assimilation, epidemics, war, and deforestation have driven the Sápara and their mystical culture to near extinction. With the loss of their shamans in the late 1990s, the Sápara subsequently “lost their source of knowledge about their traditions, the healing power of plants and the secrets of the jungle.” According to Manari Ushigua, the current president of the Sápara nation, their shamans “were very powerful because they knew the medicinal secrets of more than 500 plants.”
Considered the smallest Ecuadorian Indigenous nationality, the Sápara now coexist with the indigenous Kichwa peoples and have thus adopted Kichwa as their main language. Last year, only around 559 people identified as Sápara. Other sources claim the number could be somewhere closer to 350. It is said that presently, “only five elders (all over the age of 65) still know Sápara, and only two master it sufficiently.” Manari Ushigua underlines their dire predicament by stating, “We don’t like asking for help, but since there are now only a few of us left, we’re afraid it’s the end of the road.” Taking action against the precipice of involuntary extinction, Manari (whose name means “a hefty lizard that lives in the forest”) changed his name to “Bartolo Ushigua” so that Ecuadorian officials could register him. Then, Manari Ushigua and the Sápara that remained formed Nacionalidad Zapara del Ecuador (NAZAE), an organization of activists that act as political representatives working towards the revival of their native language.
Since the creation of NAZAE, the Sápara have “worked with an Ecuadorean linguist to get its culture and language into the UNESCO World Heritage List”, which recognized their language as a “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”
This recognition paid off in several ways. They received financial support for three years from the Project for the Development of the Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian People of Ecuador (PRODEPINE), World Bank, Non-governmental organizations (NGO), several national institutes, and foreign foundations. They also gained a voting seat on the executive board of the Consejo de Desarrollo de las Nacionalidades y Pueblos del Ecuador (CODENPE, Development Council of Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador), that manages development initiatives in Indigenous communities. UNESCO’s highly-esteemed recognition also generated awareness about the Sápara, countering the previous lack of awareness about their existence. “The recognition gave us the feeling that our elders who had been dead for long years…were all coming back to life,” reflects Manari after the finished process.
Given the newly “sacred” status, the Sápara have gained new visibility in their fight to recover their ancestral cultural expressions. Additionally, the Sápara continued using their language as a “petition for greater administrative and cultural autonomy from Ecuador’s government” which has proved to be an “invaluable platform from which leaders have been able to gain recognition and support from Ecuador’s indigenous movement, international support networks, and the state.”
The Sápara have also been able to utilize this platform to gain momentum as they struggle to push back one of their biggest foes: the “Mungia” that is the oil industry.
THE SLIMY OIL MUNGIA
The Sápara speak of the legend of the Mungia, a shadowy entity that terrorizes the rainforests. With so much land covering the Amazon, the chances are of running into the terrible Mungia were slim on the worst of days. But in more recent times, it takes little effort to cross paths with something not unlike the Mungia. It’s as if the Mungia has taken a new and insidious form – a thick, slick, and slimy substance known as oil that lurks close to home and greedily consumes all lifeforms around it.
The Sápara territory encompasses around 361,000 hectares (867,339 acres) of tropical rainforest within Pastaza Province, a region that is rich with botanical medicines, timber, and oil. The province lies in the Napo eco-region, which holds the most potential for conservation areas. Because of the Ecuadorian Amazons’ mountainous regions, microclimates have allowed “endemic species to flourish…resulting in modern-day biodiversity levels that are some of the highest on the planet.” This has since been rendered obsolete time and time again by a steady stream of oil companies setting up shop in Ecuador, an occurrence with origins dating back to the 1940s. Consequently, around five million hectares (12.3 million acres) have practically been handed over to private oil exploitation. To make matters worse, many Sápara men have left their communities to work for the British-Dutch oil company Shell, preventing further progress in rebuilding their language and culture.
The oil industry has continued to extract from Oil Blocks 74, 79, 80, 83, 84, and 86, which are superimposed over Sápara territory today. In January 2016, the Ecuadorian government jumped into a $72 million contract deal, known as the 11th Oil Round, with China National Petroleum (CNPC) and with China Petrochemical Corporation (SINOPEC), which are both a part of Andes Petroleum, a Chinese-owned oil exploration and production consortium. The deal arranged for work to be done on Blocks 79 and 83. Combined, Blocks 79 and 83 cover about 45% of Sápara ancestral lands.
Oil blocks shown cover four different Ecuadorian provinces. Source: Fundacion Pachamama (facebook)
President Rafael Correa’s promise to take back Ecuador’s oil wealth from overseas companies and put Ecuadorians at the forefront of the country has since lost credibility. “As the global price for oil falls to its lowest level since the 90s”, Ecuador’s economy is now in a wildly unpredictable state. Brenda Shaffer, an energy and foreign policy specialist, explains that “when oil prices are low…states offer foreign and private companies attractive conditions to invest in their energy resources and to take the risk on themselves.” This could explain one of the reasons why Ecuador has continued to pursue relations with China since 2009, whom has since lent Ecuador more than $11 billion.
Rafael Correa (L) and former General Secretary of China, Hu Jintao, share a toast with one another.
“If they put an oil well in our land, it would be like they are destroying our laboratory, our knowledge,” Manari Ushigua says. He adamantly warns against oil extraction of Blocks 79 and 83 because of the obvious threats it poses to the Sápara rainforests, mountains, trees, and water – all of which are unquestionably vital for Sápara survival. According to Kelly Swing, who is the founding director of Tiputini Biodiversity Station Laboratory based in the Ecuadorian Amazons, “In forests impacted by oil development, perhaps 90 percent of the species around denuded sites die.” As if that isn’t disastrous and foreboding enough, there is concern about the process igniting violent confrontations between different Indigenous nations. Adam Zuckerman, the Environmental and Human Rights Campaigner for Amazon Watch, discloses that “it is not just about the contamination and the loss of their sovereignty but also about the loss of harmony against community members.”
RESISTANCE AGAINST THE OIL MUNGIA
The lack of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) can be found at the heart of the matter. The Sápara is not the only indigenous nation that has been denied this right. Many, if not all, of the Amazonian indigenous nations in Ecuador have been repeatedly denied this consultation. It can also be argued that an FPIC is not legitimate enough to protect indigenous rights and already condemns their lands to development projects. Whatever the case, the lack of consultation rides strictly against Ecuador’s constitution. Article 57 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples clearly states that “the government is required to organize a free, prior, and informed consultation to obtain the consent of the communities before any drilling activity is contemplated.”
Instead of clashing with other tribes over the issue, the Sápara have chosen to pursue activism as a form of resistance and modeled their first attempts after actions conducted by the Ecuadorian Sarayaku nation. When the Sarayaku brought their case against the oil industry to the courts in December 2003, they succeeded in being awarded $1.4 million by the state. The Sápara took note and followed their example by planning to bring their own case against the drilling of Blocks 79 and 83 to both national and international courts.
Gloria Ushigua marching in the People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C. Photo: Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network, International.
Recent articles have reported on the active protests taken on by Manari Ushigua and Gloria Ushigua against the 11th Oil Round. They have sent letters to China asking for their oil companies to abandon drilling plans on Sápara rainforest territory, but their pleas have still gone unanswered. A determined Manari Ushigua promises that, “the oil will remain underground, that is our message. And with that intention, we are going to fight until the end, no matter what happens. We are going to resist.” Not surprisingly, the Sápara uprising has been matched with equal resistance from their enemies. In January 2014, the Ecuadorian Secretary of Hydrocarbons, Andrés Donoso Fabara, filed a formal complaint against Manari Ushigua, Gloria Ushigua, and a third Sápara leader, Cléver Ruiz. Fabara’s accusation? They were all threats to the 11th Oil Round. His recommendation? They belong behind prison bars. Rosalia Ruiz, a Sápara leader from the Torimbo community within Block 83, firmly declares, “Right now the oil company is trying to enter our territory. That is our homeland, this is where we have our chakras, where we feed our families. We are warriors, and we are not afraid. We will never negotiate.”
Manari Ushigua and Gloria Ushigua embarked on the long journey to Washington, D.C. to march in the People’s Climate March, held on April 29, 2017. Both leaders believe that marches are a “key solution to climate justice.” Headstrong activism by the Sápara nation has also been supported by prominent celebrities. To express his solidarity with the Sápara, American actor and environmental activist, Leonardo DiCaprio, marched with the Ushiguas. In another act of solidarity, Nahko Bear, a tribal and cultural musician, helped raise $150,000 in October 2016 during an Amazon Watch fundraiser. It goes without saying that influential individuals can play an important role by supporting the Indigenous rights movement.
Leonardo DiCaprio marches with Gloria Ushigua and Chief Manari Ushigua. Credit: Ayse Gürsöz/IEN
Amongst conservation efforts are the Yasuní-ITT (Ishpingo, Tambocha, and Tiputini) Initiative and the Pastaza Ecological Area of Sustainable Development. The Yasuní-ITT Initiative is an attempt to save the Amazons and the indigenous nations that call it their home, as well as a way to “find innovative alternatives to traditional extractive development based on the export of raw materials.” One particular resource that is helping push Ecuador towards a post-extractivism era is cacao production, which is currently on the rise and was listed as one of Ecuador’s primary exports back in 2011. Shade-grown cacao has been shown to improve soil moisture and fertility while suppressing ground weeds. With benefits like these, cacao production can prove to be just one of many other sustainable and profitable ventures.
Spanning over 2.5 million hectares (6.2 million acres) is the Pastaza Ecological Area of Sustainable Development. The Sápara are just one of seven indigenous nationalities that live within the protected area, which makes up for 90% of Pastaza Province. The area stands to conserve water, acts a conservation corridor, regulates the use of natural resources, and is the “culmination of three years of collaboration by provincial and local governments in Ecuador”, indigenous communities, and Nature and Culture International, an organization that directs conservation efforts toward Latin America.
To clarify, the Sápara are not resisting development in their lands per se, but merely the reckless and exploitative tendencies of the current powers pursuing Amazonian natural resources. “We want development but we want to have it our way”, says Gloria Ushigua. Falling in line with their vision, Sápara have requested a solar-powered communications system that would allow them to share their situation with the outside world. Amazon Watch and Empowered by Light (EBL), an organization aiming to bring light and power to remote global areas, took the reins and delivered resources to the Sápara in April 2017. The two non-profits, alongside NAZAE and Terra Mater, an NGO, designed a system to accommodate Sápara needs for “inter-community organizing capacity, [the] ability to communicate with the outside world, and monitoring mechanisms.” In retaliation to the government’s eye-rolling views of the Sápara’s resistance against oil extraction, Juan Carlos Ruiz, a Sápara community leader, argues that “the government can’t call us hypocrites for opposing oil extraction [while] using dirty diesel generators. We’ve made the first big step towards being fossil fuel-free – the government should learn from us.”
Gloria Ushigua marching with letter to the Chinese Consulate demanding Andes Petroleum cancel its contract to explore and drill oil in Sápara territory. Photo by Joyce Xi
Ecuador contains some of the world’s most beautiful and biodiverse regions, with more species per hectare of trees, shrubs, insects, amphibians, and mammals than anywhere else on this planet. Alongside the legend of the Mungia, the Sápara speak of the creation-myth of Tsitsanu, a powerful Sápara man who became a hero figure to his peoples due to his strong commitment to helping those in need. Tsitsanu experienced many adversities on his journeys and was not always well-received. But even so, Tsitsanu stayed true to his nature – he would only respond with kindness. He is truly an emblem of the Sápara nation – his nature speaks volumes of the Sápara peoples themselves.
Such myths and legends color and distinguish Sápara culture. By pursuing ways to strengthen their language, they have strengthened their identity and platform for resistance against oil industries. Through international activism, conservation efforts and partnerships, and solar-powered communication systems, the Sápara offer the world “new ways to think about collectively building a post-petroleum economy.” By first having the right conversations about Amazon culture and conservation, we can begin taking steps toward solidarity with the Sápara peoples and their homeland as they continue their fight against extractive industries. Then, by understanding the mechanisms behind their social and environmental justice movements, we can gain more “respect for [Sápara] cultural, educational, educational, and territorial self-determination.” It is no easy process. Indeed, this is an “enormous undertaking requiring honest reflexivity, brave self-awareness, and respectful, ongoing dialogue.” The Sápara nation’s fight to repair and revive their language and land is legendary in itself. It stands as a reminder to the world that resistance is not, and never will be, futile. “And our message to our friends,” says Manari Ushigua in a video, showing him sitting within the Amazonian rainforest which is alive with the sounds of life, “is that the world and nature can come together, united, to defend our lives as human beings and the life of planet earth.”
In the two months leading up to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to issue to the Dakota Access pipeline project an allotment of Nationwide 12 permits (NWP) — a de facto fast-track federal authorization of the project — an army of oil industry players submitted comments to the Corps to ensure that fast-track authority remains in place going forward.
This fast-track permitting process is used to bypass more rigorous environmental and public review for major pipeline infrastructure projects by treating them as smaller projects.
Oil and gas industry groups submitted comments in response to the Corps’ June 1 announcement in the Federal Registerthat it was “requesting comment on all aspects of these proposed nationwide permits” and that it wanted “comments on the proposed new and modified NWPs, as well as the NWP general conditions and definitions.” Based on the comments received, in addition to other factors, the Corps will make a decision in the coming months about the future of the use of the controversial NWP 12, which has become a key part of President Barack Obama’s climate and energy legacy.
Beyond Dakota Access, the Army Corps of Engineers (and by extension the Obama Administration) also used NWP 12 to approve key and massive sections of both Enbridge’s Flanagan South pipeline and TransCanada’s southern leg of theKeystone XL pipeline known as the Gulf Coast Pipeline. Comments submitted as a collective by environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, several 350.org local chapters, the Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians, Corporate Ethics International, and others, allege NWP 12 abuses by the Obama administration.
Image Credit: Regulations.gov
The groups say NWP was never intended to authorize massive pipeline infrastructure projects and that that kind of permitting authority should no longer exist. Instead, they argued in their August 1 comment, federal agencies should be required to issue Clean Water Act Section 404 permits and do a broader environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
“Simply put, the Congress did not intend the NWP program to be used to streamline major infrastructure projects like the Gulf Coast Pipeline, the Flanagan South Pipeline, and the Dakota Access Pipeline,” reads their comment. “For the reasons explained herein, we strongly oppose the reissuance of NWP 12 and its provisions that allow segmented approval of major pipelines without any project-specific environmental review or public review process.”
“Oil companies have been using this antiquated fast-track permit process that was not designed to properly address the issues of mega-projects such as the Dakota Access pipeline,” Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Networkstated in the environmental groups’ press release at the closing of the NWP 12 comment period. “Meanwhile, tribal rights to consultation have been trampled and Big Oil is allowed to put our waters, air and land at immense risk. This cannot continue, it’s time for an overhaul.”
Industry groups, on the other hand, made their own arguments for the status quo.
Industry: Keep NWP 12 Alive, Presidential Campaign Ties
“DEPA applauds the Corps for its efforts to reissue the NWPs as they are an important regulatory vehicle to authorize activities that have minimal individual and cumulative adverse environmental effects under the Clean Water Act, Section 404 Program,” wrote DEPA. “These permits are critical to DEPA’s members in their day to day operations.”
Another commenter was Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a “most of the above” energy sources utility company (including coal and natural gas) owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holding company. Buffett serves as a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
“Berkshire Hathaway Energy supports the Corps’ intention to issue NWPs,” wrote Berkshire Hathaway Energy. “The continued implementation of the NWPs is essential to the ongoing operation of Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s businesses — particularly in circumstances when timely service restoration is critical.”
Obama “Climate Test” Guidelines
On August 1, 2016, the day the commenting period closed for the future of NWP 12 and just days after the Army Corps issued a slew of NWP 12 determinations for Dakota Access, the Obama White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued a 34-page guidance memorandum, which could have potential implications for the environmental review of projects like Dakota Access.
That memo, while non-binding, calls for climate change considerations when executive branch agencies weigh what to do about infrastructure projects under the auspices of NEPA.
“Climate change is a fundamental environmental issue, and its effects fall squarely within NEPA’s purview,” wrote CEQ. “Climate change is a particularly complex challenge given its global nature and the inherent interrelationships among its sources, causation, mechanisms of action, and impacts. Analyzing a proposed action’s GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions and the effects of climate change relevant to a proposed action — particularly how climate change may change an action’s environmental effects — can provide useful information to decision makers and the public.”
NWP 12 does not receive mention in the memo. Neither does Dakota Access, Keystone XL, nor Flanagan South.
The non-binding guidance, which some have pointed to as an example of the Obama White House applying the “climate test” to the permitting of energy infrastructure projects, has been met with mixed reaction by the fossil fuel industry and its legal counsel.
The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, a pro-fracked gas exports group created by API, denounced the CEQ memo. So too did climate change denier U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), as well as U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY).
Industry attorneys, however, do not view the guidance with the same level of trepidation, at least not across the board. On one hand, the firms Holland & Knight and K&L Gates — both of which work with industry clients ranging from Chevron and ExxonMobil to Chesapeake Energy and Kinder Morgan — have pointed to the risk of litigation that could arise as a result of the NEPA guidance. On the other end of the spectrum, the firms Squire Patton Boggs and Greenberg Traurig LLP do not appear to be quite as alarmed.
Greenberg Traurig — whose clients include Duke Energy, BP, Arch Coal, and others — jovially pointed out in a memo thatCEQ‘s NEPA guidance does not take lifecycle supply chain greenhouse gas emissions into its accounting. The firm also points out that, with agency deference reigning supreme throughout the memo, “agencies should exercise judgment when considering whether to apply this guidance to the extent practicable to an on-going NEPA process.”
Francesca Ciliberti-Ayres, one of the Greenberg Traurig memo co-authors, formerly served as legal counsel for pipeline giant El Paso Corporation.
Similar to Greenberg Traurig, the firm Patton Boggs attempted to quell its clients’ fears in its own memo written in response to the CEQ guidance memo. Patton Boggs’ clients also have included a number of oil and gas energy companies and lobbying groups, such as API, ConocoPhillips, Halliburton, Marathon Oil, and others.
“The new guidance has the potential to add substantial time and expense to all environmental reviews for companies and other entities currently undergoing the NEPA process — and for future actions,” Patton Boggs’ attorneys wrote.
“However, it will likely take some time for agencies to acclimate their review processes to the new requirements. Interested persons and companies would help themselves both by developing internal off the shelf information to accommodate the new review requirements and by working with federal agencies to develop efficient methodologies to expedite consideration on this issue, minimize any additional review time and add clarity to the process.”
J. Gordon Arbuckle, a Patton Boggs memo co-author, has previously worked on permitting projects such as the massive Trans-Alaska Pipeline, the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, and others.
Using NWP 12 to permit major pipeline projects in a quiet and less transparent manner made its debut in the Obama White House. However, it remains unclear whether its use, or the somewhat contradictory NEPA guidelines from CEQ, will ultimately shape Obama’s climate legacy in the years to come.
The question came up because some leftists are blacklisting and threatening eco-feminists over gender identity politics. The question is whether women can define themselves as a class that is distinct from men, or whether “women” must be redefined to include people born male who identify as female, or anyone born male and still living as a man who is “genderfluid” enough to sometimes feel like a woman and demand to be allowed into women’s spaces, even if they have a history of assaulting women and girls.
Certain radical green-leftists have taken it upon themselves to denounce and exclude those who feel that women are distinct from men, and that biology and material conditions are an important part of class analysis. At one anti-fracking conference, organizers took pride in refusing to admit members of Deep Green Resistance, a global organization founded on radical feminist and deep ecology principles.
So what does gender have to do with fracking? The question is serious.
At first glance, we can see that almost every fracking operation is run and directed by men, from the CEOs to the government decision-makers to the roughnecks on the drill sites. This is not some bizarre fluke. Resource extraction is a concept invented by men, as part of patriarchy – that system of white male supremacism that establishes the dominion of males over the earth and all its creatures, as promised in the Bible.
These hydraulic fracturing operations have the potential to unlock vast planet-killing reserves of petrochemicals, carbon, and greenhouse gases. Each of these drilling sites has the power to cause earthquakes, poison water tables, and kill thousands. Taken together, they may push the average global temperature to a level that destroys entire ecosystems and destabilizes the global climate.
The people who run these fracking operations bear much of the responsibility for killing the planet. Again, these people are almost all men – not trans people, not radical feminists, but cisgender heterosexual white males. But it’s radical feminists who are banned from the anti-fracking movement.
In the end, there is no gender on a dead planet. There is no sex either. We will not be able to reproduce without oxygen, without food, without fresh water. Here is our future: We will watch our babies die. It won’t matter a whit whether those babies are male, female, intersex, or transgender. They will die slowly from poisoned water and suffocating air, or quickly from pipeline explosions and catastrophic earthquakes.
The dead will not care whether we had the correct line on gender, or whether we invited the right people to our conferences. Neither will the survivors.
This is all self-evident. But it raises more questions.
When did the left take this wrong turn into the dead-end of identity politics?
When did leftists take up the cause of rich white male Republicans who enjoy wearing their stepdaughters’ underwear?
When did progressives decide to celebrate hyper-privileged people who coopt the lived experiences of oppressed people?
When did radicals determine that the only time capitalism does not exploit workers is when those workers are prostitutes?
We’ve heard about the end of the world, the end of history, and the end of gender. Maybe there’s a postscript still to come. Maybe the pendulum will swing back to reality, or maybe this is actually the end of the Left.
For residents in Assumption Parish, the boiling, gas-belching bayou, with its expanding toxic sinkhole and quaking earth is no longer a mystery; but there is little comfort in knowing the source of the little-known event that has forced them out of their homes.
Located about 45 miles south of Baton Rouge, Assumption Parish carries all the charms and curses of southern Louisiana. Networks of bayous, dotted with trees heavy with Spanish moss, connect with the Mississippi River as it slowly ambles toward the Gulf of Mexico. Fishermen and farmers make their homes there, and so does the oil and gas industry, which has woven its own network of wells, pipelines and processing facilities across the lowland landscape.
The first sign of the oncoming disaster was the mysterious appearance of bubbles in the bayous in the spring of 2012. For months the residents of a rural community in Assumption Parish wondered why the waters seemed to be boiling in certain spots as they navigated the bayous in their fishing boats.
Then came the earthquakes. The quakes were relatively small, but some residents reported that their houses shifted in position, and the tremors shook a community already desperate for answers. State officials launched an investigation into the earthquakes and bubbling bayous in response to public outcry, but the officials figured the bubbles were caused by a single source of natural gas, such as a pipeline leak. They were wrong.
On a summer night in early August, the earth below the Bayou Corne, located near a small residential community in Assumption, simply opened up and gave way. Several acres of swamp forest were swallowed up and replaced with a gaping sinkhole that filled itself with water, underground brines, oil and natural gas from deep below the surface. Since then, the massive sinkhole at Bayou Corne has grown to 8 acres in size.
On August 3, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a statewide emergency, and local officials in Assumption ordered the mandatory evacuation of about 300 residents of more than 150 homes located about a half-mile from the sinkhole. Four months later, officials continue to tell residents that they do not know when they will be able to return home. A few have chosen to ignore the order and have stayed in their homes, but the neighborhood is now quiet and nearly vacant. Across the road from the residential community, a parking lot near a small boat launch ramp has been converted to a command post for state police and emergency responders.
“This place is no longer fit for human habitation, and will forever be,” shouted one frustrated evacuee at a recent community meeting in Assumption.
The Bayou Corne sinkhole is an unprecedented environmental disaster. Geologists say they have never dealt with anything quite like it before, but the sinkhole has made few headlines beyond the local media. No news may be good news for Texas Brine, a Houston-based drilling and storage firm that for years milked an underground salt cavern on the edge of large salt formation deep below the sinkhole area. From oil and gas drilling, to making chloride and other chemicals needed for plastics and chemical processing, the salty brine produced by such wells is the lifeblood of the petrochemical industry.
Geologists and state officials now believe that Texas Brine’s production cavern below Bayou Corne collapsed from the side and filled with rock, oil and gas from deposits around the salt formation. The pressure in the cavern was too great and caused a “frack out.” Like Mother Nature’s own version of the controversial oil and gas drilling technique known as “fracking,” brine and other liquids were forced vertically out of the salt cavern, fracturing rock toward the surface and causing the ground to give way.
“In the oil field, you’ve heard of hydraulic fracturing; that’s what they’re using to develop gas and oil wells around the country …”What is a frack-out is, is when you get the pressure too high and instead of fracturing where you want, it fractures all the way to the surface,” said Gary Hecox, a geologist with the Shaw Environmental Group, at a recent community meeting in Assumption Parish. Texas Brine brought in the Shaw group to help mitigate the sinkhole.
As the weeks went by, officials determined the unstable salt cavern was to blame for the mysterious tremors and bubbling bayous. Texas Brine publically claimed the failure of the cavern was caused by seismic activity and refused to take responsibility for the sinkhole, but the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has since determined that the collapsing cavern caused the tremors felt in the neighborhood, not the other way around.
According to Hecox and the USGS, the collapsing cavern shifted and weakened underground rock formations, causing the earthquakes and allowing natural gas and oil to migrate upward and contaminate the local groundwater aquifer. Gas continues to force its way up, and now a layer of gas sits on top of the aquifer and leaches through the ground into the bayous, causing the water to bubble up in several spots. Gas moves much faster through water than oil, which explains why the bubbles have not been accompanied by a familiar sheen.
Documents obtained by the Baton Rouge newspaper, The Advocate, revealed that in 2011, Texas Brine sent a letter to the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to alert its director, Joseph Ball, that the cavern had failed a “mechanical integrity test” and would be capped and shut down. The DNR received the letter but did not require any additional monitoring of the well’s integrity.
Despite this letter, regulators apparently did not suspect the brine cavern to be the source of the bubbles until a few days before the sinkhole appeared, The Advocate reported. The letter raised ire among local officials, who did not hear about the failed integrity test until after Bayou Corne became a slurry pit.
Texas Brine spokesmen Sonny Cranch told Truthout the company has not officially taken responsibility for the sinkhole disaster, but has “acknowledged that there is a relationship” between the collapsed cavern and the sinkhole.
Flares, leaking pipelines and tanks emitted 92,000 tons of toxic chemicals into the air during accidents, break-downs and maintenance at Texas oil and gas facilities, refineries and petrochemical plants over the past three years, finds a report released today by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project, EIP.
Based on data from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, a state agency, the EIP report shows that, in addition to the emissions from normal operations, more than 42,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, and just over 50,000 tons of smog-forming volatile organic compounds were released from 2009 through 2011. The report shows a “pattern of neglect” as the pollution from these events drags on for weeks or months.
Community groups, including the EIP, notified the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today that they will take the agency to court if it fails to crack down on this toxic pollution.
Hilton Kelley, executive director of Communities In-power and Development in Port Arthur, Texas, sees the health effects of these emissions every day. “The EPA knows there are a disproprortionate number of people living with respiratory, cancer, liver and kidney disease directly related to what they’re being exposed to,” he told reporters on a conference call today.
“Within Port Arthur I personally know at least 12 people who have recently died from cancer and one young lady who died from an asthma attack,” said Kelley. “The Environmental Protection Agency must do a better job of counting the toxic pollution dumped into low-income and minority communities.”
In Houston, Juan Parras, founder of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, said, “I am a firm believer and advocate for clean air, however, I live in an environment where ‘clean’ is dictated by petrochemical, gas plants, and oil refineries in the Houston Region. They decide what they can get away with and blame their highly toxic emissions on ‘accidents’ that they claim are beyond their control.”
While both sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds, VOCs, are linked to asthma attacks and other respiratory ailments, and can contribute to premature death from heart disease, because they result from these so-called “emission events,” they are usually not included in the data the government uses to establish regulations or evaluate public health impacts.
Natural gas operations, including well heads, pipelines, compressors, boosters, and storage systems, accounted for more than 85 percent of total sulfur dioxide and nearly 80 percent of the VOCs released during these emission events, the Environmental Integrity Project report shows.
The Clean Air Act makes polluters strictly liable for their mistakes, but loopholes in regulations either excuse violations that result from malfunctions altogether, or allow polluters to escape penalties by claiming that such mishaps are beyond the control of plant operators. As a result, federal or state agencies rarely even investigate these events, much less take enforcement action.
