14 DAY TRIAL // Following the discovery of rather high levels of lead, barium and chromium in the Pastaza River, high officials in Peru have been left with no choice except declare an environmental state of emergency.
By the looks of it, Argentina-owned Pluspetrol are the ones to be held responsible for the pollution levels now recorded in said portion of the Amazon jungle. Hence their being liable for cleaning up the Pastaza River.
The oil bloc blamed for releasing barium, lead, chromium and other petroleum-related compounds into the environment has been operated by the aforementioned company since 2001.
Apparently, Pluspetrol has been given a total of 90 days to clean up said water source.
Furthermore, Mongabay reports that the company must make sure that the indigenous people living nearby are not facing any health threats as a result of the environmental pollution they have been exposed to.
Ironically enough, the Quichua and Ashuar peoples living in this part of the Peruvian Amazon have spent years trying to convince the country's high officials that drilling for oil in the Amazonian jungle would ultimately cause harmful chemical compounds to build up in local soils and water sources.
However, the Peruvian government failed to give these complaints the attention they deserved, and allowed drilling companies to carry on with their working agenda unhindered.
Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, the current Peruvian environment minister, says that, all things considered, Occidental Petroleum must also be pointed a finger at, seeing how its 1971-2001 oil drilling activities in the area have not been all that environmentally-friendly either.
The same source informs us that, for the time being, a whopping 84% of the Amazon rainforest within Peru's borderlines is under actual or potential oil and gas development.
Therefore, rolling out strict environmental quality standards and making sure that oil and gas companies abide by them is mandatory if Peru is to even stand at chance of safeguarding its part of the Amazonian jungle.