Resumen de Toxic oil works are polluting Peru's Amazon
The Peruvian Amazon, home to many remote tribes, is also the site of widespread contamination from oil. For decades, oil companies in Peru have dumped toxic fluid extracted from oil wells into rivers, instead of injecting them back into the drill sites in accordance with international protocols. The latest study, presented last week at the Goldschmidt conference in Sacramento CA, may be the most comprehensive to date. It covers 30 years and 18 different dumping sites on three watersheds. Antoni Rossell-Mele of the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain and colleagues collated data on pollutant levels in water samples taken from rivers around drilling sites. Rossell-Mele's team showed that 68% of the samples were above Peru's current limits for lead concentration and 20% were above cadmium limits--although pollution levels fell significantly after 2007, when regulations were introduced to stop drilling companies dumping toxic waste into rivers.
