A bitter quarrel has erupted within the Colombian government over the possibility of a huge oil find, fraying the nerves of U’wa Indians long opposed to drilling at the site just outside their territory near the border with Venezuela. The ruckus comes weeks after Ecopetrol, the state oil company, announced it had found evidence of up to 200 million barrels of high-quality oil in the so-called Siriri block. At the heart of the debate are charges that Ecopetrol has in fact found far more water and useless gas than oil at the Siriri site, which lies less than three miles (five kms) from the U’wa reservation in the states of Boyacá and Norte de Santander. "This gigantic find is a bubble losing air...
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Argentina’s Chubut province has suspended its review of a Canadian company’s proposal to dig an open-pit gold mine 4.3 miles (seven kms) from the Andean vacation city of Esquel. Just weeks after Esquel residents rejected Meridian Gold’s plans in a non-binding referendum, 11,065 votes to 2,567, Chubut Gov. José Luis Lizurume said April 12 that consideration of the mining plan would be suspended indefinitely. Meridian’s project had been endorsed by the governor and other officials on grounds it would bring much-needed investment and jobs amid Argentina’s economic crisis. But opposition has proved widespread. Critics ranging from environmental advocates to community groups argued that the cyanide-based mining operations posed unacceptable risks to an area considered one of the most important tourism magnets...
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Orange" anti-terrorism alerts mean unhealthy air for people working at busy crossings on the U.S.-Mexican border. Because traffic congestion worsens during heightened-security alerts as U.S. authorities step up vehicle inspections, motorists sometimes must wait two to three hours at border crossings during orange alerts—the second-highest alert status. Studies by the Western Governor''s Association and the Ciudad Juárez environment department reveal traffic congestion at crossings in Ciudad Juárez and other border cities does not significantly increase air pollution on an air-basin-wide basis. But Mexican and U.S. authorities admit that airshed monitoring does not fully account for the local health impacts of vehicle emissions. Carlos Rincon, a natural-resources specialist with the Environmental Defense Fund, says the problem is...
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Brazilian officials this month were scrambling to monitor fallout from one of the country’s worst toxic-waste spills on record—a release of pulp-mill waste that contaminated two major rivers and the water supplies for 500,000 people in over a half-dozen southeastern Brazilian cities and towns. The accident occurred on March 29, when a shuttered pulp and paper company’s toxic-waste reservoir ruptured, releasing some 320 million gallons (1.2 billion liters) of waste into the Pombo River and, further downstream, into the Paraíba do Sul River. On April 2, Rio de Janeiro state environmental officials levied the maximum R$50 million (US$15 million) fine on Indústria Cataguazes de Papel, a paper-recycling company, in connection with the accident. Cataguazes inherited the reservoir...
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Brazil’s recent decision to allow a one-time sale of transgenic soybeans grown despite a government prohibition on such crops has drawn harsh criticism from environmental and consumer groups. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his cabinet decided on March 26 to allow the sale after determining this year’s transgenic soy crop, planted before they took office, was so big that confiscating it would cause too much hardship. Brazil is the world’s second largest soy producer after the United States. Experts calculate illicitly grown transgenics account for at least 4% of this year’s 49 million metric tons of soy, or about US$370 million of the crop’s $8.2 billion value. Critics note that in the provisional decree, the president and nine of his ministers...
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