Chile’s National Fisheries Service (Sernapesca) this month declared a sanitary emergency off the northern coast of the Aysén Region, located in Chilean Patagonia, due to the discovery of the Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) virus in two salmon farms belonging to the companies Marine Harvest and Multiexport. The outbreak caught the industry and local media by surprise, raising fears of another large-scale ISA plague similar to the 2007 outbreak that killed untold amounts of farmed fish and severely crippled the salmon-farming industry here. The industry formerly enjoyed exponential annual export growth, but over the past five years has seen a massive decline in jobs and production. Due to the 2007 ISA crisis, salmon farming operations have in recent years migrated en masse southward from...
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Oil cleanup crews were hard at work in Ecuador this month following a spill April 8 of 5,500 barrels of crude in a stream in coastal Esmeraldas province about 300 kilometers (187 miles) from Quito. The spill occurred when a landslide broke a portion of the Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline (OCP). The private pipeline transports crude from the Amazon oil town of Lago Agrio 485 kilometers (300 miles) to a shipping terminal on the Ecuadorian coast near the city of Esmeraldas, the provincial capital. The affected stream is the principal drinking water supply for Wincheles, a village of 150 people. It also serves as a water source for local cattle, and flows into the Esmeraldas River. The prime concern of environmentalists is the Esmeraldas River...
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Brazil’s second-largest steelmaker, Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN), has received some stiff environmental fines over the years. Last month it was slapped with its largest yet. On April 8, the State Environmental Institute (INEA), the enforcement arm of the Rio de Janeiro State Environmental Secretariat, fined CSN R$35 million (US$17.5 million) for polluting soil and ground water in an industrial landfill that it closed and donated to a labor union. Atop this site, the union built housing for 220 steelworkers’ families, some of whose members now complain of health problems. INEA also gave CSN until April 15 to submit a timetable for assessing the health of residents; until April 23 to submit a plan for relocating the families; and until May 8 to...
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Drummond, a U.S.-based coal company, has been thrust into the spotlight again after a January incident in which a barge at its Caribbean port in Ciénaga, Colombia, dumped hundreds of tons of coal into the sea. The spill, one of many in Colombia’s coal industry, has prompted concern among environmental authorities that coal dust might coat popular beaches and smother oysters, clams and other bottom-dwelling marine life. The Colombian prosecutor-general’s office is investigating to determine whether the accident was the result of negligence. Environmentalists fear the spill will further degrade fisheries already affected by barge traffic in the area as well as by the escape of airborne coal. “The settling of coal onto the seabed will drive fish and other organisms away...
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