Livelihoods ruined: Oil spill forces fishermen into poverty in Peru

[Judi Lynn]

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
CIUDAD PACHACUTEC, PERU MAR 13, 2022 - 6:28 PM GMT+3

Walter de la Cruz scrambled down a large sand dune in the fog to reach a rock overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where he has fished for three decades. He cast a hook into the waters off Peru’s coast several times, with no luck. One attempt yielded a piece of plastic stained with oil.

De la Cruz, 60, is one of more than 2,500 fishermen whose livelihoods have been cast into doubt as a result of a large crude-oil spill at the Spanish-owned Repsol oil refinery on Jan. 15 caused by a tsunami from the eruption of an underwater volcano near Tonga.

"We are desperate,” he said, counting on his fingers the debts that overwhelm him, including a bank loan, bills for water, electricity, gas, and school supplies for his two grandchildren.

Peru has characterized the spill of 11,900 barrels in front of a Repsol refinery as its "worst ecological disaster.” A report by United Nations experts estimates it involved about 2,100 tons of crude, well above the 700 tons the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited considers the threshold for a large spill – and an unprecedented amount for the type of crude that leaked. The oil was extracted from Buzios, the world’s largest deepwater oil field and the most productive in Brazil.

More:
https://www.dailysabah.com/world/americas/livelihoods-ruined-oil-spill-forces-fishermen-into-poverty-in-peru