In Huila and Putumayo, the number of tankers on the road has dropped by 40% since an announcement three weeks ago from President Juan Manuel Santos that pipelines would be used instead of trucks when possible to reach the Tumaco port.
The Monterrey municipal council says it will go ahead with a public referendum to accept or reject oil exploration and production near the municipal water resources despite warnings and court rulings that this task is reserved for the national government.
Rain has reached Casanare’s Paz de Ariporo alleviating the ongoing drought which has affected the local community. But officials are now warning the rain could lead to widespread water contamination due to the high amount of animal carcasses, and accusations that the oil industry is at fault for the situation continue to fly.
In Orito, Putumayo a group of around 100 community leaders, activists and organizers met with Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) to discuss the alleged contamination of local rivers and streams, but considered the NOC’s explanations insufficient.
The damage and aftermath of guerrilla attacks on this sensitive set of pipelines keeps on snowballing, with reports estimating that the lost barrels have long surpassed a million and that a good portion of the Caño Limon field is at a halt.
The national government says that it will visit the U´WA indigenous group that is blocking the access of repair crews to the Caño Limon-Coveñas pipeline, which has been inoperable following a guerrilla attack on March 24th.
In order to offer current and potential suppliers an updated panorama into different aspects of the oil industry Ecopetrol has agreed with The University of Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano to create a “Supplier’s University”, and will subsidize the cost during the first stage of the project.
The USO did not let the three year signing of the free trade agreement between the United States and Colombia pass without pointing out what the union considers a concerted effort from the central government to suppress union rights, one of the contentious points of the agreement in the US congress.
Casanare has become a haven for using community distraught for personal gain, says an opinion column in the local paper. There might be justification in some of the complaints, but the demands and complaints have turned “into a true shopping list” says the author, who expresses a point of view rarely found in the local paper.
The mayor of Meta’s capital Villavicencio Juan Guillermo Zuluaga has called for a green tax for oil companies to compensate financially for the environmental toll on the producing and surrounding region.
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