A local newspaper in Putumayo published an opinion piece from a local community representative that questions the department’s ability to handle increased oil production, with doubts surrounding the authority’s ability to react to spills and its limited infrastructure.
The coordinator of environmentalist NGO El Mastranto Manuel Peña has accused eight oil companies, led by Pacific Rubiales (TSX:PRE) of extracting water from pools designated for livestock and the Guachiría river, which local authorities say may or may not be illegal.
An open hearing on the pending public referendum to approve or reject oil production near the municipality of Monterrey has been postponed after Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) filed a motion to delay the hearing, which will determine its constitutionality.
Pacific Rubiales (TSX:PRE) had to wait more than two years for its environmental license for the CPE-6 block in the Meta Department, finally receiving the green light at the end of 2013. Now a few more details have emerged on the company’s obligations under the license agreement.
The general manager of EAAV, the sewage and aqueduct company of Villavicencio Hector Castro says that seismic exploration near the aqueduct’s intake has the potential to collapse the infrastructure.
A Casanare land owner is accusing Lewis Energy Colombia of working outside the bounds of its environmental license, which she says has affected a local river and flooded her land, and that the company has also been under reporting its production, while one report suggests the dispute is about compensation for production rights on her land.
Senator Maritza Martínez criticized the government’s failure to address land right issues in the Llanos and sounded off on environmental issues, many of which she says stem from mining and hydrocarbons production. Tauramena should be seen as a wake up call for the government and environmental authorities, she argues.
The government engaged a multi-pronged push back against a public referendum that looks to reject oil production near municipal water sources in Tauramena, Casanare which included ministers and Ecopetrol’s (NYSE:EC) president Javier Gutiérrez.
Nearly two months after it was first detected, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development and the National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) have declared an environmental emergency at the Cartagena location of Carman International due to oil leakage.
Only a day after Ecopetrol and Talisman announced a major discovery in CPO-9, comes this story about complaints of odors in another part of the municipality of Acacias, Meta.