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An environmentalist group (La Mesa Hídríca del Piedemonte) which focuses on water issues in the Meta Department, has gathered and submitted 20,000 signatures rejecting oil production work in the nearby Lorito 1 well, in the Guamal municipality.

Senator Maritza Martínez said during a senate debate that the environmental and social damage caused by exploration and production in Arauca, Casanare and Meta are a cause of concern and create the need for public referendums like the one scheduled in Tauramena, Casanare.

The municipality of Monterrey has presented a socialization of the Odisea 3D seismic exploration project and its environmental impact to the municipal council so that council members can issue a statement regarding the project and possible bring it to a public referendum.

A chain of events set off by a truck loaded with 230 barrels of crude crashing on a Putumayo highway which led then to a spill which reached the Magdalena river, has moved local authorities to ban a number of transport companies from operating and heavy trucks from using their normal routes in Huila.

A break in UK oil producer Perenco’s pipeline caused 15 barrels of oil to leak into a nearby stream in Casanare, affecting the water supply of the Aguazul and Maní municipalities, and the local environmental management agency has called for the National Environmental Licensing Agency (ANLA) to intervene.

Oil from a rupture along the Transandino Pipeline (OTA) on the Colombia-Ecuador border has leaked into the banks of the San Miguel river causing contamination and requiring intervention from Ecuadorian NOC Petroamazonas.

In December the Tauramena municipality will hold a public referendum to approve or reject nearby oil production in certain, named villages and now in Aguazul municipal leaders are looking to do the same and get the public to vote on Ecopetrol’s (NYSE:EC) Odisea 3D seismic exploration program.

The Casanare environmental management agency Corporinoquia sat in on a meeting in Yopal to discuss problems and conflicts and problems in the department between the community and oil producers.

An article in the local paper Noticiero del Llano quoting unnamed “ecologists” is calling on Ecopetrol to assume the social responsibility of exploration and production, and called on readers to voice concerns to a mobile unit of the NOC designed to receive complaints from the community.

Two months after taking the role of the Minister of Environment and Sustainable Energy (MinAmbiente), a national paper publishes a report saying the new minister Luz Helena Sarmiento has largely remained silent since her start, a source of worry for the energy and mining industry.