Crude

Radical Media

First Run Features

R1 DVD

Mostly Spanish with English subtitles where needed

This 2009 documentary looks at the ongoing battle to obtain compensation to clean up a part of the Amazon basin contaminated by oil production. According to the local people they have suffered an alarming increase in disease, their streams and food have become contaminated and their culture is breaking down in the face of wholesale population shifts to get away from the poisons.

The trouble is the argument has been taken out of their hands and is now under the control of lawyers. The case has been dragging on for seventeen years (at the time of making the doco) and could drag on for another ten years. The documentary seems to be an attempt to raise public support for the local people, but I could not find it convincing. There are too many gaps in the information in the film.

To summarise, Texaco explored the Ecuador area of the Amazon basin twenty years ago. Oil was found in commercial quantities and exploitation commenced with government help. Since then Texaco has been bought out by Chevron and in turn the infrastructure has been transferred to the ownership of PetroEcuador, a local company which has a dreadful reputation for oil spills and pollution. This all confuses the picture, but some facts do appear to be accurate.

There is a oily-looking sludge beneath the soil in many areas. This may be leaching into the local streams, some of which do show a thin surface layer of petrochemical pollution. Whether this is naturally occurring (crude oil coming to the surface in oil- bearing areas has been noted for thousands of years) or a result of poor remediation of past exploration is open to question. There are a number (up to a hundred) of dams where production sludge was dumped and has not been fully remediated. Some effort has been made to stop this sludge leaching into the environment.

The native people suffer skin diseases and cancers. Chevron maintains that the cancer rate is no higher than average. The natives maintain that Chevron is at fault. Chevron says they aren’t. Unfortunately the facts of the case seem to be lost in the drive for media attention and the constant name-calling and bickering.

We are not told what the pollutants are despite a number of analyses having been carried out. A Chevron test showed the water the natives drink and swim in has a very high count of faecal matter and a low level of petrochemicals so poor hygiene may be partly responsible.

With regard to the skin diseases, about forty years ago I lived in the Clarence River area of Australia. Fish in the area were dying in large numbers and the “fish scald” which has a strong similarity to the Indians’ skin diseases was blamed on farmers and fertilisers. The cause turned out to be altogether different. Under the swamps of the area is a layer of “acid sulphate” soil built up from decaying organic matter over millions of years. In the airless environment at the bottom of a swamp they formed chemicals that were quite reactive. When the swamps were drained for agricultural land or otherwise dried out (and remember, the Amazon basin is really a huge swamp that is being increasingly developed) the sulphur compounds reacted with the air generating huge amounts of sulphuric acid that found its way into the river systems after every storm. The fish in the Clarence River were literally swimming in dilute sulphuric acid and developed skin diseases, then died in huge numbers. Such possibilities do not seem to have been considered in the documentary and I think this weakens it somewhat. That layer of sludge under the surface soil may need closer examination to see what it really is. We are not told its extent, either. Is it located in exploration areas only or is it right across the region? In other words has it been produced by drilling or other disturbance or is it a result of natural seepage or another cause?

PetroEcuador itself has a case to answer. They have inherited a worn out infrastructure, sure, but they do not appear to have the expertise to fix it. Both sides of the debate agree that many of the contaminated areas are in places where Texaco

never explored, but where PetroEcuador did. PetroEcuador doesn’t have much money. Chevron has. Is Chevron simply the most lucrative target? They think so. PetroEcuador is treated very lightly in the documentary.

Perhaps the most disturbing point is that the attempts to gather public support are using up large amounts of money. Even if a decision is reached in favour of the Indians, how much of the compensation will actually get past the lawyers? The longer Chevron delays the case with its own legal tactics the more it will cost the local people.

And in all this time what have the remaining local people done to improve their own health? Nothing. A charity arranged supply of plastic rainwater tanks so at least 4000 Indians can now get clean drinking water, but the streams are still the water supply for stock, the swimming hole for the kids, and the public sewer. Perhaps a good start would be to persuade the Indians not to crap in their drinking water?

Sorry, this documentary does not convince me. Rather than an attempt to raise public awareness it seems to be more an attempt to raise public sympathy (and, I assume, money).

Reviews appear on the Synergy website with a single cover image. In the digital and print edition, reviews appear with multiple images and with expanded content. We recommend you download the free digital edition (or buy the print edition) to get the most from Synergy Magazine.

This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 4 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

If you came to this page directly (and missed our menu), click here to go to the front page of Synergy Magazine Website or use the following link: http://www.synergy-magazine.com