Impact Of Oil Mining On Local Communities – Planes, trains and cars. Plastics, pesticides and polyester. Oil and gas have been the engine of the world economy for over 100 years. Despite this, we know little about the health effects of spills and unintentionally released oil wastes. Why is this? This is because no long-term research has been conducted with residents living near the spills or workers who cleaned up the spills. Not one.
However, several good, short-term studies have been conducted and their findings are worrying. These studies report on the health effects of people exposed to oil and gas from several of history’s most notorious spills: Exxon Valdez, Hebei Spirit, Tasman Spirit, Prestige, and Deepwater Horizon. The portrait he painted is alarming. They are like the colorful sheen of oil slicks on the surface, beckoning us to dig deeper to reveal the lasting effects of contact with oil and gas.
Impact Of Oil Mining On Local Communities
Notorious Oil Spills: We hear a lot about it in the media when a tanker sinks or a rig explodes near the United States, but none of the most notorious spills come close to the amount of oil and toxic waste. The Ecuadorian Amazon over the years.
What Do We Know About How Oil Spills Affect Human Health? Not Enough.
For the past 50 years, people living in the northern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon have been victims of countless spills and irresponsible waste management practices by oil drilling companies in the region. Between 1972 and 1993, 714 million barrels (or 30 billion gallons) of oil and toxic waste were released into the environment, intentionally or accidentally. While no single spill has matched the infamous spills mentioned above, there have been more than 140 over the years, including the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Furthermore, this “slow drip” means that people are in constant contact with oil and waste products. Little is known about the health effects of this relentless oil contact, but short-term studies of large-scale spills can give us clues as to what may be happening to indigenous peoples in the region.
Published studies have looked at self-reported symptoms and biomarkers (laboratory results from samples) among people who had some form of contact with oil or gas after a spill (Aguilera et al. 2010; D’Andrea and Reddy 2014; Lafon et al. 2016; see Ramírez et al. al., the self-reported symptoms can be classified as nervous effects (headache, dizziness, etc.), related to the severity of the exposure, the closer to the spill or the more time they spend near it, the more symptoms the indigenous people of northern Ecuador are likely to have. a cumulative effect, making individuals more vulnerable in the event of an accident.
Biomarker studies have revealed irreversible damage to people exposed to oil and gas. These effects can be classified as respiratory damage, liver damage, weakened immunity, increased cancer risk, reproductive damage, and higher levels of certain toxins (hydrocarbons and heavy metals).
The only study that looked at health markers of Amazonian indigenous people after a spill was conducted four months after a local spill in the Peruvian Amazon (Webb et al. 2016). The study showed that men who worked to clean up the spill had twice as much mercury in their urine as those who were not involved in restoring the oil-stagnant lagoon. Mercury can damage the brain and liver. Every time a pipe bursts or a cesspit overflows, we can expect the people around us to be inundated with mercury from their water, the fish they eat, and the air they breathe. Several other studies in the Ecuadorian Amazon have linked the proximity of oil operations to diseases (cancer, skin irritation, etc.) (San Sebastián et al. 2001; 2004; Hurtig et al. 2004; Paz-y-Mino et al. 2008) ). Although the investigations were not related to specific spills, they were conducted in areas where there have been several accidents. Surprisingly, two Chevron-funded studies found no link between cancer and oil recovery (Kelsch et al. 2009; Moolgawkar et al. 2014).
Health And Environmental Impact Of The Petroleum Industry
A long-term study that followed fishermen for six years after the Prestige oil spill off the coast of Spain assessed the effects on respiratory health. A clinical study looking at the effects of water in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill found that human lung cells grown in water containing both the spilled oil and the oil dispersion showed damage. Oil and dispersions are ways to wreak havoc on the human body. We know from other clinical studies (in mice and cells) that the main health effect of hydrocarbons, the main component of oil, is cancer. In order to detect cancer rates, studies must be carried out over a long period of time. Long-term (long-term) studies of the effects of oil spills are needed.
Reducing the demand for oil is the best way for individual citizens to reduce the number of leaks. To reduce your consumption, use public transport, eat locally, eat lower on the food chain (vegan) and spend less. You can force your institution (bank, school, municipality) to give up oil companies. Amazon Frontlines is partnering with a local organization, the Ceibo Alliance, to help local people learn about the risks they face. Knowing the risks is the first step in protecting indigenous peoples’ rights to health and demanding better environmental protection in the Amazon. See our environmental monitoring work and participate in this work here.
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Outdated Infrastructure And Oil Spills: The Cases Of Colombia, Peru And Ecuador
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The Deep Sea Mining Dilemma
Join the movement and stay up to date with the latest news and stories in the fight to save the Amazon rainforest. Oil burns from a leaking pipeline in Goi-Bodo, a wetland in the Niger Delta, Nigeria on October 12, 2004 [Austin Ekeinde/Reuters]
In southern Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta, people are worried about the health and environmental effects of crude oil spills that have occurred since oil was discovered in 1958.
Between 1976 and 1991, more than two million barrels of oil contaminated Ogoniland in 2,976 separate oil spills as Nigeria became one of the world’s largest oil producers.
In 2020 and 2021, Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) recorded 822 combined oil spills, with a total of 28,003 barrels of oil spilled into the environment.
To Mine Ev Minerals, Industry Turns To Dangerous Refinery Technology
Dependent on agriculture and fishing, their livelihoods have been directly affected, and residents have reported countless health problems.
A fire at Shell’s Bomu oil well led to an oil spill in the Bubanabe region, possibly the first in history.
Ogoni leaders, including environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, formed the Ogoni People Survival (Mosop) Movement, a non-partisan organization to stop the exploitation of Ogoni by oil companies and the government.
Due to growing local and international protests, Shell suspended production in Ogoniland. It has not pumped oil from most of its wells, but its pipelines continue to flow through Ogonimaa, leaking oil.
When Will We Run Out Of Oil, And What Happens Then?
About 300,000 Ogonians protested peacefully against the bombings and oil pollution. Later that year, Shell sought military support to build a pipeline through Ogoniland.
Despite international calls for amnesty, the Nigerian military government executes Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni human rights activists accused of murdering four Ogoni elders.
A man walks past Amnesty International’s Nigerian portrait
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