Oil and gas exploration threatens Bolivian Chaco water supply

Aguaragüe National Park, located in southern Bolivia, is suffering from hydrocarbon exploitation, which has been carried out in this region for more than 100 years. The park’s soils and water sources are being contaminated and some tributaries have already disappeared. The Los Monos stream, for example, is now just a rustic path. Another stream, the Caigua, previously provided water to the area but now has a much weaker flow.

Since 2017, the Bolivian government has identified five high-risk environmental liabilities within this protected area, each concerning wells for oil exploration and exploitation that have been abandoned without being sealed properly. They also have uncontrolled hydrocarbon emissions. These five contaminated sites are now the subject of complaints made by Indigenous Guaraní residents as the sites have damaged and polluted their water sources.

In the nearby municipalities of Villamontes, Yacuiba and Caraparí in the Bolivian Chaco, residents know their water comes from the Aguaragüe mountain range. They also know the water is an increasingly scarce and contaminated resource. The oil activity, to which this ecosystem of the mountainous and dry Chaco Serrano forests has been subjected, is largely responsible for this issue. Despite this and the requests to stop the environmentally damaging activities in Gran Chaco province, the government has not acted.

One reason for this could be the fact that the gas extracted from the Aguaragüe mountain range is exported to Argentina and Brazil and has been since the 1960s and 1999, respectively. Between 2006 and 2021, Bolivia’s total revenue from the sale of natural gas to Argentina and Brazil was $49.53 billion. Prior to this, oil generated revenue, but the resource is no longer exploited in the protected area.

First came the oil era

Isabel Borda, a former Guaraní leader, who was chief of the Caigua Guaraní community in 2018 and 2019, was born three years after Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), Bolivia’s state-owned oil company, took over operations in the Bolivian Chaco in 1937. According to Borda, life used to be very different for people living in the mountains, with the Caigua tributary supplying water that the community used for bathing, washing clothes, fishing and irrigating crops. Animals such as jaguars were also seen in the forests.

In 2010, frustrated at the lack of water and the contamination resulting from old hydrocarbon spills, the Guaraní People’s Assembly led a large march from Yacuiba to Villamontes to demand environmental remediation. One leader even took a bottle of oil collected from the Caigua stream, which was provided to the government as proof of the contamination in the area. Despite promising to act on the issue, the government instead permitted a second era of exploitation, this time for gas.

A decade ago, oil could be collected from the Caigua stream, which unfortunately is still the case. The stream’s water flow has also decreased as a result of the hydrocarbon activities and is now much weaker. According to Celia Choque, who lives at the foot of the mountains and raises cattle in the integrated management natural area, the Caigua stream feeds a dam from which water is distributed for irrigation purposes.

During a tour of the Caigua mountains, a press team from El Deber and Mongabay Latam saw dark oily water just 10 minutes into a drive, the deposits of which date from 1924, when the North American company Standard Oil had a license to exploit oil in the region. Now, as gas exploitation takes place, Choque is dealing with the loss of her livestock, which are dying from drinking contaminated water. No one is held accountable for these losses.

At least five Indigenous leaders have been prosecuted for protesting oil activities, and this is preventing other community members from speaking out. In 2015, the state company YPFB Chaco denounced the Indigenous leaders for trying to block machinery from entering areas where wells were planned to be drilled. In response, the leaders justified their blockade by arguing that the prior consultation did not apply to their territory.

Wells that continue to pollute

The Los Monos stream, which was located 29 kilometers (18 miles) from Caigua, no longer exists. According to Felipe Moza, former leader of the San Antonio community, located at the foot of the mountains, the appetite for oil and gas has not only ravaged layers of vegetation in the protected area but has also destroyed underground and surface watercourses, with one river even having been filled in with cement.

It is no secret that the water that flows from the tops of these mountains is contaminated with oil seepage and that there are gas emissions. In fact, a 2017 study on environmental liability management in protected areas and its influence on water resources, published by the Bolivian government and European Union, confirmed this.

As part of this study, an inventory of 101 pollution points was created based on those that are georeferenced in the report, seven of which were considered liabilities, with five of these — all found in the Aguaragüe mountain range and each with their own specificities — representing a high risk.

According to the study, gas leaks were behind the Sanandita-12 (SAN-12) hydrocarbon environmental liability, which may have been due to structural damage to the well. In the soil next to the Sanandita-13 (SAN-13) well and in the sediments of a stream located 35 meters (114 feet) away, high levels of total petroleum hydrocarbons were present, as well as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene, which are volatile organic compounds found in petroleum derivatives. In the Los Monos field, the Los Monos X1 (LMS-X1) and Los Monos 6 (LMS-6) wells were leaking gas, again due to structural damage, while the Los Monos 10 (LMS-10) well was leaking liquid hydrocarbons.

The study also reported that the SAN-12, LMS-X1 and LMS-6 wells were responsible for ongoing emissions of gas into the atmosphere. The SAN-13 well was also emitting gas, but to a lesser degree. The most serious emitter, however, was LMS-10, which represented a severe environmental impact for water in the area, as hydrocarbon concentrations were above permissible limits. This liability was in the Los Monos stream, where the tributary has dried up completely.

The study included 10 protected areas affected by oil exploitation, including Aguaragüe National Park. According to the study, the hydrocarbon environmental liabilities “were inadequately abandoned and due to the conditions in which they were found at the time of the inventory], they represent an environmental risk.” To this, the study added, “the evaluation and analysis of the information collected based on the socioenvironmental impact assessment scale produced by the hydrocarbon environmental liabilities concludes that five of the seven environmental liabilities are categorized high risk, with the remaining two of a medium risk and low risk, respectively.”

In Aguaragüe National Park, 22 hydrocarbon wells have been inventoried, five of which are high-risk. These are the SAN-12, SAN-13, LMS-X1, LMS-6, and LMS-10 environmental liabilities.

The El Deber/Mongabay Latam press team requested information about environmental liabilities in Bolivia from YPFB, the Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energy and the Vice Ministry of the Environment. The Vice Ministry provided a copy of the study on the management of environmental liabilities in protected areas and their influence on water resources, which detailed the 2017 investigation, but did not respond when asked whether there were any updates to the study. YPFB did not respond to the information request.

As such, there is no documentation or field evidence that remedial work has been carried out on these five environmental liabilities.

The El Deber/Mongabay Latam press team traveled to the location of the well identified as the LMS-6 environmental liability. During the journey, the team observed workers and machinery, as well as two cattle carcasses on the side of a road, which was once the natural course of the Los Monos stream.

Access to this part of Aguaragüe National Park and to Caigua is restricted due to the active hydrocarbon fields in the area from which gas is currently being extracted. Only the company workers that provide this service to YPFB have authorized access. Rural farmers and Indigenous communities who raise their cattle in the area are only authorized to move within the integrated management natural area. Fences surround Caigua and Los Monos.

In the Los Monos field, the activity was intense, with vehicles carrying workers entering and leaving the site. Every so often, the sound of a bell could be heard, which announced the presence of a cow; community members hang such bells round their cattle’s necks to locate them as they roam the mountains in search of scarce food and water.

Prior to the extraction activity in the area, clear waters would flow in a stream, which is now a paved road. There were wild animals and birds and also pools that were home to various vibrant lizards.

Yenny Noguera, a Guaraní Indigenous leader from Caigua, is of the view that the oil activity in Aguaragüe National Park has left a legacy of unremedied environmental liabilities, water scarcity, negative impacts on Indigenous peoples’ ways of life and criminalization of the community leaders who demand respect for the natural environment and well-being, a cause the current government supports.

Traces of oil

The Aguaragüe National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area was created April 20, 2000, through Law No. 2083. Article 8 of this law prohibits “any activity that threatens the conservation of the area,” yet article 9 grants permission “in exceptional cases and when it is of national interest” to carry out “the use of mining or energy resources.”

In 2000, the protected area was also established as a regulating zone of the water regime and as the only source of water for the Chaco in Tarija. However, this designation was not respected, with hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation continuing until the tributaries that supplied water in the area dried up. The economic bonanza that Bolivia has had due to the sale of gas and oil has not been seen among the Indigenous communities. Instead, poverty plagues the Guaraní people and, in many cases, communities do not even have basic necessities.

According to Jorge Campanini, a researcher at the Bolivian Documentation and Information Center (CEDIB), at least 60 wells remained in Aguaragüe National Park following the first extractive phase, many of which were not closed properly and still emit gas and seep liquid hydrocarbons. Most of these wells are based in Caigua, Los Monos and Sanandita.

In the study provided by the Bolivian government, Aguaragüe National Park was cited as the protected area most affected by oil exploitation in the country. The five environmental liabilities found in the park were active sources of contamination and risk, mainly for the communities of Sanandita and La Costa. The study even recommended the short-term closure of the five wells and that immediate action be taken to contain the contamination of the LMS-X1, LMS-6 and SAN-12 wells.

At the beginning of December 2022, the president of YPFB, Armin Dorgathen, publicly affirmed in the Bolivian Chaco that YPFB complied with environmental regulations and that hydrocarbon projects were carried out with respect to the environment. However, he did not respond to a questionnaire submitted by the El Deber/Mongabay Latam press team about the situation of the environmental liabilities in Aguaragüe National Park.

According to YPFB, the company has identified a series of “historical environmental liabilities” and, to date, has carried out remedial works on 21,000 cubic meters (740,000 cubic feet) of soil, managed 1,200 cubic meters (42,000 cubic feet) of contaminated liquids, and cleaned streams. However, the company did not specify where these operations took place.

In 2017, under Cynthia Silva, who was the deputy minister of the environment during the administration of former President Evo Morales and who supported the study carried out with the European Union, an action plan was announced for the remediation of the environmental liabilities of LMS-10. Despite such a plan, no remedial work was initiated, partly due to a lack of financial resources.

According to Campanini, some communities, particularly the Caigua community, have reported infections, diseases and inaccessibility to clean water. The concentration of hydrocarbons in the area is beyond the permissible limit. After interventions and remedial work carried out by YPFB, levels were lowered in Sanandita, but in areas such as Caigua and Itavicua, the levels remained high as the work did not completely resolve the environmental damage.

Despite being aware of the high risk that these environmental liabilities posed for the communities, the Bolivian government continued with exploration and exploitation plans in the same area of Aguaragüe National Park. Campanini assured that five wells drilled in the Caigua field by YPFB Chaco, a YPFB subsidiary, were in operation. This was also the case in the Los Monos field, although on a smaller scale. According to the researcher, the Camatindi and Timboy-X2 wells have been closed.

In Villamontes, Yacuiba and Caraparí, the three municipalities that make up the Gran Chaco province, community members are aware that their water supply is disappearing, but the voices of its defenders are small in front of a government that is focused on how much more gas it can exploit.

 
Banner image: Aerial image of the Los Monos field, within Aguaragüe National Park, a protected area that has suffered the most severe environmental impact from the SAN-12, LMS-X1 and LMS-6 environmental liabilities, according to a study on the management of environmental liabilities in protected areas and their influence of water resources. Image by Miguel Surubi.

This investigation was conducted by Mongabay Latam in partnership with El Deber.
 

This story was reported by Mongabay’s Latam team and first published here on our Latam site on June 27, 2023.