Article by PBI-Canada
Image: Héctor David Suárez speaking on a Human Rights Council side event on the water crisis in Colombia organized by Peace Brigades International and the International Human Rights Network (RIDH) on March 4.
This coming April 8, the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) is expected to award the second round of contracts for fracking pilot projects in Colombia.
One of the corporations that has pre-qualified for a contract is the US transnational ExxonMobil most likely for its VMM-37 block near the community of Puerto Wilches, Santander in the Magdalena Medio region of Colombia.
That operation reportedly could include the consumption of more than six pools of water each day from the Magdalena and Sogamoso rivers. One pool could amount to as much as 2.5 million litres (660,000 gallons) of water.
Corporacion Podion has noted: “This possible pilot project will extract more water than oil, discarding between 4,000 and 6,500 barrels.”
Puerto Wilches is situated on the riverbanks of the Magdalena River.
Geneva Solutions recently reported: “Despite being next to one of Colombia’s main arteries, the rural town of 30,000 inhabitants has no access to clean water.”
Héctor David Suárez of the Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS) and the Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking recently spoke with Michelle Langrand for this feature article in Geneva Solutions.
Suárez says: “Experiences in other countries have shown that the gas and chemicals used can leak and can pollute underground water bodies. Puerto Wilches depends on underground water for drinking.”
He further noted: “Magdalena Medio’s ecosystems are extremely fragile.”
Suárez also told Langrand that anti-fracking activists in Magdalena Medio have been subjected to threats and intimidation.
In November 2020, eighteen social leaders in Magdalena Medio were threatened with death through a pamphlet signed by the Black Eagles paramilitary. Six of those threatened are members of the Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking.
Earlier this month, Alfredo Molano Jimeno wrote in El Espectador about the threats faced by opponents of fracking in the Magdalena Medio including Yuli Velasquez, Luis Alberto González and 20-year-old Yuvelis Natalia Morales, a member of the Committee for the Defence of Water, Life and Territory of Puerto Wilches (AguaWil).
AguaWil is accompanied by CREDHOS.
