Community Environmental Monitoring

Throughout 2000, monitors made frequent trips to OXY's two drilling platforms to review work and ensure compliance with environmental regulations and agreements made with the Secoya. Above, Secoya representatives Humberto Piaguaje, lawyer Bolívar Beltrán, Gonzalo Payaguaje, and Aniceto Payaguaje (respectively 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th from left) inspect a drilling site. Other areas of concern, illustrated below, include pits for drilling wastes (top left). Monitors warned of damaged pit liners which OXY replaced shortly before drilling started. They also raised concerns about possible flooding if, once full, these open pits receive heavy rains. Workers camps (top right), are a source of garbage and contaminated water (bottom left); the monitors identified unacceptably high levels of contaminants in camp effluents. A stream unnecessarily blocked at the perimeter of the platform (bottom right) was cleared after monitors called attention to it.