ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: River Oil Spill Under Control, Says Petrobras

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 19 2000 (IPS) - Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobrás, says it has contained the four million litre spill that had been advancing down the Iguazú River in southern Brazil after a burst pipeline caused the petroleum giant’s worst accident since 1975.

The black slick, eight km long, had been moving at a speed of one km per hour since the spill occurred Sunday afternoon after a pipe at the President Getulio Vargas Refinery in eastern Paraná state sprung a leak.

Brazilian Foreign Affairs officials contacted their counterparts in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, telling them that Brazil is making “every effort to prevent the petroleum from crossing the border.” The governmental Brazilian Environmental Institute also assured that the slick would not reach the neighbouring countries.

In the first day of clean-up, not even 0.1 percent of the spilled oil had been collected, according to estimates by environmentalists, and the slick had already taken its toll on the river’s plant and animal life.

By the Petrobrás’s own reckoning, by Wednesday crews had collected just 10 percent of the total volume of crude spilled.

The slick was flowing with the Iguazú river currents toward the Paraná River, where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet at the massive Iguazú Falls, 800 km from the original spill. It is unlikely the oil would ever reach these international waters, but the possibility sparked concern among the authorities.

The site where the rivers meet at the spectacular waterfalls is one of South America’s leading tourist attractions, and is shared by the three bordering countries.

The Petrobrás spill is Brazil’s worst oil accident ever to occur on a river.

Floating containment barriers, vacuums and other equipment were mobilised, along with clean-up specialists, to stop the advance of the oil slick downstream toward the city of Uniao da Vitoria.

All water supplies for this city of 73,000 come from the Iguazú and would be affected by the spill by Wednesday evening or Thursday morning if containment efforts fail. Rains aggravated the problem as they pushed up water levels and accelerated river currents.

Several towns along the river have complained about the strong smell of petroleum, which exacerbates respiratory problems. The authorities warned of the possibility of fire.

Along the Iguazú there are also five hydroelectric plants, the first located just 40 km downstream from Uniao da Vitoria. Despite the risk of damage to the dam’s equipment, technicians for the Paraná Electrical Company assured there would be no loss in energy production levels.

But there is no way to reverse the ecological damage. Fish, plants, animals and birds were the first victims, charge local environmentalists.

Petrobrás was slow to react, and provided inadequate clean-up equipment and personnel who lacked training for this type of accident, according to Teresa Urbán, of the environmental organisation Rede Verde (Green Network).

The clean-up crews are using the same methods here as in marine environments, which are not effective for river spills, she said.

The giant state oil company, the pride of nationalists who have fought privatisation efforts, has consolidated itself as an enemy of environmentalists.

The frequency of accidents throughout the Petrobrás system calls for prison sentences for the firm’s executives, as stipulated in the Environmental Crimes Act, charged Joao Paulo Capobianco, of the non-governmental Socio-Environmental Institute.

Seven spills have occurred just since December, two of which were extremely serious – the current incident and the spill in January, when a pipeline dumped 1.3 million litres of petroleum into Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro.

In 1975, Brazil suffered its worst oil-related accident when the hull of the Iranian tanker Tarik Ibn Ziyad failed, spilling at least six million litres of crude into Guanabara Bay.

The 28-million-dollar fine Environment minister José Sarney Filho charged Petrobrás for last January’s spill is nothing for a company that deals in multi-billions, and has not been enough to change its attitude toward the environment, said Capobianco.

Minister Sarney, however, announced that the fine for this week’s spill would be doubled to at least 56 million dollars because it is Petrobrás’s second major accident in just six months.

Sunday’s accident is the result of ongoing negligence in safety and environmental disaster prevention, he said.

Oil-worker unionists accuse Petrobrás of sacrificing safety in order to cut costs, postponing necessary maintenance measures.

Complicated tasks are being performed by “workers who lack adequate training,” charged Mauricio França Rubem, head of the Federation of Petroleum Workers.

The refinery in Paraná where the most recent spill occurred had cut its personnel from 1,200 to 580, stressed Helio Seidel, president of the local union.

In addition, the company has failed to update equipment and technology. The pipelines at the refinery are 23 years old, the same age as the plant itself, said Seidel.

Petrobrás president Henri Philippe Reichstul attributed the latest accident to “misfortune” and stated that personnel cuts were the result of the increasing use of computers in refinery operations, which he said strengthen safety.

This week’s accident came just as the state company began implementation of its Programme for Environmental Excellence, a billion-dollar project triggered by the January spill in Guanabara Bay.

Brazilian Green Party legislative Deputy Fernando Gabeira said it is unacceptable to attribute Sunday’s spill to oomisfortune” because it was evidently due to human error.

“There exist intelligent systems” of control that are capable of preventing this type of disaster, Gabeira said as he visited the spill site on the Iguazú.