Argentina: Fracking Kills Water and Land

By Carlos Aznarez on August 17, 2021

In recent days, fracking in the province of Neuquén has once again become a topic of discussion. Community members of the Mapuche people together with social organizations have carried out roadblocks and blockades, warning about the lack of water and its contamination.

The protest refers to the green light given by the local and national government to continue destroying the environment with drilling and fracking in Vaca Muerta. To talk about this serious situation we consulted our journalist colleague Pablo Fernández, from Cartago TV.

-Neuquén has always been and still is an activist oriented province. Together with Salta in the 90’s, they inaugurated the roadblocks and the protests when YPF (Argentine state backed oil company) was handed over, a time when a lot of social mobility was generated, and also much earlier when the “Choconazo” took place. In other words, Neuquén is characterized by a very strong presence in terms of testimonial claims, improvements and struggles, but also advances and setbacks are almost as much a constant of what happens in a great part of our country.

Here we have one of the first recovered factories in the country (Zanon), but also here is where the murder of the teacher Carlos Fuentealba took place, and at the same time this is one of the richest provinces in Argentina. The income that this province has, obviously does not translate into fair distribution but because of the extraordinary sales of the natural resources that are exploited, or because of its derivatives, makes it an area with a lot of money and business.

This is to explain the Vaca Muerta formation in Loma Campana, in the town of Danielo, about 200 kilometers from the capital of Neuquén. In that formation there is a kind of Aleph, many of the guidelines are crossed with respect to the economic concentration that can be seen throughout the continent.

-Let’s talk about fracking and how its use has been imposed.

-Here there is no crack or dissonant views, the whole political caste supports fracking, defends it and raises it as a kind of “Eldoradist” view (after the Conquistadors who longed to find El Dorado) regarding our salvation of the future.

This has been denounced for a long time by many studies, organizations, unions and personalities who are playing the game, and clearly remain outside the political map, because to speak against fracking in Neuquén, in political terms for what is marketing, is suicide.

If it is like that now, imagine eleven years ago when all this was just starting and they were selling us that fracking did not pollute and brought progress, but the Neuquén people already knew that development of exploiting and exploiting natural resources and escaping with the profits in a town called Rincón de los Sauces, or what they did in Loma La Lata as well, where the old Red Sol exploded everything and left an environmental walk that is still being studied.

The same is repeated in the province of Río Negro in the town of Cinco Saltos. There, there is an amazing example of extrativism and environmental walk. It is what happened with the Indupa plant, which is the largest mercury cemetery on the planet, and there they blew up everything, including the town of Cinco Saltos, which has been affected by that history of fracking and all the disaster it left in the water and in the bodies of the people.

This is how these evils continue to reproduce themselves, fracking led us to another very serious problem, which is Comarsa company. that polluted and left the soil oiled in places where they had promised not to do so. Let us bear in mind that fracking, among the many disasters it causes, creates a waste disaster.

They are treated to leave them inert, but in reality they are not treated and are businesses that are made in accordance with environmental directions. To pollute you always have to have two parties: the one who pollutes and the one who allows them to pollute. There the state acts as a kind of guarantor for those businesses to operate with no responsibility for the environmental liabilities left behind.

Let’s say that fracking is filling the land with cemeteries. We still don’t have the answers to what can happen at the level of contamination in the bodies because that can only be seen after a long time.

-Contamination is part of this tragedy, but there is also the lack of water.

-That’s right, now the water issue is coming and some water flows have started to dry up, there are very low levels and the ones who pay the most are the native peoples. They were in those formations and they also live in those territories, for example in the Maripe Field, which is one of the main explorations of YPF, they contaminated all the lands, but as this happens outside the cities and in populations in the countryside, far from the urban daily life, it does not affect us.

The problem is that now this has reached very close to the city and we understand the historical claim of the communities that have been warning about fracking, because not only does it pollute and destroy but it will also leave us without water, because the quantities absorbed by fracking make these practices devastating for all of us.

We are beginning to see that they are being replicated with earthquakes, near Neuquén, above Cutralcó, a historic city where there were large settlements. There is a place called Sauzal Bonito, which is very close to the fort. More than four years ago they started experiencing earthquakes. The earthquakes became more and more frequent and the population is terrified.

-The local and national governments do not intervene in this situation?

-The acquiescence to what is happening is tremendous because not only do they install the seismographs, but they want to play down the situation and ignore it, and the problem is that the houses are adobe and the earthquakes are becoming more frequent. This is the epic dilemma that we see permanently in these models that propose development but in reality leave an environmental disaster, debts along with plundered and discarded towns.

Did they really not know that fracking was going to produce this, when there was already all the evidence and complaints, there are even countries that have already extirpated fracking and there are populations that have forbidden it to enter. However, here they came in with the last government of the current vice-president, and with Macri they accelerated and imposed the logic with an iron fist.

The appearance of fracking leaves these cemeteries and environmental walks. There are lawyers who speak of environmental holocausts, which do not begin to be seen if it is not by dripping, and it really gives panic afterwards. The fact that Neuquén, which is crossed by the Neuquen River and the Limay River, has a water emergency is extremely serious.

Imagine what could happen if it starts to go down, because the water emergency is not only that consumption drops, but also that you cannot generate electric power for the rest of the country like the El Chocón dam, but also that there are problems to drink water, to bathe and to lead a normal life. In  addition to all that the pandemic is leaving us, this just adds more problems regarding the economic situation.

-What should we do to call attention to all this that is happening, because we are always spreading social agroecology issues and denouncing situations similar to the ones you are talking about, but they don’t seem to be of interest. It is as if there is a sleepy community that does not want to know what is happening.

-There are working groups that have accompanied the communities, which have been working for a long time, without stop or exhaustion, pushing these causes and making them known. Here the Multisectorial against Fracking was created, which at times is a bit silent because it does not seem to give much entity but it has put the discussion out there, within what is the local political folder.

Also, we have been working together with OPSur (Observatorio Petrolero Sur) for a long time, they were the initial cry denouncing what fracking was going to cause in Argentina in 2010, denouncing that these imperial initiatives were going to lead to this, apart from a whole geopolitical movement that is very shocking.

On the other hand, there is passivity because this is not happening to the “white man”, it is not happening to the urban middle class population that is much more mediatized and committed to everyday things and not with a long-term view. As this is happening to native peoples who are with their goats and lambs, 300 kilometers away from urban areas, it does not matter and is ignored.

For ten years we have been denouncing that the water tables are being polluted, now when there is a lack of water and the water that is there is polluted, maybe then something will start to be mobilized.

At present, the water emergency is already here, it is going to be a very complicated summer and this will be transferred to most of the basins that are contaminated or close to fracking.

Even though the local corporate press owned by landowner groups is all pro-fracking and their views and energy supplements are pro-fracking, they can no longer deny that fracking pollutes, causes earthquakes and brings drought.

Aguada San Roque is on the way to Vaca Muerta, look at the level of plundering that has pushed the populations around the basins to be living in precarious living conditions.

This Caliphate scenario is also seen in these provinces where the looting is monumental. The business of the political caste around fracking is very big, there is no one of that caste at the local level, that conducts political merchandising, who is not linked to a service company regarding fracking.

They come up with euphemisms to continue draining money with a more “eco-friendly” look. Without forgetting that YPF is part of that.

It is not like that, half of this company is private and the other half the populations affected by fracking, either here in the town of Allen, which is in Río Negro, or in Sauzal Bonito, but  they behave like Chevron, they ignore them and lie to them.

We have made many documentaries on the consequences of living near fracking, but not because one is going to live near it, but because they install it there. Allen is the national capital of the pear but the pear has already disappeared, because it is completely polluted. It is 30 kilometers from Neuquén and their water is bottled, there is nobody in Allen who wants to drink tap water.

The people who live there have to live with the noise, the pollution and the diseases and it is beginning to seriously affect the population. Where fracking reaches, diseases the trafficking route follows.

-In the face of this constant emergency, what would be the view that could help to modify the situation?

-The practical view of the situation indicates that until it stops affecting the poorest populations, as is the case of those who live close to the farms and the sectors of the native peoples, it does not really have much impact.

Until this becomes a problem for the white man, who may have been moved because he does not have water to fill his swimming pool, maybe then it will start to sink in.

I do not want to be pessimistic but many of these causes end up being paralyzed because there is a refusal of the notion that it is something foreign, because “if it happens to the Mapuches it will not happen to me”.

I believe that the denunciation and the commitment are there, that has not slackened because the years go by and the groups continue to be attentive and there are more and more people, organizations, environmental lawyers, groups linked to the defense of the land and communal property that also denounce this situation.

Fracking brings this imperial initiative that brings disasters and is evaluated in terms of profits, if we check the last five covers of the local newspapers, between July and August, the productions are record highs. Neuquén is earning more money than before the pandemic, the money is there but they come with the consequences.

Here there is a complicity of the Neuquén political caste and of the national political caste, which are aiming not only at Neuquén but at the whole country to positively assume extractivism and to condemn us slowly.

The native populations are the ones who have the clearest understanding of this issue, not only because they are the most affected, but also because they have a totally different relationship with nature than those who live in the big cities.

The battles are there, and to win them we have to fight them, just as Neuquén has managed to stop mega-mining projects in a town called Loncopué. We have a very large accumulation of struggles and victories. It is also true that these are very complex battles and some we win and some we don’t.

It is true that there are a lot of interests and capital behind this and that money is translated into advertising for the media, in comfort for journalists who prefer to work in human resources of YPF or in the communication area and ignore the claims when they know that the claims are fair and concrete.

It is very good to investigate and expose the service companies that are linked to the fracking industry and the political caste. The oil union in Neuquén is a union plagued by mafias and practically governed by a family.

I will end with a detail that is quite explanatory of what is happening; when fracking started, YPF and several oil companies contacted the National University of Comahue and wanted to get technicians directly from there, with all this “Eldoradist” look that fracking brings.

Then something happened that seemed very sinister to me: YPF published “El juego de la Oca” or “El estanciero”, to distribute in primary schools to demonstrate the goodness of fracking. This was not done by Chevron or Shell but by an Argentine company, that the level of violence, cynicism, deceit and contempt  appear including treating us like idiots, even brain washing the most innocent ones such as children, to sell us these fracking games.

Source: Telesur, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English