Environmental groups accused the Mexican government of lying about the origin of a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, an allegation authorities immediately denied.
The spill off the coast of the southern state of Veracruz has spread more than 600 kilometers (373 miles) and reached seven nature reserves. It has dealt a severe environmental blow to the region, with turtles and other marine life found washed ashore covered in oil, and has also impacted fishermen, who have been unable to work the waters where they have fished for decades.
The Mexican government reported that 800 tons of hydrocarbon-laden waste have been released into the ocean. Authorities stated that the spill began in March and that the sources were a ship anchored off the coast of Veracruz and two sites where oil flows naturally.
A group of 17 organizations, including Greenpeace Mexico, the Mexican Alliance Against Fracking, and the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA), contradicted that claim on Monday, asserting that satellite images they captured show the spill actually originated from a pipeline belonging to Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, and that a large oil slick appeared in early February.
“All this lack of information is causing enormous economic and environmental damage. There remains a complete lack of information regarding who is responsible,” said Margarita Campuzano, a spokesperson for CEMDA, on Tuesday.
Images from February released by the activists coincide with images obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press through Copernicus, the European climate agency. The photos show a vessel floating on a sea clouded with what the groups say is oil, which appears to be gushing from a platform.
The groups indicated that the vessel appearing in the images is the Árbol Grande, which specializes in pipeline repair, implying that the government knew about the spill before reporting it and that it was covered up.
Pemex called the information and images disseminated by the groups “inaccurate” and stated that the Árbol Grande vessel regularly patrols the Gulf of Mexico, “conducting preventative inspections of platforms and specialized spill response vessels.”
Campuzano called for greater transparency and for authorities to conduct more thorough investigations.
“They are trying to dilute responsibility when technology makes it very easy to identify… where this happened and who is responsible,” he said.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum denied the accusations on Tuesday during her morning press conference, stating that “so far, no leak has been reported” in the state-owned oil infrastructure and that such natural seepage in the Gulf has occurred in the past.
She indicated that the government is investigating with scientists whether the spill was due to natural seepage in the area, “which has been reported on many occasions and is documented in numerous scientific reports, or to a leak from one of the facilities.”
Sheinbaum said it was more likely that the spill came from natural seepage and added that teams were working intensively to clean up the spill and mitigate its effects.
Although government officials acknowledged the impacts on turtles, birds, and fish, as well as the spread to protected ecosystems, they also insisted that it had not caused any severe environmental damage.
The accusations come as environmental groups in the United States have also raised the alarm after the Trump administration exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act, claiming that environmentalists’ demands threatened to disrupt domestic energy supplies during the war between the United States and Israel with Iran.
Critics said the measure could harm marine life and also condemn a rare whale species to extinction.
Source: local10
