The National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) granted Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol the license to start the pilot research project (PPI) to be implemented in Puerto Wilches, Santander, despite the rejection of environmental activists from the eastern region of Colombia.
PPI Kalé aims to gather technical, environmental and social information, the results of which could be the scenario that allows the implementation of fracking as an oil exploration practice in the country.
This project will drill a 200-foot (60.96 meter) well that will have a trajectory of up to 4,000 feet, or 1,219 kilometers.
The oil company Ecopetrol presented to the National Environmental Licensing Agency (ANLA) the results of the environmental impact study of the non-conventional project called “Platero”, located in the municipality of Puerto Wilches, Santander.
For Gabriel Combariza, vice president of unconventional deposits at Ecopetrol, this study is part of the process for obtaining the corresponding environmental license:
The executive highlighted that this study has a Contingency and Risk Management Plan that identifies potential risks, mitigation measures and actions contemplated for contingency management, in order to protect the community, ecosystems, biodiversity, water resources, soil and air, among other aspects.
However, the plenary of civil society and the political bodies of the department of Santander are opposed to these pilots and have reported that they are victims of threats and attacks that threaten their lives and integrity.
Faced with this situation, the Colombia Fracking Free Alliance considered that such extractive activity, of a hydraulic type, should be censored, since it contradicts the 1991 Ecological Constitution, the Paris Agreement, the Rio de Janeiro Convention, the Ramsar Convention, among other instruments of international rights law humans.
The Office of the Attorney General of the Nation also recommends overthrowing the norms that allow extractive practice of the hydraulic type due to the lack of scientific evidence indicating that it does not affect the environment, water and public health.
One of the most leading in the discussion on this type of hydraulic extraction, the Colombia Free Fracking Alliance reported that it strongly opposed the development and process that was consolidated in less than 5 months, with numerous voices of rejection, serious questioning of the process and the increase in acts of violence in Magdalena Medium.
He also stressed that the death threats involved the exile of an activist from the region.
In Context | Public Hearing of a Pilot Fracking Project in Puerto Wilches Suspended Due to Protests - Infobae
“It is regrettable that a fundamental issue in energy was not discussed in the Congress of the Republic, where government allies delayed the discussion of bills to ban fracking for the third time in a row, and it is decided by the Duque Government, eagerly, without guarantees, and a few months after the possession of a new President,” said the Colombia Free Fracking Alliance in a public statement.
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