Oil is not mined in pure form from the ground. A mixture of salty water, gases and various forms of oil extracted with the derricks is separated in a complex filtering process in the refineries.
Besides the usable products like diesel oil, light oil and heavy oil a number of joint products emerges. These include natural gas, large amounts of toxic salty water and bitumen, remnants of oil refining.
Texaco brought between 1964 and 1992 large amounts of these by-products to the environment in order to reduce the expenses of an environmentally friendly disposal. All in all, the American business extracted 1,434,000 billion barrels oil in this period.
 
According to the data of the Ecuadorian organizations FDA, ONISE, OISE, FEINCE and ONHAE the following amounts of pollutants were released to the environment at the same time:

• 16.8 million gallons (63.6 million litres) of oil.




• 20 trillion gallons (75.6 billion litres) of toxic salty water produced while refining the oil




• Texaco set up a total of 600 pools for toxic waste in the region, 339 out of which can be still found in Oriente, 10 years after Texaco retreated from the oil extraction in Ecuador.




• The furnaces burnt 235,000 billion cubic metres of gas.


 

The decades of pollution have affected six indigenous communities and about 30,000 colonists alone in the former extraction area of Texaco. The organizations Acción Ecologica and Fundación Hesperian came to the following conclusions after the execution of environmental analyses.

• The cancer rate of the regional population is 31 per cent, with a national average of 12,3 per cent. The most frequent cancer types include leukemia, liver, stomach and intestinal cancer as well as uterus cancer.




• 82.4 per cent of the population have become ill at least once because of the consequences of polluted soil and contaminated water. Skin diseases (83.1 per cent) and diseases of the airways (65.4 per cent) are ahead of stomach and intestinal problems (55 per cent) and eye diseases (41 per cent).




• 75 per cent of the population living on farming lost their domestic or breeding animals because of contamination. Due to polluted water, an average farmer suffers the lost of eight cows, five pigs, 43 hens and two horses.




• Of the plants that are bred coffee is most affected, followed by pasture and rice.


 

The pollution starts in the rivers. Besides the most strongly contaminated rivers Napo, Aduarico and Eno pollution of various degrees has been discovered in another 47 streams.
The contaminated rivers are a serious problem for the population as, due to the shortage of other sources, this water is used for drinking, cooking and washing.
81 per cent of interviewed people see the environmental pollution as a permanent problem. An overwhelming majority of 74.7 per cent sees the reason for contamination in the out-dated extraction and refinery technologies.

to the report "In the Footsteps of Oil Companies"

to the pictures from the region of Lago Agrio