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Comment from sender: This article is from The Star Online URL: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2003/11/4/features/6243001 & sec=f\ eatures ________________________ Tuesday November 4, 2003 Plant problems By DREW BENSON FOR tour guide Oscar Flores, it simply makes no sense to put an offshore liquid gas and fuel export terminal 8km north of the Paracas maritime reserve, a key rest spot for migrating birds in the Western Hemisphere. “There is the possibility of a spill, which would be devastating,” he said, standing on the floating fishermen & #8217;s dock used by motor boats to ferry tourists to the nearby Ballestas Islands. “If there are no sea lions, no birds, there is no tourism.” The planned terminal and its onshore plant, which is already under construction three hours south of Lima by car, are part of impoverished Peru & #8217;s most ambitious energy project ever: the Camisea natural gas project. They have also become the project & #8217;s latest headache. Environmental concerns about how the Camisea project has been run so far came to a head in late August when the United States Export-Import Bank rejected a US$213.6mil (RM811.6mil) loan for the US$1.5bil (RM5.7bil) operation. The Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank has twice delayed a vote on a US$75mil (RM285mil) loan. As bank officials review the project, dozens of international and local environmental and indigenous rights groups are pushing for the lenders to attach conditions to the loan that would force the companies involved to clean up their act. The activists & #8217; concerns are as varied as the project is complex. The gas and other liquid fuels are deep in the Peruvian Amazon & #8211; the home to vulnerable, isolated indigenous tribes & #8211; and must be piped through an untouched stretch of one of the world & #8217;s most biologically diverse rainforests before crossing the Andes Mountains to reach the desert Pacific Coast. Among concerns, activists say that isolated indigenous communities in the drilling areas could be decimated by disease. Although illegal loggers are currently the number one carriers of common colds and respiratory illnesses that can kill Indians lacking immunities, activists say expanded drilling will compound the problem. Activists also warn that the cleared path of the pipeline, if left unguarded and not quickly replanted with vegetation, will open virgin jungle to illegal loggers and Andean migrants eager to exploit the previously inaccessible rainforest. Not just activists have raised red flags. In November, the government & #8217;s energy regulatory agency, Osinerg, fined the pipeline construction consortium US$1mil (RM3.8mil) for, among other violations, crossing into a protected reserve without authorisation and creating an erosion hazard by leaving cleared debris exposed to heavy rains. The agency also warned that if the companies did not quickly apply erosion control measures, there would be “significant impacts to the streams and rivers that support the communities in the project area.” The consortium appealed the fine. During the December-April rainy season, cleared soil and vegetation flushed into streams and rivers, killing fish and ruining the local freshwater supply, according to community leaders. “Before, they threw the net once and could get nine fish,” said Roger Rivas, the president of a confederation of 29 Machiguenga communities in the Urubamba River valley. “Now they throw the net 10 times and get maybe one fish,” he said. The government and companies operating the project say they are complying with environmental standards. The consortium has hired a Peruvian environmental group to monitor its work. But the monitors must rely on the companies to transport them to remote inspection sites, and activists allege that work crews, alerted to upcoming visits, tidy up in advance. “In the absence of an independent monitoring system in this region, there is no way you can get beyond the official words of the companies,” said Cathy Ross, an Amazon project coordinator in the Lima office of Oxfam America, a private development group that works with poverty and social problems worldwide. Peru hopes the Camisea project will provide Lima with a cleaner, cheaper fuel and generate much needed export income for decades to come. The government has pledged that gas will be ready for use in Lima by next August and predicts that the project & #8211; which it says is 70% complete & #8211; can go forward with or without international loans. The Camisea gas fields, located some 448km east of Lima in the Urubamba River valley, were first explored by petroleum giant Shell two decades ago. But Shell walked away from the project in 1998, leaving the government to put the project back on the auction block. In December 2000, Peru signed a deal with a hodgepodge of smaller operators, including Argentine companies Pluspetrol and Techint, Texas-based Hunt Oil, Korea & #8217;s SK Corp., and Algeria & #8217;s state-controlled Sonatrach. Activists say that the smaller companies lack the experience and resources to handle the environmental and social challenges inherent to operating in the Amazon jungle. And activists say that once out of the rainforest, the operators created an avoidable problem by choosing & #8211; from a list of 14 prospective sites & #8211; to build in the buffer zone of the Paracas reserve. “They could carry out the project and at the same time protect the reserve,” said biologist Patricia Majluf, who heads local maritime environmental group Spondylus. Majluf and other environmentalists want the plant and terminal to be built in a less vulnerable area. Majluf alleged that the company in charge of the Paracas site, Pluspetrol, picked it because it was the cheapest option. She also questions why the company bought the land for the onshore plant months before the government approved the site & #8217;s environmental impact study. Pluspetrol spokesman Daniel Guerra, however, said that the other sites did not meet technical requirements. Outside of the Paracas town hall, Mayor Alberto Tataje tapped on a thick manila folder full of government decrees and paperwork related to the Camisea project. “The company is complying with all of the legal requirements,” he said, adding that the project will help the small town build a proper dock for tourists. But Julio Reyes, a project director with Peruvian conservation group Acorema, is not convinced. He notes that Peru & #8217;s sole maritime reserve is home to protected sea lions, marine turtles, dolphins, and 216 species of migratory and local birds, including threatened Humboldt penguins. During peak spring and fall migration months, an estimated 85,000 to 100,000 birds pass through the reserve each day on their way to or from North America, he said. “We have been working in conservation for years, and now this huge plant arrives,” Reyes said at the group & #8217;s environmental education centre in Pisco, 16km north of the reserve. “If there is an accident, what will we do then?” & #8211; AP<p> ________________________ Your one-stop information portal: The Star Online http://thestar.com.my http://biz.thestar.com.my http://classifieds.thestar.com.my http://cards.thestar.com.my http://search.thestar.com.my http://star-motoring.com http://star-space.com http://star-jobs.com http://star-ecentral.com http://star-techcentral.com 1995-2003 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Star Publications is prohibited. 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