A traditional spa under siege

By air, sea, and land, big and small have punished Colán to die.

 

By Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo

 

COLÁN, Peru – Before Máncora left it down to a second place –that is also losing—, this one was the spa of Piura for instance. Now, it is condemned to go degrading, droned by corporate and communitarian interests that can sweep centuria of tradition, like the moment they wounded the cliff that keeps it.

 

La Esmeralda de Colán, better simply known as Colán, is exposed to its water pollution and the waves that threaten the building close to(not mentioning over)the rim. A natural phenomenon is the killer that condemns it to a slow death.

 

The confluence of Humboldt and El Niño Currents also carry on died animals that get stranded on the rims: porpoises, sea lions, and dolphins have been reported at the zone. Miguel Alarcón Ato, president of La Esmeralda’s Association of Residents and Owners, suspects that the combination of industrial sewerage from Paita City to the south, and possible hydrocarbon spills from the north generate the mortality.

 

Since mid-2011, he has documented and demanded the presence of law enforcement to verify damages to environment those, he said, will end affecting his home at the beach because he lives in Piura City.

 

Tide is high

Colán is named from the ethnicity who lived very close to actual La Esmeralda. It was people dedicated to fish that in the long-term became part of Talláns [Tajanés], that settled down in Piura Coast beginning this era.

 

Colán was also their language’s name. FACTORTIERRA’s contributing archeologist Daniel Dávila Manrique explains it extended toward we know today as Middle and Upper Chira, almost 52 miles to the east. It’s different to Sec, that was apparently spoken toward the south, between actual Sechura Province and Lambayequé Department.

 

After the Spanish conquest, in 1532, a reduction could be settled here, a town formed by aborigins who were forced to leave their lands to focus on very specialized works. Colán was framed in fishing. This was the basis of San Lucas de Colán Farmer Community, which main evidence is a Catholic temple that is beside the road to La Esmeralda, half-a-mile to the east.

 

Dávila suggests that the reduction could be settled to the south of (behind) the temple but today vanished by an alleged fire. “Once upon a time ago, I surveyed the zone and I saw some Pre-Hispanic monts and deposits of sea shells,” he tells.

 

Even the temple, possibly built circa 1570, is based upon one of them but the actual architecture could be made in 17^th century. At the north of the road is the town of San Lucas de Colán, a fishers cove with a peculiarity: it’s far to the beach.

 

In 1996, the astronomer Abraham Levy, who today manages a weather forecast private service, told at the University of Piura that the sea initially was close, but sucessive El Niño events were separating the rim. The best evidence is a strip of salty dunes between that town and La Esmeralda, where Archeologist Dávila found archaeological evidences.

 

But, there is another phenomenon that could have separated the sea. Over the cliff dominating San Lucas de Colán is the Tablazo de Paita, a coastal plateau with sets of bush –that is called despoblado (unpopulated) in Piura—that is elevating 0’8 to 1’2 inches per year due to tectonic actions. The cause is Nazca Plate, very active during 2014 although without the violence manifested in Peruvian Southern and along the Chilean strip.

 

However, the globalization could be playing a bad game to La Esmeralda. The second half of 2011 has been full of strong waves. National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology said they broke out because of an unusual activity of the South Pacific High that brought more wind and moved more water flow. This forced the Port Captaincies along the Peruvian shore to forbid the small fishers to sail.

 

Also, events like the earthquake in Japan on March 11^th, 2011, that reached a 9.0-magnitude in Richter Scale, and that swept its north-eastern shores, hahd effects in Piura one night later. Despite the officials minimized it, the coastal people in Paita Province distressed when they saw the sea retreated and returned strongly. In La Esmeralda, the water went 330 feet inside the beach not like a wave but a surge.

 

Many houses and luxury hotels practically built over the breaks were affected. Another quake was reported in Japan just half an hour that 2012 started (Lima time), and in the afternoon of that day, big waves assaulted the beach again not causing damages. And nobody warned it again.

 

The sewer

But what is shocking to this spa’s people is a problem that is decades old – big-scale fishing has allowed the Paita City to industrialize. The most processes fish flor which sewerage is directly pour outto the Pacific Ocean. Paita is located in the southern edge of the bay named the same.

 

In November 2011, Sullana-based Luciano Castillo Under-regional Health Bureau’s environmental Health Office took sea samples in front of Paita and it found readings variating from 850 to 95 polluting parts (thermotolerant coliforms) per every 100 ml of water. World Health Organization said 1000 parts per every 100 ml of water is already a worry motivation for the people.

 

The readings increase more next to the sewerage of the hydrobiological products processing plants that pour out their waste waterthroughout submarine hoses. Mr alarcón has pointed out as alleged polluters to Paita Navy Station, the hayduk and Austral fishing companies, and the own city which wreckage service is managed by EPS Grau. Paita City is to the southwest of La Esmeralda, still under the influence of Humboldt Current.

 

Identified cause, undetermined origin

The north is the hydrocarboned front. On the Continental Platform is Savia, mostly Colombian capitals, and at the coast, where Chira Rivers leads, Olympic was exploring petroleum deposits. The second one has climbed a struggle that degenerated into violence with san Lucas de Colán Farmer Community, the soil owner, due to a usufruct contract that, apparently, doesn’t benefit it.

 

A hearing in the town of San Lucas de Colán finished in a browl with National Police and the arrest of the delegate mayor because he opposed to the presence of Olympic which officials, according to eyewitnesses, video-recorded everything from a pick-up. A big part of misunderstandings between the company and the community are caused by the heavy traffic circulation on the paths that just hold pick-ups, or at least that is the communitarian version. The oil company has not reacted before the accusations.

 

Additionally, Miguel Alarcón detected some hydrocarbon stains on the ocean, some of them ended to impregnate into the mouth of some predator mammals like the sea lions – some died. Alarcón suspected of Savia but this one has denied the accusations, however he continues to find these stains on a portion of water going from the north of La Esmeralda to the Chira River mouth, that gives a 7-mile range.

 

In that extension, the Scientific Organization for the Conservation of Water Animals (ORCA, as in Spanish) has discovered diversity of died and stranded fishes, baby bottle-nose dolphins, and porpoises on the rim. “The impact monitoring on the rim revealed the presence of a blackish, greasy  substance compatible with hydrocarbons in many parts sectors of the beach,”it said to the media.

 

After the sighting, the mammals were submitted to autopsy with the presence of the Piura’s Environment Prosecutor Carmen Niño who, at the same time, ordered to take samples for a further analysis. Although ORCA did not find traces of hydrocarbon spill, it suspected those are the death cause of the stranded mammals. It also explained that its presence in their still developing organisms depresses their immunity because they can’t be metabolized.

 

But could they be the only cause? Let’s remember that part of the rests were found near Chira River Delta that, according to Mr Alarcón, carries its sediments toward the south where La Esmeralda is, because of El Niño Current. This river in Sullana, about 45 miles to the east of La Esmeralda registers until 266,000 polluting parts per every 100 ml of water.

 

According to Oxfam, this is the second most polluted river of the Peruvian Coast and the Regional Government of Piura declared it under environmental emergency in December 2011, but up to date, plans to mitigate the damage are unknown.

 

Something smells

If Chira Valley is the emporium of the organic banana for exportation, it’s also for the harvest o sugarcane purposed to obtain ethanol. The production was initially operated by Maple Ethanol, that had the almighty Grupo Romero as a Peruvian partner. Its local headquarters are located in La Huaca District, but its effects are perceived and smelled across Lower Chira that basically socks today operated by another corporation, Peruvian capitals.

 

The entrance to Colán also smells but to squid because to an Ecuadorian-capital  factory, Industrias Bioacuáticas Talara, that according to Miguel Alarcón, it represents a danger to the air and the safety of other nearby factories and the surrounding population. Beyond, the ethanol storage tanks formerly assigned to Maple are located.

 

To ease the fuel shipping, the cliff was broken to install a pipe that would go to a multi-buoy dock that despite the opposition of La Esmeralda, it was approved by the National Port Authority according to a news released by Andina official agency on January 24^th, 2012. This grands something more than 14.8 hectares of seafor the company to operate.

 

Mr Alarcón substantiated this building disminishes shore and marine zone for the locals amusement, the little fishing, and the development of biodiversity. Despite those objections were substantiated in Peru’s Congress, the advocacy to avoid the destruction of the landscape had no result.

 

All the operation authorizations were granted during the administration of former President Alan García Pérez who opened the doors widely to the investment, no matter the cost, so holding the national macro-economic growth. Even, former Piura’s Congresswoman Karla Schaefer Cuculiza said to FACTORTIERRA she was assuming the cases told on here so demanding the law to apply, in other words, to respect the codes about protection to the environment.

 

Peru’s Criminal Code includes the contamination as a crime and there is already open files before the Piura’s environmental Prosecution, but the plaintiffs were not summoned to any lawsuit to define the fate of Paita Bay, and every alleged polluter has a different file, that added to the slow down of the courts, will give us years of fights, veredicts, and appeals.

 

The paradoxical of the case is many residents of La Esmeralda are top officials, local and national businesspersons or entrepreneurs who seem not to have the necessary influence for setting it free from an economic-environmental degradation for sure. If that is not enough, the own San Lucas de Colán Delegate Municipality contributed with starting on an urban eexpansion programme just where an archaeological site is under investigation, to the south of its 450-year-old temple.

 

The institution was warned by a specialist but the fact was tried to bury. Inclusive, it became to schedule a motocross competition on the area. Meanwhile, the animals continued to die in the sea and appearing at the beach as evidences of irrationality of, they say, the most rational species.

 

We thank the collaboration of eusebio Bolo in Paita. © 2012 – 2016 Asociación Civil Factor Tierra. All Rights Reserved. The photographs on this entry are courtesy by Margarita Rosa Vega, Miguel Alarcón, and ORCA. Check out and comment more related pictures (references are in Spanish).