SERIOUS RISKS OF ACCIDENTS IN TABASCO DUE TO THE NEGLIGENCE OF PEMEX, ALERT GREENPEACE
3 April 1997
On the fourth stage of the OIL TRAIL members of the International Environmental Organization GREENPEACE, met today with habitants of the Platano y Cacao rural settlement, where two explosions have happened in the last ten years. GREENPEACE could document that PEMEX does not have the capacity to guarantee the security of the rural communities established near the petrochemical plants, oil and gaspipelines..
Accompanied by the Non Governamental Organizations Santo Tomas and the Tabasco Committee for Human Rights, the GREENPEACE group was presented by the inhabitantas of the settlement with multiple denounces about the unfulfilled agreement between them and PEMEX to relocate the families that live in the risk zone of Platano y Cacao and indemnify the injured people. They denounced also PEMEX for continuing with the same negligence in the maintenance and surveillance of the pipeline.
GREENPEACE activists put stickers with the message that read: "MADE BY PEMEX" over the rubbles of the houses destroyed by the explosion that happened on February 1995. "In spite the elapse time, neither the Attorney General , nor PEMEX, have fulfilled their obligation to look for the responsables of these catastrophes" declare firmly Alejandro Calvillo, Greenpeace Spokesperson.
An enormous network of pipelines, for the distribution of natural gas and oil, runs through the Mexican state of Tabasco. According to the Regional Branch of PEMEX, on the 2,000 km of right of way belonging to the company, there are 2,600 established settlements. The Platano y Cacao settlement is one of the critical zones, the region beneath the soil surface is criss-crossed by some 25 pipelines coming from the Cactus and Ciudad PEMEX industrial installations. The areas where these pipelines criss-cross are called locally "devil traps" because the instruments running inside the pipelines to record their conditions are called "diablos".
The main cause of explosions in these pipelines is the lack of maintenance and surveillance. The risks are increasing because the state and federal authorities have not been effective in moving the population to a new location. In the Ejido San Eligio community (communal farmland), which belongs to the Platano y Cacao settlement, there is a kindergarten just 8 meters away from one of those devil traps.
The GREENPEACE TRAIL TOUR began on March 31, and will finish on April 7 in Ciudad del Carmen in the state of Campeche.
