Oil spill tars Peruvian seaside towns, leaves fishermen jobless

Thousands of barrels of crude oil that were spilled off Peru’s central coast have taken a grim toll: dead birds adrift in the sea and irate fishermen stuck on the docks.

Some 6,000 barrels poured into the sea as an oil tanker unloaded a week ago at the La Pampilla refinery located some 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Lima. 

According to Spanish oil company Repsol, which owns the refinery, the accident occurred due to freak waves caused by the volcanic eruption in Tonga.

For fisherman Bernardo Espinoza, the disaster couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“Right in the middle of high season they have gone and basically cut off our arms,” Espinoza told AFP uneasily, noting that he and his colleagues were unable to work in the middle of the southern hemisphere’s summer, when they traditionally sell the most fish.

“We can’t work... we already are using up the last of our savings,” added Espinoza, a fisherman for 50 years in Ancon Bay, 45 kilometers north of Lima. 

The government declared an “environmental emergency” for 90 days on Saturday in the “damaged coastal marine area” affected by the spill, which is drifting north. 

Currents spread the oil along the coast more than 40 kilometers from the refinery, tarring 21 beaches, according to the Ministry of Health, which recommended people avoid the areas because they are classified as “unhealthy.”

White-suited emergency workers have taken the usual place of weekend beachgoers in Ancon and other nearby coastal towns.

AFP observed enormous oil stains on the ocean surface and dead birds floating in the water on a tour of Ancon Bay aboard the “Rey de Petita” boat, which before the spill took tourists for rides. 

“They have attacked the wildlife and our lives, and our jobs -- what the fisherman is,” said a distraught Rodney Vasquez, 30, the captain of the small boat, who has lived his entire life near the sea and is the son of a fisherman 

At his side, fisherman Alfredo Roque indicated that the difficulties for fishing in the area would last a long time. 

Baby fish “are already dead; the young, most of them eat on the seashore, and the seashore is full of oil,” he told AFP. 

In addition to those in the fishing industry, people who work in jobs linked to the beaches were also left without income: from restaurant owners and employees, to people who rent out beach umbrellas and those who sell food and soft drinks along the shore.