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Unprecedented oil spill catches researchers in Peru off guard
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00333-xA viscous, black wave rolled onto the beach of the seaside town of Ancón, Peru, just as Deyvis Huamán and his team arrived to assess the situation. Two days earlier, on 15 January, thousands of barrels of crude oil spilled from a refinery to the south of there. Heavy swells had slammed the coastline after the violent eruption of a volcano near Tonga, more than 10,300 kilometres away.
“We were astonished,” says Huamán, a conservation biologist with Peru’s National Service of Natural Areas Protected by the State (SERNANP) in Lima. The oil coated everything — rocks, seaweed, crabs — setting a scene unlike anything Huamán had experienced before. Although Peru is no stranger to oil spills, which have mostly occurred off its northern coast and in its Amazon jungle, this is the most damaging to pollute its marine waters, and the largest to take place near its heavily populated capital, Lima.
Scientists have joined authorities in assessing the extent of the damage and are helping to clean up the mess. According to reports, the oil slick has spread to more than 20 beaches, washing over 41 kilometres of coastline (see ‘Spill spread’). Some researchers, who were already monitoring wildlife along the coast, are dismayed by the destruction they’re seeing. Some are looking for opportunities to document and learn from the unprecedented spill, which they hope might one day spur the country to end its reliance on oil.
“Tragedies are never good,” says Héctor Aponte, a wetland researcher at the Scientific University of the South in Lima. “But sometimes they bring about change.”
...........
“We were astonished,” says Huamán, a conservation biologist with Peru’s National Service of Natural Areas Protected by the State (SERNANP) in Lima. The oil coated everything — rocks, seaweed, crabs — setting a scene unlike anything Huamán had experienced before. Although Peru is no stranger to oil spills, which have mostly occurred off its northern coast and in its Amazon jungle, this is the most damaging to pollute its marine waters, and the largest to take place near its heavily populated capital, Lima.
Scientists have joined authorities in assessing the extent of the damage and are helping to clean up the mess. According to reports, the oil slick has spread to more than 20 beaches, washing over 41 kilometres of coastline (see ‘Spill spread’). Some researchers, who were already monitoring wildlife along the coast, are dismayed by the destruction they’re seeing. Some are looking for opportunities to document and learn from the unprecedented spill, which they hope might one day spur the country to end its reliance on oil.
“Tragedies are never good,” says Héctor Aponte, a wetland researcher at the Scientific University of the South in Lima. “But sometimes they bring about change.”
...........
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