At least 2,000 artisanal fisherman in Peru have been out of work for more than a month after an oil tanker sent thousands of barrels of crude gushing into the sea
Fishing boats off Ancón are idle after an oil spill along the Peruvian coast north of Lima. s peak fishing season along Peru’s coastline, and on a day like this one, Robert Roberto Merino Leon would have set out before dawn to the waters that sustained his family for the last two decades.With a basket strapped to his back and the sun bearing down, the 48-year-old father of two would have trekked carefully along the edge of the 600-foot oceanside cliff here.
fishing along the affected shore has been prohibited indefinitely. Seafood restaurants are empty. Local tourism is at a standstill. And fishermen such as Merino have had to consider the possibility of finding new work — or moving elsewhere.The oil flowed into the sea while a tanker was unloading at the La Pampilla refinery, not far from here in Ventanilla.
“The causes of the accident were out of our control,” Jaime Fernández-Cuesta, executive director of Repsol Peru, told The Washington Post. “Once the signs of contamination appeared, we got to work immediately.”Fernández-Cuesta said the company is “committed to helping all of those affected … and to returning all of the coasts, the beaches and the ocean to its natural state.
In the meantime, the oil spill has upended an ancestral fishing industry — and the lives of all those who depend on it.
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