In the rugged hills of Vaca Muerta, Argentina, the locals says that the drinking water makes them vomit and cripples them with painful headaches. The Mapuche, an indigenous group who live in the area, blame pollution from fracking operations, which inject chemicals, along with sand and water, into the ground to release natural gas, reports BBC.
Susana Campo, a Mapuche goat farmer, says that her animals were born without hair this year and then died a week later, something she says has never happened before. Albino Campo, the leader of the local Mapuche community called Lof Campo Maripe, told BBC that water on his property used to run clear.
“A year ago, this water was crystal clear. This is how it comes out now,” says Albino Campo, pointing to dirty slush in the bottom of a bucket. Most of the community is too poor to truck better water in.
“The US Energy Information Administration estimates that Argentina has the world’s largest recoverable reserves of shale gas after China,” says BBC. U.S. oil company Chevron has partnered with Argentina’s state-owned firm YPF to invest $16 billion in fracking in the Vaca Muerta area. So far, the partnership has drilled 420 wells, with another 200 planned.
In total, 1,000 Mapuche live in the area, but neither Argentinian officials nor oil companies seem troubled by their their concerns. A representative from YPF denied that any wells had been drilled near farms. He pointed out that the wells are dug at 3,000 meters, while village wells pull water from 300 meters, suggesting that any health complaints can’t be connected.
“Argentina needs oil and gas. You cannot stop production for 45 million people because one or two thousand people feel that their rights are affected,” Pro-government Congressman Eduardo Amadeo said.
In 2012, FERN contributing editor Elizabeth Royte looked at how fracking was impacting livestock farmers in the United States in a story published with The Nation magazine.