Environmentalists accuse Mexico of lying about the origins of the Gulf oil spill
MEXICO CITY – Environmentalists accused Mexico’s government of lying about the cause of a large oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which officials quickly disputed.
The spill off the coast of southern Veracruz state has expanded over 373 miles and into seven natural areas. It has delivered a blow to the region’s nature, with turtles and other marine creatures discovered on oil-covered seashores, as well as fisherman who have been unable to operate in the oceans they have fished for decades.
The Mexican authorities announced that 800 tons of hydrocarbon-laden garbage had poured into the ocean. The spill began in March, according to the government, and was caused by a ship anchored off the coast of Veracruz, as well as two spots where oil naturally seeps.
On Monday, a group of 17 organizations, including Greenpeace Mexico, the Mexican Alliance Against Fracking, and the Mexican Center for Environmental Rights, or CEMDA, refuted that claim, claiming that satellite images they captured showed that the source of the spill was a pipeline from Mexico’s state-run oil company, Pemex, and that a large oil slick appeared in early February.
“The absence of information is inflicting enormous economic and environmental damage. “So far, no one has been held accountable,” CEMDA spokesperson Margarita Campuzano said on Tuesday.
The activists’ photographs from February match those acquired by The Associated Press on Tuesday from Copernicus, the European climate agency. The photographs show a boat floating over a sea clouded with what the groups describe as oil, which looks to be spilling from a platform.
According to the groups, the boat in the photographs is Árbol Grande, which specializes in pipeline repair. This suggests that the government knew about the spill before reporting it and “hid it.”
Pemex deemed the information and photographs circulated by the groups “inaccurate” and stated that the Árbol Grande boat is permanently traversing the Gulf of Mexico, carrying out preventive inspections of platforms and specialized spill response operations.
Campuzano advocated for increased transparency and vigorous probes by authorities.
During her morning press briefing on Tuesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum refuted the accusations, saying that “no leak has been reported” in state oil infrastructure up to this point and that such natural seeps in the Gulf have occurred before.
She stated that the government was working with scientists to determine if the spill was “due to these natural seeps in the area, which have been reported on many occasions and are well-documented in scientific literature, or a leak from one of the facilities.”
Sheinbaum stated that the spill was most likely caused by natural seeps and that crews were working hard to clean up and mitigate the effects.
While government officials acknowledged the effects on turtles, birds, and fish, as well as the spread to protected environments, they maintained that there had been no “severe environmental damage.”
The accusations come as environmental groups in the United States have expressed concern after the Trump administration exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act, claiming that environmentalist lawsuits threatened to disrupt domestic energy supplies during the US-Israeli war with Iran.
Critics claimed the measure would hurt marine life and endanger a unique whale species.