Klaus Stieglitz - Oil, power and a sign of hope

The analysis of the samples taken from potable water pumps in Rier on November 14, 2008 shows their having a total salt content of 6420 and 6170 milligrams per liter of water (mg/l). The USA’s Environmental Protection Agency has set a ceiling of 500 mg/l. These samples thus exceed this limit 12fold. A salt content this high drains the body of its water. The resultant dehydration can be deadly. Required to survive it is the immediately supplying of clean water to the body. The samples of water taken in Rier also evince strontium; with one sample also containing lead and traces of cadmium.

But where is this clean water supposed to come from? Many of the residents of Rier, which has a total population of 5,000, fetch water—a moldy stinky swill—from the swamps. They say that it’s better than the salty water produced from the wells. “This water tastes salty and causes throat aches,” says a local resident in Rier. “You get skin rashes and diarrhea,” reports this mother of three children.

A tanker truck containing water comes around occasionally—often less than once a week. This is paid for by the oil companies. The truck holds up to 20,000 liters of water. Twenty thousand liters for 5,000 people translates into 4 liters per person per week—at temperatures of 40 degrees in the shade. The arrival of the tanker truck often causes fights to break out among the people. A woman points to her chin and relates: “This is where I got hit. I wanted to get some water from the tanker truck. People really fight for the water.” Everybody wants to get some of the precious liquid for her or his family. And everybody is ready to wrestle, hit and kick for it. This horrible sight is the result of machinations of the oil industry.

The two wells in Rier are not the only ones causing problems. All of the 12 wells from which we took samples showed contamination. Of them, five are so seriously contaminated that they should be closed down or remediated. These five are the two wells in Rier, the one near Mar, and the ones in Bouw and Duar.

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