the state –the villagers said– it arrived four days after the fire started, following the blockades to the Mexico-Querétaro highway. “I called Pemex, they told me that they had already received several reports and that it was not their responsibility,” says Huitrón, a man who wears boots and a hat and who, like most of those who live in Mexicaltongo, works in agriculture. and livestock.
The spring is part of a set of rivers and water sources that supply the region. The fire broke out in this one, but the inhabitants and municipal representatives already warn of the presence of hydrocarbons in at least three more points, some of them used for human consumption. The Mexicaltongo spring, residents say, was also used as a natural pool on hot days. Now, the two large trees that gave shade to those who went there are black and completely burned. Access to the area is restricted.
(Diego Alvarez Esquivel/Diego Alvarez)
Since last January 12, the state-owned Pemex has extracted 3,000 liters of hydrocarbons per day from the spring that supplied the region for its irrigation work, according to the data that the company has shared with the communities.
The local authorities and Pemex itself do not know how long they will have to continue with the activity and if one day the spring will return to normal. Just last Thursday they began a characterization study to determine the origin of the spill. In a meeting in Mexicaltongo, held that same day, none of those involved – neither Pemex, nor the municipality, nor authorities such as Civil Protection – wanted to commit to setting a date to determine the causes of what happened.
They also did not give a firm answer to the inhabitants who continually asked if they could give that water to the animals they raise or if they could bathe with the liquid that, they say, smells like gasoline. Some of them realized that the spring was contaminated when their cows and horses did not want to drink it anymore.
The state company has led the actions to contain the incident, despite the fact that it affirms that the hydrocarbons contained therein do not originate from any of its facilities. Pemex has delivered a document to the community, to which Expansion had access, in which it says that it is “unlikely” to be the cause of the event. Until today, Pemex would have already extracted from the body of water the equivalent of one of the pipes he uses to transport gasoline.
(Diego Alvarez)
Rodolfo Noguez, the municipal president of Jilotepec – one of the two affected municipalities – says that the company has not yet been exonerated, but that no one else had the financial and technical capacity to take charge of the event. “They are not found guilty, nor are they innocent,” he says in an interview. “What we know is that we are facing a true crime.”
Pemex’s communication office was consulted, but did not comment on its possible responsibility for the contamination of the spring.
“There were warnings from before”
Hilda Alcantara and her husband Juan woke up on December 31 with a bang, looked at the window and some 500 meters from where they live there was fire emanating over the water. They say that the people from the surroundings ran, crowded together and began to ask questions. Many of them were answered among themselves: the residents of Mexicaltongo and the surrounding communities had been perceiving a smell of fuel for weeks between the streets and in their homes. Then they began to see a heavy transparent layer over the spring. When the fire arrived it was easy to draw conclusions. “Bubble came out and the water already ran with grease, with a kind of cream”, says Hilda.
The warnings were already there long before: the count of the residents says that, until today, there have been 83 days since the first indications of an oil spill in the wetlands. First, they say, the smell began, which later intensified, then they observed a watery liquid in the water, the fish from a nearby aquaculture farm died, and some of them got sore throats, headaches, and stomach aches.
(Diego Alvarez Esquivel/Diego Alvarez)
The count of the municipality accounts for less time: in a series of complaints presented by the municipal president of Jilotepec it is read that the first notices were given on November 13. Pemex personnel went to the site 10 days later, took tests of the contaminated water and left.
Who was responsible for the fire?
Among more than a dozen residents, and even among the representatives of the municipality, the same version is repeated: the oil company told them that it was not hydrocarbons, but waste from neighboring houses or drainage, and they asked them not to be alarmed. But the smell told the residents something else: on December 30, the day before the fire, it was more intense than the rest of the days.
A similar version was repeated at the presidential conference on January 6: “In Jilotepec what happened was not a hydrocarbon leak. Pemex is, however, the one who is addressing the matter (…), it is a spill of toxic waste from a private company and it is highly polluting and that is what caused the fire,” said the Undersecretary of the Interior, Adán, that morning. Augusto Lopez.
(Diego Alvarez Esquivel/Diego Alvarez)
But in Jilotepec, say those who live there, there are no big companies and the smell of fuel was unmistakable. Days later, Pemex confirmed that what was found in the spring is diesel. “There is nothing close here, there is no nearby company that we could say is contaminating directly at this point,” says Noguez at the Jilotepec Municipal Palace.
Pemex says in a document, and also explained to the residents, that what it found in the spring was “diesel and motor oil.” He also said in a letter delivered to the municipal president that the polyduct, which runs from Tula to Palmillas, and which, according to the company, is the one close to the disaster site works fully, that it did not receive reports of pressure leaks and that what it transports through it is gasoline, and not diesel. Pemex shows a 2014 study to certify the proper functioning of its infrastructure.
“This pipeline is located approximately 2.1 kilometers from the point where the presence of possible fuel was detected, therefore, considering the characteristics of the product transported inside, the topography and ground conditions, it is unlikely that it is the cause of the event”, says the official letter.
But only the infrastructure of the oil company runs on the place, some of it to carry fuel from Tula to the Salamanca refinery. Another polyduct runs through the region, but this one transports gas and belongs to the private initiative.
(Diego Alvarez Esquivel/Diego Alvarez)
That morning when Mexicaltongo was discussed in the National Palace, the fire in the spring was still not put out. And it was also not until January 6, a week later, that a command center was installed on the outskirts of the spring and site recovery activities formally began, according to a Pemex inventory placed on the site.
In this command center, housed in a white canvas layer, there are a couple of high-format photographs that show the fire. Those who are there say that it will continue to operate until the situation is controlled and the damage is remedied, but no one has a date. “We are facing something that could take us years,” says one of the officials who goes in and out of the makeshift compound.
