In the north of Veracruz, fishermen are deserting their jobs. Capture nets have changed to become taxi drivers, truck drivers and bricklayers. The reason is the low fish production in the region due to the reduction of fish in the waters of the Pánuco River. This is attributed to spills by Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and other industries, mainly sugar mills, that are in the region.
Nobody wants to buy fish, say those who are still in this profession. Every season they search for sea bass, tilapia, carp and acama in the waters located on the border between Veracruz and Tamaulipas, in northeastern Mexico. When they reach land, they have to remove their entrails and clean them immediately because, otherwise, the fish decay quickly.
The problem is not new. Fishermen have notified Pemex and have filed complaints with the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) and other municipal and state bodies for more than 10 years. But the response has not been effective. The river, lagoon and estuary continue to be stained by hydrocarbons and other chemicals in this region one hour from the Francisco I. Madero refinery in Tamaulipas.
In addition to production losses, leaks and spills also affect clothing, nets and boats. Fishermen denounce that the lack of attention from the authorities, as well as the reduction of subsidies (to only 7,500 pesos a year by the Bienesca program) are diminishing their economy, their work and their daily lives.
In a picket
At the table are 14 fishermen gathered together. They come from towns such as Buenavista, Tampacas, Alto del Estero and Tanchicuín Boca, located in the municipality of Pánuco, north of Veracruz. Many have been fishing for more than 20 years. And this time they met to talk about the Pemex spills, as well as the sugar mills.
“Until a few years ago, the catch was 700 or 800 kilos. Right now it's 200 to 250 kilos,” Juan Gabriel González García, fisherman and legal advisor to Pescadores Unidos de Pánuco, explains during the meeting.
A colleague from the Tampacas Cooperative shares a similar figure: previously they extracted 500 to 600 kilos per season, but the catch has dropped to 200 kilos. In addition, tilapia and acamaya are increasingly scarce.
“We have been in a tailspin since 2018, there was pollution of the Pánuco River and it was a very hard blow,” says Juan Gabriel González.
The figures they share are estimates, but the decrease in catch matches the production records of the National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commission (Conapesca) of the Pánuco office.
While in 2016 and 2017 the average production was around 3 million kilos of unloaded weight, which is the product that arrives unheaded, filleted, in pulp or sliced, for 2018, only 1,453,672 kilos were obtained, in 2019 it dropped to 824,514 and from 2020 to 2022 the average kilos have remained at 1 and a half million.
Species such as acamaya, which fishermen indicate is becoming less common, went from 135,148 kilos landed in 2016 to 78,588 kilos in 2022.
“In 2018 we had a very strong spill of the river that we didn't know exactly where it came from, but we participated several fishermen with people from Pemex using special tanks and floating containers to trap all that cream in the water that was formed by oil,” says Tomás Cruz Flores, president of the Alto del Estero Cooperative.
Although there is no media record of this spill, according to information provided through transparency by Pemex to Causa Natura Media, that year there were 17 spills due to industrial causes in the area of Pánuco, Veracruz.
Meanwhile, one of the spills that was documented in 2018 by national media was the one that occurred in Nanchital, near Coatzacoalcos, in the south of the state, where 180 families near the Tepeyac and Santa Elena streams were evicted.
Both Pánuco and Nanchital are neighboring municipalities of cities with oil activity. In the case of Pánuco, just an hour away is the Francisco I. Madero refinery in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas. The proximity has meant that the municipality also has parastatal infrastructure.
“In the area around us, near the river, there are some Pemex valves that previously, we can talk about 20 years ago, were on land. Today, due to the currents, they have been left in the river. What Pemex has done is a continuation, but the valve is still there,” says Antonio Paz Hernández, fisherman and president of the Tanchicuín Boca Cooperative. Adding that bubbles in the water and the smell of gas are also visible.
In November 2021, the fishermen of the Buenavista Cooperative submitted a letter addressed to the head of Pemex's operational area in Altamira, Tamaulipas, to report that a leak in Laguna de La Cruz caused pollution and prevented them from fishing.
Pemex's response came in April of the following year with a working meeting that brought together the affected people. In this report, it was reported that the company had carried out a visit to verify the oil installations, but that the presence of gas had not been detected and that an excavation would be covered up.
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The Pemex figures
Fishermen weren't the only ones affected. In the Pánuco region, there have also been complaints from agricultural producers harmed in their sugar and soy plantations. Veracruz is one of the entities most affected by spills.
In a national overview, from 2018 to 2022, the Pemex Emergency Coordination and Support Center (CCAE) reported 234 spills and leaks on a moderate and serious scale, mainly to soil and water, according to information provided via transparency to Causa Natura Media.
If we also consider those classified as having the lowest impact, the total figure rises to 5,265 in this same period.
Of the 234 moderate and severe, 61 occurred in Veracruz, which is second only to Tabasco with 80. Both states, characterized by their high oil activity, account for 60% of the total number of spills that occurred. However, the figures recorded by the CCAE have changed.
In its 2021 Sustainability Report, the company recognizes 1,163 events related to leaks and spills that year. But it indicates that there were only 15 events of a moderate scale and 2 of a serious scale, which is contradicted by the 53 moderate and 4 serious events in the information provided via transfer.
Organizations such as México Evalúa have analyzed the management of Pemex to understand the environmental effects generated by the company. One of his lines of work has been to review ESG indicators, which are environmental, social and governance criteria that are taken into account internationally to invest in a company.
In 2021, the organization analyzed the Pemex Sustainability Report 2020. And following the ESG risk methodology, they found that Pemex increased 12.5% in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; 50% of CO2 emissions in the burning of gas released directly into the atmosphere; and 19% in sulfur dioxide emissions compared to 2019.
“Both Pemex and CFE fail in these criteria and there is a lot of information pending. What this tells us is that policies are not made from the corporate center with a view to reducing the effects on society and the environment,” explains Viviana Patiño Alcalá, researcher at the Regulatory and Competition Program of Mexico Evaluá.
“This impacts the number of accidents, the impact that they don't care about increasing emissions, it impacts the harm to those who live close to communities, among other consequences,” he adds.
Regarding the variations in the numbers of spills and leaks, Patiño points out that Pemex has an obligation to report its data in a complete, timely, accessible and reliable manner. Therefore, finding variations (depending on their size), such as unreported or incomplete information, represents flaws in the information quality criteria established by the Institute for Natural Resources Governance (NRGI).
Causa Natura Media contacted Pemex's social communication department to clarify the information provided through transparency, as well as actions related to sustainability, but after weeks of waiting and until the closing of this publication, there was no response.
Video of one of the spills documented by fishermen from the Pánuco River in Veracruz.
Sugar spills
In Pánuco, the hydrocarbons that dye water are not the only cause of pollution. The spills from the Pánuco Mill, dedicated to the processing of sugar cane, have also been reported by fishermen from the cooperatives.
In 2021, Tomás Cruz Flores, president of the Alto del Estero Cooperative, reported Ingenio to Profepa for a spill that occurred in March of that same year. According to the letter, it was the overflow of an oxidation dam for the collection of wastewater.
“The Panuck Mill is also causing us very strong pollution in the estuary, where the fish have died because they have oxidation pits to treat (the waters) but those same ones are used to irrigate the reeds,” says Tomás Cruz. However, after the complaint, there was no response from Profepa or the sugar company, according to the fisherman.
As a background, since 2008, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) indicated in its Report on the Situation of the Environment in Mexico, the main industrial discharges came from the sugar industries with 28%, oil with 19% and agriculture with 17%.
“We would like the government to listen to us and do the relevant studies. Especially so that the mills comply with quality and safety standards so that the water that goes to the estuary is properly treated and does not pollute. We know that ingenuity is the economic motive here in town because it gives work to a lot of people, but it cannot continue with pollution,” Tomás points out.
Causa Natura Media contacted Ingenio Pánuco and its owner, but until the closing of this publication there was no response in any way.
Video of drainage documented by fishermen from the Pánuco River in Veracruz prior to the complaint made to Profepa in 2021.
Monitoring, budgeting and a study
Faced with the contamination of the spills, both from Pemex and from the sugar industry, the question that fishermen still have is what will happen to fishing and the impacts they continue to face.
“After several years of this complex interaction, defining a single path that is causing all the damage to the environment, for example, oil, agriculture and industry, becomes complicated because there are many factors that are hitting the fish community,” explains Daniel Pech, head of the Marine Biodiversity and Climate Change Laboratory of the Colegio de la Frontera Sur (Ecosur) in the Campeche unit.
According to the researcher, although there may be components such as high levels of nitrogen or potassium to establish a relationship with the agricultural industry, or hydrocarbons and benzenes related to Pemex, defining a major cause and its levels of impact requires investing in studies within the region. However, even in the scientific community, the necessary budget or programs do not exist.
“From my perspective, every industry that pollutes should have monitoring programs to ensure that their impacts are lower on the environment, they must have treatment plants and they must follow the indications of Mexican regulations, but in this case the legislation only punishes until they pollute,” says Pech.
During the fishermen's meeting, when they asked what measures they consider necessary to repair the damage, they agreed that scientific studies are needed to measure the impacts of industries. There are also requests for a monitoring and surveillance program for areas where these spills occur.
In this regard, in its 2021 Pemex Sustainability Report, the parastatal company indicated that spill monitoring has been carried out, as well as the operational supervision of its own facilities to avoid the risk of spills.
Although the measures are being taken, those who live in these communities in the north of Veracruz and depend on the fishing catch of their waters say that they are not enough.
“It would be very beneficial to revive the subsidies we had, but on the other hand, what's the point of giving us a motor and a boat if we don't have anything to fish,” concludes Tomás Cruz.
*This article corresponds to the Energy Challenges series published by Causa Natura Media.
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