Ecuador's trans-Andean Heavy Crude Pipeline (OCP [7]) ruptured amid heavy rains Jan. 28, spilling oil into a sensitive area of Napo province and contaminating several rivers draining into the Amazon Basin, including the Napo, Piedra Fina, Quijos and, most seriously, the Coca. The contamination also penetrated Cayambe-Coca National Park [8]. Pipeline operator OCP Ecuador [9] didn't announce that it had stopped pumping through the stricken line until the following day, and at first denied that any waterways had been contaminated. This was repudiated in a statement from the Confederation of Amazonian Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONFENIAE [10]), which cited reports from impacted Kichwa communities.
"The impact of the oil spill has reached the Kichwa community of Panduyaku in the province of Sucumbíos," CONFENIAE tweeted [13] Jan. 29, along with a video showing crude polluting the Rio Coca.
In April 2020, both the OCP and the state-owned Trans-Ecuadoran Oilduct System (SOTE [7]) pipeline burst in the same area, in an accident blamed on erosion, triggering a major spill into the Rio Coca. (EcoWatch [11], DW [14], Mongabay [15])
There was also a major oil spill on the Rio Coca in June 2013 [16].
