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LIMA - Production of the
coca paste used to create cocaine has been identified
as a leading factor in the pollution of the rivers
in Peru's tropical areas, resulting from the chemical
inputs for softening the raw coca leaves.
''Coca cultivation causes
the deforestation of the jungle and the impoverishment
and erosion of its soil,'' and the chemical waste
from coca paste production ''is poisoning the rivers,''
says Víctor Ruiz Caro, former vice-president of the
Peruvian parliament's Environment Commission.
The peasant farmers macerate
the coca leaves to create the basic paste for cocaine
production, and dump the chemicals used in the process
into nearby waterways. The result is the extended
poisoning of the Amazon jungle's rivers.
In the Huallaga Valley,
Peru's leading cocaine production zone, 28 of the
180 rivers had reached the critical state by last
year, warned Alex González, of the non-governmental
organization 'Alternativa Verde' (Green Alternative).
''In all the area's rivers
there was a great deal of contamination and in those
where the damage was most serious, valuable species
of flora and fauna had disappeared, and even the surviving
species showed signs of genetic deterioration,'' González
affirmed.
''The waters that used
to be a crystal-clear source of life acquired a reddish,
dead hue. And in the rivers, fish were found with
deformed spines and other anomalies,'' added the expert.
Comprehensive studies are not yet available, but it
is estimated, based on global levels of coca paste
outputs, that thousands of tons of chemical waste
are dumped into the Peruvian Amazon region's rivers
each year.
The United States Drug
Enforcement Agency (DEA) conducted a survey in 1997
of the cocaine-growing Andean nations, concluding
that Peru was at the time the most contaminated as
a result of the paste production process.
Some 50 million liters
of chemical waste had been dumped the previous year
in the Huallaga Valley's rivers, in the central jungle,
and in Convención Valley, in the southern jungle,
according to the DEA report.
''The elaboration of cocaine
paste requires a great deal of water and enormous
quantities of sulfuric acid, quicklime, carbide, acetone,
toluene and kerosene,'' reports Lucio Batallanos,
head of the environment program 'Contradrogas,' a
division of Peru's Interior Ministry.
Kerosene remains undiluted
in the water, forming a film on the surface that prevents
the oxygenation of the river, killing vegetable species
and aquatic animals. Carbides and quicklime poison
the waters, making them uninhabitable for flora and
fauna.
But sulfuric acid has the
most lethal impact. The compound remains suspended
in the water and causes the chronic poisoning of animals
and humans who ingest the polluted water because it
destroys their intestinal flora.
Contradrogas research in
the areas where basic cocaine paste is produced reveals
highly contaminated areas along the jungle rivers
Bocaz, Cacazú, Ene, Perené and Panga.
Repressive actions against
paste production must also seek to eliminate its negative
effects on the environment, Batallanos stressed.
The Peruvian health directorate's
office of water resources assures, for its part, that
it has not yet detected any impact of the polluted
water on human health, though its officials acknowledge
that the contamination is a risk factor.
''Because of its illegal
nature, the production of coca paste occurs in isolated
and unpopulated areas. The lack of a riverside population
in those regions has meant we have not been able to
detect specific cases of poisoning,'' explained Fausto
Roncal, head of the water resources division.
''The water currents carry
everything downstream, such that the contamination
is most lethal for plant and animal species living
in the aquatic environment,'' Roncal explained.
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