It’s time to stop cleaning up the oil industry’s mess

For weeks, we’ve watched as crews work tirelessly to remove toxic oil spilled along the Peruvian coast.

Repsol, the oil company, initially stated that the spill was “limited” and “contained,” and that only 7 gallons of oil had spilled before they were able to stop the leak.

But the oil and gas industry has a well-documented history of underreporting oil spills. We now know that an estimated 6,000 barrels of oil (roughly 250,000 gallons) poured into the ocean when an oil tanker encountered strong waves following the volcanic eruption near Tonga. Sadly, much of this oil will never be removed from the environment.

Since then, fishers have been displaced, 893 hectares of coastline (around 2,200 acres) has been coated in oil, and two protected areas — the Ancón Reserved Zone and the Pescadores Islets of the National Reserve System of Guano Islands, Islets and Points — have been contaminated, threatening iconic species like the Humboldt penguin.

On the ground, my colleagues have reported that Repsol initially hired workers to clean up the oil with dustpans, shovels, wheelbarrows, and buckets. That’s like sending a firefighter into a forest fire with a water gun.

One thing is clear: Repsol was not prepared or capable of responding. Now Peru, its people, and its environment are paying the price.

Unfortunately, this is part of a larger pattern — just one of the latest oil and gas tragedies to attract attention around the world and cause lasting harm to both the local economy and environment.

Across the Pacific, another oil spill has unfolded in the Gulf of Thailand as the country’s navy attempts to remove as much as 128 tons of oil that leaked from a Star Petroleum pipeline. Last fall, roughly 25,000 gallons of oil leaked into the ocean off the coast of California from a ruptured underwater pipeline owned by Amplify Energy. In 2010, an estimated 200 million gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico following an explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. And in 1989, 11 million gallons of oil spilled into Prince William Sound, Alaska, when the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground.

But these aren’t isolated incidents. In the U.S. alone, there were at least 5,900 oil spills between 2010 and 2019 — an average of almost two spills every day.

We know that where they drill, they spill. But in a morbid irony, oil and gas are actually driving the conditions that make even more spills more likely. Burning fossil fuels is causing the climate crisis, which in turn is intensifying extreme weather events like hurricanes. These events are hitting regions like the Gulf of Mexico with such frequency and intensity that today, hurricanes are considered a leading cause of oil spills. Last year, Category 4 Hurricane Ida caused significant damage to oil and gas infrastructure resulting in large amounts of oil pollution in the Gulf. There’s no reason not to expect a similar disaster later this year or the next. This is a deadly feedback loop that must be stopped.

The oil industry has repeatedly failed to demonstrate that it can reliably prevent, stop, or respond to oil spills. The BP disaster had oil gushing into the water for 87 days, as it became clear that the company’s response plan was essentially nonexistent. And it took more than a decade for the Taylor Energy oil spill to be contained, after releasing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Repsol is just another name on the list of companies that are unprepared and unequipped to handle the risk they themselves create.

It’s unacceptable for the Peruvian people to bear the costs of an industry that has proven itself incapable of acting in the best interest of the public. This seems to be a lesson our governments refuse to learn.

If we really want to protect our oceans, our coastal economies, and our planet, it’s time for our governments to hold companies like Repsol accountable, while also finally putting an end to dirty and dangerous offshore drilling once and for all.

Otherwise, it’s just a matter of time before we’re cleaning up another mess from the oil and gas industry at the expense of our oceans and all they provide.

Andrew Sharpless is the CEO of Oceana, the largest international advocacy organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation.