2024-10-01 05:44:30
The erosion of the Coca River advanced half a kilometer in one day, amid heavy rains, which raises new alerts. Another section of the OCP and a bridge would be at risk.
After 135 days in which no progress had been recorded, the regressive erosion of the Coca River was reactivated and is increasingly closer to the Coca Codo Sinclair catchment works, the largest hydroelectric plant in Ecuador.
Between June 16 and 17, 2024, erosion advanced half a kilometer from the point located 7.3 kilometers from the Coca Codo Sinclair intake works, a hydroelectric plant located between the Amazonian provinces of Napo and Sucumbíos.
With this, the erosion is now located at a distance of approximately 6.8 kilometers, according to reports from the state holding company Celec, which monitors this phenomenon and to which PRIMICIAS had access. Erosion is a strange natural phenomenon that began in February 2020 with the collapse of the San Rafael waterfall, located on the Coca River, between the Amazonian provinces of Napo and Sucumbíos.
Since then, the erosion phenomenon has advanced regressively upstream, undermining its bed and eating away at its banks, which has formed enormous sinkholes. The phenomenon could destroy the Coca Codo Sinclair catchment works, which sit on the Coca River and, with that, the hydroelectric plant would be rendered useless. This is because the collection works allow water to be diverted from the river through a pipe built along the edge of the river and which allows the water to be conveyed to the Coca Codo Sinclair turbines to generate electricity. And without water the hydroelectric plant simply does not work.
The erosion of the Coca River was reactivated after the strong storm that hit the Amazonian province of Napo last weekend. The flow reached 3,354 meters per second at 12:00 on June 16, 2024, according to Celec reports. That river flood was, in fact, the second largest since July 19, 2021, when it reached 3,400 cubic meters per second.
According to Celec reports, the flows of the Coca River remained high on June 17 with a level of 997 cubic meters per second, so Celec must still verify the exact point of erosion. Coca Codo Sinclair is a key hydroelectric plant to cover the demand for electricity, as it supplies 25% of the electricity demand.
Can the risk be stopped?
Celec launched a public tender in November 2023 to build a permeable dam on the river bed, which would reduce the drag force of the river and thus slow down the advance of erosion.
The awarding of the works was to be completed in February 2024. However, the Public Contracting Service (Sercop) made observations on the process, which meant it should be declared void.
The Minister of Energy, Roberto Luque, said May 27, 2024 that he will do everything possible to «save» the tender for the contracting of works to mitigate regressive erosion in the Coca River, which threatens to destroy the Coca Codo Sinclair catchment works.
The dam should be located 7.8 kilometers from the Coca Codo Sinclair intake works, but erosion has already affected it (see map).
Pipeline and bridge at risk due to advance erosion
In addition, erosion continued on the left bank of the Coca River, in the area of the Malo and Loco rivers, given that both rivers presented significant floods, which put a section of the Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline (OCP) pipeline at risk.
Lateral erosion advances along the Loco River, a tributary of the Coca River, and puts the OCP pipeline and a bridge on the E-45 highway or Quito Lago Agrio highway, in the El Chaco sector, at risk.
This is the second section at risk due to regressive erosion after the torrential rains of June 16, 2024. On June 17, 2024, the OCP announced that it suspended operations to prevent an oil spill at kilometer 102 on the Quito- Lago Agrio, due to the lateral advance of the erosion of the Coca River.
Although the tube was exposed at that point, it did not break and did not leak into the environment, OCP clarified. OCP said it will build a bypass on this stretch, the company reported.
“In the Loco River, erosion changed the original course of the river and its discharge continues directly into the bed of the Coca River, so there is an increase in the slope and it can generate greater regressive erosion,” warns the Celec report. Furthermore, the report states that lateral erosion can destroy the bridge over the Loco River on the E45 road or the Quito-Lago Agrio road.
By: PRIMICIAS