2023-12-31 09:35:00
Today will not be very different from other Sundays for Noemí Painemil. He might be open for business anyway, even if it’s Sunday, even if it’s New Year’s Eve tonight. There are not many more pantries in Sauzal Bonito, the Neuquén area where it is located regarding 41 kilometers south of Añelo, on the side of provincial route 17, the area that became known for the tremors it has suffered since fracking reached Dead cow. Besides, says Noemí, there is not much to celebrate: “The parties are little noticed around here. Nobody prepares for the holidays; “Only families get together.”
Noemí and her husband, Carlos Pérez, both retired, live almost at the end of the only street, made of clay soil, that exists in Sauzal Bonito. On one side of the house they built a store a few years ago, called Siete Ángeles and where they sell dairy products, cleaning supplies, cigarettes, the basics.
The walls of Carlos and Noemí’s house, like many of those in the area, are a map of the earthquakes that have been repeated since 2015. The dining room, the bedroom, the kitchen, all the rooms have lines that go from the ceiling to the floor. Noemí’s skin is also a map of those earthquakes. “My skin is full of white spots. The spots, the doctor told me, are the product of fear of earthquakes. I didn’t have them before,” he says, with his cracked voice.
Since September, no earthquakes have been recorded in Sauzal Bonito. Since then, the tremors in Vaca Muerta appear to have moved northwest of Añelo, regarding 38 kilometers from the city that many consider the heart of oil activity. In December alone there were ten earthquakes recorded from the Induced Seismicity Observatory at that point on the map. The last one, which occurred on Friday the 29th, had a magnitude of 3.9, according to the official body that measures the movements, the National Institute for Seismic Prevention (Inpres). The figures are worse if we take stock of the year: in 2023, the province of Neuquén recorded 82 earthquakes, of which, according to the Observatory, 15 were natural and “67 associated with hydraulic fracturing for the extraction of unconventional hydrocarbons from the Vaca Muerta formation.”
Tremors, earthquakes, earthquakes, movements, they are all nuances, different ways of calling the same curse of this small place where 350 people live. Many houses were left unusable following the movements. The Neuquén government led by the now former governor Omar Gutíerrez promised 50 anti-seismic houses to remedy the problem. Five were delivered.
Noemí does not have much hope with the stillness in which they have lived since September. “We live in fear. We all know that they are setting up teams right here, to the right and above Sauzal. And everyone says that a stronger one is going to come. “This is going to be terrifying,” he anticipates while he repeats a location near the area where companies are expected to work to obtain unconventional gas or oil.
This state of permanent shock is the topic that Noemí talks regarding with her friend, who lives near her house and who has had panic attacks since the earthquakes began. “The other day some machines were working in front of her house to crush the earth and build one of the anti-seismic houses, and it seemed to her that everything was moving. “She ran outside,” she says on the phone from her house, while she drinks a mate and joins Carlos who is next to her.
Noemí came to Sauzal Bonito without much desire, several years ago, more to please her husband than out of her own conviction. But she now she says she believes “that he is going to stay here until the end.” She proudly lists the renovations they made to the house, the vineyard that grows to provide shade in the followingnoon, the little awning that doesn’t let the sun enter the kitchen. But she also lists the long list of what she doesn’t like: “No one takes care of places like this. The other day they told us that they might stop delivering the bottles to us, and that they are going to increase 500%. But it’s not the only thing: there is almost no water, the canal is cut off. Nobody does anything for Sauzal. “We have two viewpoints and nothing to look at,” Naomi becomes bitter.
What is seen in Sauzal is that proximity does not result in benefits. The Neuquén River runs 600 meters away. But either it is like now, a faint line, or it overflows like in June, when several were under water. One way or another, almost nothing comes out of the taps. A few kilometers away, exactly in front of the area, is Fortín de Piedra, the area from where Paolo Rocca’s company, Tecpetrol, obtains 16% of the gas used throughout the country, according to the company’s own data. In Sauzal Bonito, you have to buy bottles because there is no gas.
Noemí says they have no plans for today. The three of them spent Christmas alone, she, Carlos, and one of her children who came to visit. That tonight you will only ask “that they stop breaking our houses, that no one lacks food, or work in this difficult Argentina that is coming, and of course, health.”
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#afraid #earthquakes
