March 21, 2008 | 1H2O
Donate Now
Tomas Carijano sat at the front of the canoe, whittling the wooden dart to a deadly point, a blowgun propped against his knee. Then, with a nod, he gave the signal.
On the Macusari River, whose muddy waters flow into the Amazon River here in northern Peru, the pilot cut the engine, letting the canoe slip silently into a tiny inlet. The Indians pushed with poles, and then dipped gourds into the amber water.
"You can drink this," Mr. Carijano said in an Indian dialect through a Spanish interpreter. But "most of the rivers near here are agua salada."
"Agua salada" means water that is highly-saline, toxic, useless for human consumption - made that way by what oil antagonists say are the results of sloppy oil drilling operations. ...