Incredible to witness this savage changes on our own backyard , after a big water event in early January 2020 the emblematic 200m San Rafael waterfall literally disappeared from where it used to be , this natural dam created by the Volcan Reventador hundreds or thousands of years ago finally gave up to the force of the water and the erosion caused by the falls.
One of the largest hydroelectric projects in South America and Ecuador is located irresponsibly a few miles just upstream of this site, the lack of proper studies in general for all projects that happen in Ecuador , never considered that this may happen. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Dam site as the erosion of the river bed is moving upstream super fast. The next rainy season will determine how far up is this erosion gonna go and what other changes in the area will happen. The 2 oil pipes that carry the crude oil from the Amazon to the coast also look compromised not too far up from the implosion of the sink hole. They may need to get creative before the river carves its way throughout the sediment bottom of the river.
We want the COCA CODO SYNCLAIR to stay where it is, as it requires all the water that comes down all creeeks and tributaries of the Quijos , so no other projects can be placed upstream , although there is a lot of hydro proposals that threat our playgrounds. Time will tell if the river will carve itself all the way up again and take down this monster project that has been just one more of the millionaire projects that Rafael Correa’s government used to flush millions of dollars out the MEGA budgets they created for this projects, so big that Ecuador had never seen anything such. Sadly the project started failling shortly after it started operating and to this date is not been able to produce what it was projected. Showing one more time the incapacity of the Ecuadorian government to follow through with with any offerings. The politics in this country are so corrupt as they are in all others, the problem is that our country is so rich, and people so ignorant that there is no one paying attention to whats happening.