Jorge Spíndola and Asociación Argentina de Abogados Ambientalistas filed a environmental class action before the Federal Justice against Estado Nacional, YPF, and Provincia del Chubut. The lawsuit requests to declare null the Acta Acuerdo signed on June 26 and ratified by Ley XVII N° 166. It also asks that Municipalidad de Comodoro Rivadavia be summoned as a third party.
The agreement transferred the concessions of El Tordillo, La Tapera, Puesto Quiroga, Escalante-El Trébol, Campamento Central-Cañadón Perdido, and Manantiales Behr. According to the presentation, the law releases YPF from past, present, and future liability for environmental liabilities generated during more than one hundred years of operation. In exchange, the company committed USD 25.000.000 plus vehicles and land, while the Province assumed future contingencies.
The lawsuit also questions the inclusion of Restinga Alí. The cited official registry accounts for 560 wells in that marine area, and more than a third are not recorded as abandoned. The plaintiffs claim that there was neither a specific audit nor an administrative act that justified the release of liability. They also object that the general study was commissioned and paid for by YPF without independent provincial technical oversight.
The lawsuit incorporates arguments of public participation and health. It claims that the agreement was signed without prior citizen consultation and mentions inactive or poorly sealed wells within the urban ejido, some beneath homes. In Comodoro, 6.000 wells are recorded: about 3.700 classified as abandoned and 1.700 as inactive. The lawsuit links this situation to possible exposures to benzene, toluene, and xylenes.
The plaintiffs estimate that only the definitive sealing of urban wells could cost between USD 240 million and USD 740 million. As a comparison, they cite the agreement between YPF and Santa Cruz, which involved USD 335 million and a mandatory remediation plan. They also request the distribution of property liability: to Estado Nacional for liabilities prior to December 31, 1990 and to YPF for subsequent ones.
As a precautionary measure, they requested to suspend the agreement and the law, prevent the transfer of concessions to third-party companies, and prohibit sealing or abandonment operations without prior notice to the plaintiff. None of these measures had been granted when the lawsuit was filed. The next step will be the decision of the Federal Court on the precautionary measure and then on the merits; for now, the agreement remains challenged, but it has not been judicially annulled.
