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Decades of oil development have resulted in hundreds of spills of crude oil and toxic waste across the Western Amazon in Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. The spills have coated rivers and saturated wetlands with sticky crude and oilfield wastewater, poisoning people and wildlife. One study funded by Peru’s National Institute of Health and published this year found elevated levels of mercury, arsenic and cadmium in the urine of Indigenous people living near oil development in the country’s Northern Amazon region. About a quarter of those tested had mercury counts above the ministry’s reference level, and an even higher number had elevated levels of arsenic.