Venezuela | Lake Maracaibo turned into a toxic green pool

Constant oil spills combined with harmful algae blooms have turned the Venezuelan lake into an environmental disaster.

The lake that was the heart of the Venezuelan oil industry has been contaminated to the point of toxicity. Although it comes a long time, the fishermen of Maracaibo say that they had never seen it like this.

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“The fish here don’t come to shore, no, that drowns them,” explained fisherman José Aular when he saw the coast covered in plastic garbage contaminated with algae and oil.

Waste water, fertilizers and chemicals are discharged without treatment directly into the lake. In a satellite image from the European Space Agency from last June, you can see the more than thirteen thousand square kilometers of the lake almost completely covered by a green layer.

The professor of the University of Zulia Beltrán Briceño, head of the Microbiology Laboratory of the Institute of Agricultural Research, identified the cause in Microcystis, a microalgae that releases toxins that can suffocate all traces of lake life: “This is an inflorescence of harmful algae that starves the lake of oxygen, suffocating fish and plants.

The fishermen struggle with the consequences. The president of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro assured in a visit that he will launch a cleanup plan. The recovery of Maracaibo remains a pending mission after a century of oil extraction.

Additional sources • Enrique Barrueco (Voice in off)

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