The videos recorded by residents of coastal towns in the states of Falcón and Carabobo, in the Caribbean Sea, show a daily tragedy. A new fuel spill flows from the facilities of the state-owned oil company PDVSA and fills the beaches with crude oil brought by the waves. At least 35 spills have occurred this year, according to environmental organizations. The Venezuelan government has not provided information on the causes or the measures to repair it. Nor has it provided information on how to prevent the situation from continuing to happen again, while the waves bring crabs and black oil fish, the basis of the national economy.
Venezuelan biologist Eduardo Klein has been keeping satellite records of oil industry spills for years. The one now visible on the coast began days ago in the Golfo Triste, very close to the Morrocoy National Park, which preserves a fragile mangrove ecosystem. The stain extends for five kilometers from Boca de Aroa beach, affecting the sea of 450 square kilometers around the El Palito Refinery and the facilities of the Planta Centro thermoelectric plant, according to images from the Sentinel 2 satellite that the expert has reported on his social networks.
“This disaster could have serious environmental and economic effects on the population throughout the affected area, both now and in the coming days, as the pollutants move due to the currents,” he warned. the NGO Climate 21 in a report on the situation. “Of particular concern are the effects on the health of local fishermen and on people who may be consuming fish that may be contaminated with toxic substances present in the spilled hydrocarbon.”
The spill has affected artisanal fishing vessels. As on previous occasions, the authorities have not provided information. The serious state of the Venezuelan oil industry, after years of mismanagement, corruption and falling revenues due to oil sanctions, is reflected in the spills, a product of lack of maintenance. After reaching its lowest point in 2020, a year after President Donald Trump imposed an oil embargo on Venezuela, oil production has been slowly recovering and is approaching one million barrels per day, still far from the peaks of more than 3 million a decade ago.
Last November, Venezuela experienced broad sanctions relief that was later replaced by a targeted licensing regime imposed by the United States in May, in response to Maduro’s failure to comply with democratic guarantees for the July 28 elections, which the world has now condemned over suspicions of fraud. Even so, Maduro has recently invited foreign businessmen to invest in the oil sector.
In states like Zulia, leaks into Lake Maracaibo, the largest in South America, are constant. Last year, President Nicolás Maduro announced a plan to clean up the lake, but no results have yet been presented. “I am committed to a structural plan to gradually recover Lake Maracaibo. We have to achieve the rebirth together, because this is not a partisan or political task, this is up to all of us,” he said during a visit to the state of Zulia, days after a huge 30-kilometer-long oil slick was reported on the water.
Follow all the information from El PAÍS América on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.
#PDVSA #crude #oil #spill #contaminates #beaches #Venezuelan #Caribbean