MARACAIBO — Oil spills and environmental contamination around Lake Maracaibo have intensified as deteriorating infrastructure and weak enforcement of environmental regulations leave millions in Venezuela’s Zulia state exposed to health hazards. Lake Maracaibo, a brackish tidal bay in northwestern Venezuela central to the country’s petroleum industry, is surrounded by communities where hundreds of thousands rely on polluted waterways for drinking, bathing, and fishing.

About 4 million people live in Zulia state, where land subsidence from decades of careless drilling has contributed to contaminated floodwaters in lakeside towns. Gas flaring from wells and refineries lacking emission capture technology further degrades air quality. Exposure to industrial byproducts from oil operations—either directly or through contaminated fish—is associated with neurotoxicity, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.

According to activist and ecotourism guide Gustavo Carrasquel Parra and the Observatory of Political Ecology of Venezuela, oil spills are becoming more frequent as local oil infrastructure continues to deteriorate. Reported spills in Venezuela rose from 77 in 2021 to 84 in 2022. The government has not released official oil spill data in the past four years.

“My clients’ feet became coated in oil and tar, and this created a very poor impression and dealt a blow to local tourism. As a Venezuelan, I have witnessed firsthand the consequences of oil-related impacts, particularly in terms of environmental contamination,” Carrasquel Parra said.

Antonio Machado Allison, a Venezuelan ecologist at Wesleyan University, said Venezuela has robust environmental laws governing oil extraction, including provisions for waste management, greenhouse gas reductions, and hazardous materials handling. He noted that under Article 12 of Venezuela’s constitution, an environmental impact study is required at every stage of an oil project, and communities—not the government—are supposed to have final approval over new drilling.

“The government hasn’t shown that they want to follow the law,” Machado Allison said. He added that the question of whether the government or private companies are responsible for conducting environmental impact studies is open to interpretation. Oil spills and gas flaring over the past decade indicate that mismanagement and lack of judicial oversight have rendered environmental review processes obsolete.

“Accidents always happen,” he said.

Venezuelan geophysicist Jesus Aboud, based in Canada, said oil drilling projects sometimes damage the economies of the communities they are intended to help. In January, Venezuela reformed its hydrocarbons law to allow broader private participation, including U.S. companies investing in extraction, refining, and distribution. Chevron declined to answer questions about its role in Venezuela’s environmental problems or its future policy stance.