Toxic spills offer a bleak vision of the end of oil inVenezuela
Downward spiral results in accidents, scarcity and more economic devastation that hits the poorest of the poor
Tropical rains have washed away most outward traces of the oil spill that ravaged Rio Seco this fall. But the fishing village in the shadow of Venezuela’s main refining hub bears the scars of deeper contamination.
Boats with oil-stained hulls must now travel farther out into the Caribbean to make a catch. Crude has soaked the roots of nearby mangroves, leaving shrimp grounds barren. Seeing no future, dozens of fishermen and their families have fled their homes; those who are left loiter in the village, waiting for Petroleos de Venezuela, the state oil company known as PDVSA, to compensate for lost boats, equipment and sales.
Broke and subject to international sanctions, President Nicolas Maduro’s government is squeezing what it can from Venezuela’s collapsing oil industry, unleashing an environmental disaster in one of Earth’s most ecologically diverse nations..
Venezuela boasts the world’s largest known oil reserves, but it’s struggling to produce any gasoline at all as sanctions constrain crude exports that are the foundation of its economy and bar the import of parts essential for maintenance. The result is a downward spiral of spills, scarcity and yet more economic suffering that disproportionately hits the poorest of the poor.
Contrasts between Venezuela’s oil-fueled glory days and today’s dereliction are everywhere. The PDVSA’s refining complex on the Paraguana peninsula was once the largest in the world. At the turn of the century its refineries were dominant exporters to the U.S. Today, it produces hardly anything at all.
Reina Falcon, 69, has seen PDVSA’s declining fortunes up close. Living so near to the complex, she is concerned about the health and safety of her family: A giant explosion in 2012 left at least 42 dead, and fires and blasts have become almost routine since.
Spills also occur regularly. Each time Venezuela is able to dodge sanctions and export a few tanker loads, it frees up storage space to start pumping oil through leaky pipelines. .
Best practices went out the window two decades ago following a failed coup and nationwide strike against the late Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s populist president who renationalized the industry and built up massive debts even during the era of $100-a-barrel oil.
Prices have cratered under Maduro and brought to a head the cumulative impact of neglect, corruption and mismanagement. PDVSA was one of the most technically advanced national oil companies as recently as the late 1990s; now it’s a hollowed-out husk presiding over the industry’s demise. Venezuela’s crude production hit a low of
337,000 barrels a day in June, just 10 percent of the country’s peak output in 2001. PDVSA didn’t respond to email and texted requests for comment.
Oil spills are a chronic byproduct of daily output in Venezuela. . Spills are larger and more frequent out of sight in the plains of the Orinoco River, where cattle ranches and crops are located, according to Ismael Hernandez, a remediation expert at the Central University
of Venezuela.
One egregious example came in July, when oil from a PDVSA refinery spilled onto the white sand and coral reefs of the world-renowned Morrocoy national park, home to more than 1,000 marine species, many of them endangered.
Authorities played down the Morrocoy incident, accusing environmental groups of exaggerating the damage. Environment minister Oswaldo Barbera said in October that the park’s 25 kilometer coast had been “100 percent” cleaned up with “no oil to be found.”
In Rio Seco, heavy offseason rains washed much of the chronic petroleum residue off the beaches in November, granting locals some temporary relief. PDVSA has yet to even estimate damage after the spill.
Giovanny Medina, 40, from across the gulf at Cardon,lives in a fishing village that has managed to coexist with the refinery. His chief concern is the relentless pollution that means taking his wooden skiff, known as a peñero, into deeper waters using more gasoline.
“We don’t want to be painting the hulls of our boats white anymore to cover up the crude stains,” he said. “We’re tired of doing this.”