Sewage Pollution In Lake Valencia
The environmental problem I have selected for this project is the sewage pollution in Lake Valencia in Venezuela. This issue is located in Valencia, Venezuela just south of the capital of Caracas. The constant flooding of Lake Valencia, threaten hundreds of families who live around it, seeming unstoppable (Blue Channel 2012). Lake Valencia is the largest freshwater lake in Venezuela. The lake is located in one of the most populated areas in the country and its watershed possesses approximately 8% of the total population. As noted by Kwei (1982) “Increasing population in the watershed, along with rapid expansion of industry and agriculture, has caused large scale environmental contamination in Lake Valencia.
Once known for its great beauty and potential natural resources. Lake Valencia water quality is currently undergoing a rapid deterioration” By the late 1970´s, a remarkable political and technical decision converted the lake into “a repository of contaminated sewage, by transferring through the Cabriales creek the residual waters of the metropolitan city of Valencia, without considering the social and ecological consequences lived nowadays” (González 2017). It was a big mistake made about 40 years ago, which hasn´t been greatly attended by 18 years either. Due to the surplus of extra-waters, from 1978 began a progressive growth from its minimum quota of 401 m to its historical largest quota of 414 m, which created a positive water balance, but the fluids by which the lake began to grow were the sewers of urban centers; which aggravated the problem of pollution, eutrophication and salinization of the lake, progressively worsened each year. The positive water balance in the basin has also been caused by the reduction of the natural vegetation cover, due to the increasing concrete and asphalt surfaces by the horizontal growth of cities and towns which causes less infiltration of rainfall to aquifers, greater surface runoff and reduces evaporation-transpiration; the only working infrastructure to control the increasing levels of Lake Valencia is a temporary embankment. However, the lake´s dam quota has been reached and it threatens to permanently flood new towns.
The direct impact on consumers, ie, the inhabitants of Carabobo only leaves, Aragua and Cojedes, is that the residual aluminum affects the motor and the nervous system, while nitrogen and phosphorus are nutrients for the development of cyanobacteria that affect part of the liver, nerve and dermis (Bull 1995). “Nine thousand liters per second come directly from Aragua and the rest comes through the Taiguaiguai towards the Valencia lake. ” Says congressman Germain Benedetti, a member of the Standing Committee of the Legislative Council water of Carabobo state. The government has ruled the lakes water undrinkable for quite some time now. Valencia Lake has been subjected to algal blooms caused by untreated wastewater from the surrounding neighborhoods and industrial land uses.
In conclusion, the lake has suffered immensely the past few decades. The poor water quality not only affected people but also hit wildlife as well; the pollution cause over 60% of the native fish species to die off.
