Troubled Waters

Troubled Waters

Source: earthobservatory

9/25/2021

It was once a source of great abundance—particularly fossil fuels and fish—for the people of Venezuela. Now Lake Maracaibo is mostly abundant with pollution from leaking oil and excess nutrients.

Spanning 13,000 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) in northwestern Venezuela, Lake Maracaibo is one of South America’s largest lakes and one of the oldest in the world. Though it was filled with freshwater thousands of year ago, Maracaibo is now an estuarine lake connected to the Gulf of Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea by a narrow strait. That strait was significantly expanded in the 1930–50s by dredging for ship traffic. Now the north end of the lake is brackish, while the south end is mostly fresh due to abundant flows from nearby rivers.

In satellite images acquired in September 2021, Lake Maracaibo was swirling with shades of green, tan, and gray that traced the flow of currents and eddies. The sources of those colors were algae, river sediment outflows, and crude oil leaks. The image at the top of this page was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on September 25. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 observed the scene below on September 10.

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4602	NOAA: Restrictions Recommended As Three Common Pesticides Found To Harm Salmon	Underwatertimes	2008-11-18	US
4603	Trout continues over fish planting	sfgate	2011-12-08	US
4604	Fish Without the Catch: Seafood Alternatives Are on the Rise	sentientmedia	2021-01-28	CA
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4607	Nine fishermen convicted of poaching	AFP	2008-11-05	SW
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4609	Rare wild salmon turns up in Rhine	UPI	2008-10-15	SZ
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4611	Atlantic Wolffish: Fearsome Fish That Deserve Protection? 'Rapidly Headed Toward Extinction'	Underwatertimes	2008-10-02	US
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4614	Doctors In Colombia Remove 18cm Fish From Man's Throat	ladbible	2021-01-21	CO
4615	Investigation into River Sheppey pollution that killed 8,000 fish still ongoing after 18 months	somersetlive	2021-01-27	UK
4616	The Warrior Society rises: how a mercury spill in Canada inspired a movement	theguardian	2018-10-16	CA
4617	For Grassy Narrows families, mercury is an intergenerational trauma. For political parties, it’s a federal election issue	theglobeandmail	2019-10-09	CA
4618	1976: Fishing for fun and death at Grassy Narrows	cbc	1976-03-23	CA
4619	Return to Grassy Narrows	reviewcanada	2009-01-01	CA
4620	The interwoven history of mercury poisoning in Ontario and Japan	CMAJ	2017-02-06	CA
4621	Why the people of Grassy Narrows are still eating the fish	tvo	2018-12-17	CA
4622	Dozens charged in October for illegal night fishing on Rice Lake south of Peterborough	globalnews	2020-11-06	CA
4623	1 dead after canoe capsizes on White Lake in Douro-Dummer: Peterborough County OPP	Global News	2020-11-06	CA
4624	Furious anglers claim gang of Romanians emptied lake of its carp before eating them all	the sun	2018-06-16	UK
4625	Multiple defibrillators brought to remote camping location following tragic loss	CTV News	2020-11-22	CA

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