Valencia Lake, with an area of 375 square kilometers and situated west of Caracas, has overflowed as a result of recent heavy rains and threatens about 1,000 homes towards the east in the city of Maracay. The channeling of lakewater to the Pao-Cachinche reservoir, which supplies the industrial town of Valencia and its 1.5 million inhabitants, is worsening the contamination of the water, used for human consumption.

“Tests of Valencia children show contamination with toxic levels of aluminum, nickel, lead, antimony and cadmium. The Cachinche reservoir has ravines that collect sewage, water from rain that falls on a sanitary landfill, and now also water channeled from the flooding lake,” said Manuel Pérez, technical coordinator of the Movement for Water Quality.

The Maracay-Valencia area is home to manufacturing industry that for decades has dumped untreated waste into rivers and the lake. The Movement is calling for a network of water treatment plants and a system to channel the lake's surplus towards the Caribbean.