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(This article was originally published Friday.) By Dan Molinski Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES CARACAS (Dow Jones)--Venezuela's government is expanding its efforts to clean up large oil slicks in Lake Maracaibo following sharp criticism that it has ignored the month-old problem. In a press conference earlier this week, Rafael Ramirez, the country's energy minister and president of state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, became the first top official to speak about the oil slicks--some up to 40 kilometers long--that began appearing on the lake's surface more than a month ago. Ramirez said more than 2,100 people are now working to clean up the spill, which he said was likely caused by leaks from the maze of old, decaying underwater pipelines that carpet the bottom of the lake. A couple weeks ago, PDVSA sent out a brief statement saying 50 workers and local fishermen were being assigned to scoop up oil at the lake. The Lake Maracaibo basin in western Venezuela is one of the world's largest centers for oil production, and major foreign-oil companies have been pumping crude from under and around the lake for nearly a century. Oil spills, shipping traffic and other industry-related wear-and-tear have left the lake heavily polluted. Ramirez's comments Wednesday came as local lawmakers in the state of Zulia have for weeks been urging the national government, led by President Hugo Chavez, to clean the spill. Eliseo Fermin, the head of Zulia state's Legislative Council and an opponent of the Chavez government, told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday that an environmental emergency needs to declared for the lake. Fermin agrees with Ramirez that decaying underwater pipelines are to blame, although he said the oil slicks probably aren't from one or a couple leaks, but instead hundreds or even thousands of leaks in the "spaghetti-plate" of pipelines. Fermin said the ecological damage of the lake could end up being "the biggest environmental crime in the history of South America." Despite such dire warnings, Ramirez downplayed the significance of the oil slicks by comparing them with the two-month-old oil spill in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico that began after an explosion at a British Petroleum PLC (BP, BP.LN) rig. "You can't draw parallels between the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico--where 35,000 barrels to 100,000 barrels of oil per day flow into the sea--and the leak detected in Lake Maracaibo," Ramirez said. Ramirez also said most of the old, underwater pipelines were already there when the government of President Hugo Chavez took control of PDVSA from anti-Chavez forces in 2003. While most oil production in Venezuela still comes from the Lake Maracaibo region, most of the oil fields in the region have reached maturity and are now in decline. Environmentalists worry that the oil industry will eventually abandon the area altogether, leaving a huge mess behind. -By Dan Molinski, Dow Jones Newswires; 58-414-120-5738; dan.molinski@dowjones.com (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 28, 2010 08:26 ET (12:26 GMT)