Spain ordered a scientific commission to find a way of raising or sealing off some 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil from the sunken tanker Prestige, as it confirmed the vessel would keep leaking the thick oil for more than three years. Among other possibilities being studied by the commission were the raising of the two sunken sections of the vessel, the plugging of holes in its disintegrating carcass, and its burial under tons of cement.
The centre-right government of Jose Maria Aznar, which has been heavily criticised for its handling of the Prestige affair, finally admitted that the tanker was still leaking 125 tonnes of fuel oil a day from some 14 separate cracks. Anyone trying to extract the fuel would face the arduous task of dealing with a wreck that lies more than two miles under the surface of the Atlantic, in an area some 130 miles off Cape Finisterre, which is infamous for its bad weather.
Emilio Lora-Tamayo, the president of the commission formed by the Spanish government to deal with the disaster, told the newspaper ‘El Pais’ that a remote-control submarine would start checking whether the holes in the wreck could be plugged.
He estimated that it would take up to 39 months for all the oil to escape from the wreck. Scientists said that repairs by the submarine crew, along with near-freezing water makes the oil thicker, have slowed the flow.
The tanker is now leaking almost 80,000 litres of oil a day, down from a month ago when it was leaking about 125,000 litres a day. The crew of the French research submarine Nautile has sealed six of the 20 cracks and holes found in the two halves of the ship. They've used metal plates and other makeshift patches. It's estimated that the Prestige has leaked about 25 million litres of oil that has fouled hundreds of kilometres of Spanish coastline.
BORDEAUX, France - Thousands of glossy bits of toxic fuel oil lapped up on some of France's most popular beaches, as prosecutors launched a criminal probe into a tanker whose wreckage has spawned an environmental disaster on Europe's Atlantic coast. Oil globules, broken off from a large offshore slick in the rough waters of the Bay of Biscay, have arrived as far north as La Rochelle, a port city halfway up France's Atlantic coast.
They have also hit the chic islands of Ile de Re and Ile d'Oleron, as well as the famed Arcachon Basin southward, near Bordeaux, where the carcasses of blackened seabirds have brought a first taste of the awaiting emergency. “We’re dealing with a long-term crisis,” said Christian Fremont, administrative head of the Aquitaine region that includes Bordeaux.
The office of French President Jacques Chirac said the government had taken legal action following official confirmation that the oil washing up here came from the Prestige tanker, which sank off Spain two months ago. ''The pollution now affecting the French coastline obliges us to proceed with a formal investigation, to seek out and punish those responsible for this environmental catastrophe," it said in a statement.
The probe would determine who was to blame for the disaster either "those on board, the owner, the operator or their representatives," the statement said. The Society for Protection of Birds said that some 200 seabirds had been found dead off the south-western Aquitaine coast, while about 100 had been sent to Nantes, north of La Rochelle, for emergency treatment.
The organization described the oil-coated birds as the "messengers of major oil pollution off the coast", since they always arrive before major slicks hit shore. Affected species included puffins, great skuas, gannets, guillemots and seagulls.
Aquitaine administrator Fremont warned journalists that an offshore slick, beaten by waves and wind, would hit beaches from the Basque country near the Spanish border all the way up to La Rochelle covering hundreds of kilometres beloved of surfers and vacationers.
‘I am worried but I don't know what we're going to do,’ said Michel Sammarcelli, mayor of Lege-Cap-Ferret near Arcachon, favoured by sailors and home to thriving oyster cultivating beds. Environment Minister Roselyne Bachelot said that an emergency plan to help fund clean-up efforts could be activated in the Charente-Maritime region around La Rochelle and on the Ile de Re."The pollution seems ... much more spread out, therefore more difficult to combat," she told France 3 television.
“We thought at first it would only touch the Pyrenees-Atlantiques (departement), but it has spread out along the whole of the Atlantic coast.” Junior transport secretary Dominique Bussereau said France might put to use a boat to suck up dense patches of oil, but said that clean-up of rocks and craggy parts of the coast would be left to individuals working with their hands.
Clean-up teams have been dispatched to the coast to assess the damage, while police advised authorities to close the affected beaches, police said. The encroaching spill has left France coping with two maritime disasters over the New Year period, after a Turkish cargo carrying 66,000 tonnes of diesel and kerosene collided with a stricken Norwegian cargo ship in the Channel.
The Prestige spill is a "sword of Damocles which is going to hover above our heads for some time to come", Bachelot said, adding it was potentially "just as serious" as the notorious sinking of the Erika tanker off the coast of Brittany in 1999, which caused major environmental damage. Chirac telephoned European Commission President Romano Prodi to push for the faster passage of maritime laws to protect Europe's coasts, the president's office said.
"The faster the Commission works, the better," Chirac told Prodi, calling for the adoption of Franco-Spanish recommendations for the 15-member bloc, said his spokeswoman Catherine Colonna. She added that Chirac hoped stricter rules would "encourage greater honesty and transparency in a maritime system that allows veritable hoodlums of the sea whom we must stop from doing more damage". Madrid and Paris have asked the EU to restrict travel rights of ships carrying dangerous cargo. EU ministers have also asked the Commission, the EU's executive body, to prepare a report by March to recommend ways of dealing with maritime polluters. Spain, whose fishing-dependent Galician coast has been ravaged by the Prestige spill, said it will receive 140 million euros of European Union cashbox for pollution damages.
Another tanker disaster, another assault on the environment. There are some 14,000 reported oil spills a year around the world. Many are small, easily contained and cleaned up. Others are much bigger – some very big indeed. We all should contribute in helping to save the environment and to clean the affected areas in any way we can so that everybody can live safely.
Andreas Moutsouris 3C
