0
ARTEIXO (Spain), Nov 20: Seven oil slicks menaced the coast of northwestern Spain on Wednesday, threatening to wash ashore where hundreds of kilometres of unspoilt beach and marshland have already been covered with thick, pungent fuel oil from the sunken tanker Prestige.
Spanish officials also put a price tag of 42 million euros on the cost of rehabilitating 90 tar-stained beaches that will take about six months to clean up in the wake of what could become one of the world’s worst oil spills.
Environment Minister Jaume Matas came to this small seaside town to assess the damage from the 243-metre tanker that snapped in two and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic on Tuesday, six days after getting into trouble in a storm.
The 26-year-old, Bahamas-flagged Prestige took an estimated 60,000 tons of viscous fuel oil to the sea floor some 130 nautical miles off the coast, where ocean is about 3.6kms deep.
The total volume of 77,000 tons on board was twice the amount that gushed from the Exxon Valdez, which ran aground in Alaska in 1989 to set a benchmark for oil spills.
“I think you can see it all around. This is a disaster,” Matas said tip-toeing across oil-soaked Barranan Beach where sailors in overalls shovelled black goo, looking like a road crew paving a new highway.
Hard hit were some of the creeks and marshes, where oil penetrated far enough inland to coat grasses and wooden fence posts with what appeared like a fresh coat of black paint.
And more of the oil, whose petrol-like stench sticks to clothes and fills the air along the coast, was on the way.
FRESH WAVE: Carlos del Almo, environment chief for the Galicia regional government, told reporters at the same beach the next wave of oil “will close in on the same area where we are now”.
Of the seven known oil slicks, officials said one was two miles from shore, two were 65kms miles away and four had formed where the Prestige went down. No sizes were given.
Officials previously said a 120-km slick was following the ship before it sank. Apparently that broke up into smaller ones.
So far 240 tons had been scraped off the coast of Galicia, and 120 tons were sucked up at sea.
In the wake of the disaster, a political storm has broken out over why such tankers, lacking modern double hulls, are still allowed to ply Europe’s waters.
French President Jacques Chirac, one of the most vocal critics, told ministers the situation in Spain was so serious that it was imperative the European Union, and France itself, speed up implementation of the extra safety measures agreed after the Maltese tanker Erika split in two off France in 1999.
Some experts hope the toxic mass in the tanks of the Prestige will harden due to frigid temperatures and high pressure in the ocean depths. But others called that optimistic, saying much of the oil potentially could resurface.
While the Spanish government talked seeking damages from the ship’s insurer, the Greek shipping company that operated it, its Liberian-registered owner and Greek captain who is being held in a Spanish jail, local people took matters into their own hands.
At the mouth of one of Galicia’s spectacular river valleys that open to the sea, a thousand fishermen formed a barrier with their boats in an attempt to keep out the sludge.
FISHING BANNED: “It was their own initiative. Everyone here is very worried. We don’t know what the long-term effects will be for the sea life, the fish, tourism, the economy. This is our lifeblood,” said Jose Manuel Vila, secretary of a fishing cooperative in Malpica whose 500 members are now out of work.
Authorities have banned fishing along 100 km (60 miles) of coastline for at least a month. But Vila said they expected longer term effects for the goose barnacle, a delicacy known in Spanish as percebes, which he said had been all but wiped out.
The area is also famous for its high-quality lobster, mussels, octopus, crab and shrimp.
In Brussels, the European Commission said on Wednesday it would provide 117.7 million euros of aid to Spanish fishermen to help cover losses. Local authorities already promised 30 euros ($30.10) per day for fishermen while they are out of work.
“The EU won’t let them down,” Farm and Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler said in a statement.
Portuguese environmentalists criticised Spain for towing the disabled tanker for several days to a spot that put its spilt oil on a wind-aided course toward Portuguese shores as well.
“If the black tide hits the coast here it will cause an ecological disaster of unimaginable proportions,” Luis Macedo, head of Portugal’s Esposende nature reserve, told the Lusa news agency. The reserve at the mouth of the Cavado River is home to more than 100 species of migratory birds and a key fishing area.
“ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE”: “The ecological catastrophe...raises serious doubts about the performance of the Spanish authorities,” the Lisbon newspaper Diario de Noticias said in an editorial.
The vessel was chartered by a Swiss-based Russian oil trader in a complex set of arrangements not unusual in the industry.
Single-hulled tankers like the Prestige have been outlawed after a history of pollution incidents — but the ban will take effect only in 2015.—-Reuters
