Storms hamper oil spill clean-up in Spain

FINISTERRE - Fierce gales and huge waves kept clean-up vessels in port yesterday as another oil slick from the sunken tanker Prestige menaced Spain's northwest coast, already polluted by hundreds of tonnes of toxic fuel oil.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and European Union Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio led growing calls for a crackdown on unseaworthy ships and the bringing forward of a ban on ageing single-hull tankers such as the Prestige.

Double-hull vessels are considered sturdier.

Volunteers and fishermen with shovels joined the painstaking battle to remove the stinking sludge washed ashore from the Prestige, which snapped in two and sank 130 nautical miles off Spain this week, six days after getting into difficulty in a storm.

The Prestige took most of its 77,000 tonnes of fuel oil to the ocean floor, about 3.6km below, but at least 10,000 tonnes is believed to have leaked into the Atlantic. Four specialist pollution-control ships from Germany, France, Norway and Britain were on their way to the disaster scene but strong winds and 6m-high waves forced three other ships already in the area to stay in dock.

The Spanish Government has put a price of at least 42 million euros ($83.8 million) on the clean-up from the disaster triggered by the Liberian-owned Prestige, which was sailing under a Bahamas flag.

"The means available are never sufficient, but we have a reasonable plan," Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told state television yesterday.

"There are more than 500 people there trying to remove the slick ... There could always be more."

Residents in Spain's northwest Galicia region criticised a lack of resources and organisation in tackling the disaster, which has already tainted about 300km of scenic coast and threatens the area's economic lifeblood of fishing.

At the rugged Mar de Fora beach in the town of Finisterre - meaning Land's End - blackened waves pounded the picturesque half-moon bay after the oil hit the shore.

About 10m of black sludge covered the sand where the tide had gone out, grounding a sea bird that was covered in sludge up to its neck. Rocky areas to either side of the beach oozed with oil about 15cm thick.

"More is coming in and the wind isn't helping at all," said a police officer.

The consensus of opinion was that risk from the oil that has gone down with the ship was low.

"The thing you have to remember," said the man from British Petroleum, "is that oil isn't 'oil'. It's not what you encounter in the shops. There are a lot of different types of it, in varying fractions."

The oil being shipped in the Prestige was heavy fuel oil, a dense, opaque petroleum derivative made from the unboiled material - the "bottoms", or residue - of crude oil that has been broken into smaller pieces.

"Even at room temperature it's as viscous as chewing gum," said Dr Ian White, managing director of the International Tanker Owners' Pollution Federation, which monitors the effects of tanker spills. "Once you get down to the bottom of the ocean - and it sank in 3500m of water - the water will be just a couple of degrees."

That will make the oil even less liquid, he said.

"From experience, we know that it's very likely just to stay there," said White.

"The oil just sits in the tanks, and is very likely to do so for decades."

Fears the tanks would rupture as the ship sank, spilling the oil into the ocean, were probably misplaced.

"Pressure does increase as you get deeper, but it only really affects gases. All tanks have vents to let air out. As this sank quite slowly, we could expect that the air was replaced by water. That means there's no reason for the hull to rupture" because there would be no significant pressure difference across it.

If it had been about to crumple, it would have done so on the way down. But the comparatively small volume of oil that has leaked out suggests that did not happen.

The hull was also unlikely to rust and decay once it reached the bottom, said White, because rusting required oxygen as well as water, and at that depth there was very little oxygen in the water.

- INDEPENDENT

Herald feature: Environment