PRESTIGE: NEVER AGAIN

On Wednesday November 13th 2002 the Prestige, an old oil tanker property of a company with residence in Liberia, with Bahamas flag, Greek ship-owner and rented by a Russian company with its base in Switzerland and London, tried to pass near the Galician coast, one of the “oil corridors” (similar in this sense to the Aegean Sea). The bad weather and the bad conditions of the sea opened a fissure on the side, in one of the oil tanks. The crew asked for help at 14:50, but the tugging didn’t start until 21 hours later because of the differences of opinion about the tugging contract. Through out the night, the ship sailed adrift along the coast, at times being only 3 miles away.

For the next 6 days the Prestige was tugged first northwards and then, on Friday, the tug-boat company changes, and started going southwards. On Sunday 17th the Portuguese authorities warned about the proximity of the boat to their territorial waters, so the ship had to change direction a second time to the southwest, until it broke in two pieces, sinking, on Tuesday 19th, 250 km away from the Galician coast.

In the meantime, the oil started to reach the coast on the morning of Saturday 16th and over the next 4 days, 500 km of coast would be affected by the oil spill.

Most of the technicians, as well as University professors and others, think that the decisions taken by the government during those days were incorrect. The ship should have been driven to a close port, so that the oil could be transferred from the ship reducing the affected area and the length of the oil-spill. There were also complaints about the fact that the highest authorities of the regional government went hunting this same weekend when the oil tanker was sailing, spreading oil all along the coast.

Galicia is the first fishing region in Europe, the first in employment related with the sea and the first in production (aquaculture) of some species like mussel and turbot. Around 10-15% of the Gross Domestic Product here is related with the sea, reaching the 30% in some places, as the Ria de Arousa, part of the “Lower Estuaries” (Rias Bajas), one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the world.

When the ship sank in pieces, 6000 ton or more of oil was released around the sinking site. This oil started to reach the coast during the night of Wednesday 20th; the barriers, however, arrived on Thursday 21st, and were few and ineffective because of the bad weather. This second oil spill would be longer than the first one; it affected the same area already polluted by the first one, as well as new ones. The northern coast of Galicia would be polluted too, and later, in the first days of December the oil reached the Lower Estuaries, although the government was still saying in its press conferences that it was almost impossible and would never happen. Because of this lack of foresight, there were no means to stop the oil and protect the coast in this area, so fishermen took it upon themselves to go out in the open sea to stop the spilling and collect the fuel with their own boats and, in many cases, with their own hands. After 48 hours fighting, they managed to clean all the oil next to the coast, in such a way that only small parts arrived in the inner estuary. Nevertheless, the islands in the entrance of the estuaries, the only National Park in the region, were polluted massively (90% of the area in some of them), being affected some of its most important values, as marine birds and underwater ecosystems. The same day the oil reached also the other northern Spanish regions: Asturias, Cantabria and the Basc Country.

1) Site where the Prestige sank on Tuesday, 19 November 2002
2) 226km to Cape Finisterre
3) 211km to Complejo de Corrubedo - a RAMSAR site
4) 226km to Atlantic Islands National Park.
The oil reached all these points

By these first days of December, on 6th, the government spokesman had to admit that the Prestige was still pouring out 125 tons of oil every day from the place where it sunk. For two weeks prior he maintained that the oil would freeze at that temperature and pressure, even if the CEDRE (Institute of Toxicology of France) always said than the fuel wouldn’t freeze and would continue flowing.

A huge quantity of petrol, a “spot” the size of Menorca, threatened all the Galician coast for more than two weeks from 13th December. The changing wind direction caused the oil spill to threaten new areas each day. The despair of seeing the oil spill continuously made the people wish the ship to explode:

“Make it explode so that all the oil comes at once, then we can clean it and finish with this. We cannot manage with this any more.”

At last, in January the oil spill would arrive to the west coast of France, where the differences in the management of the crisis between the two governments would be clear.

Galicia was the most affected region, with 80% of the seaboard polluted, and small quantities of petrol are still arriving on the beach from time to time. After five petrol-tanker accidents from 1970 in Galicia (Polycomander 1970; Urquiola 1976; Andros Patria 1978; Scatrade 1980; Aegean Sea 1992), we are still without an antipollution ship, similar to those of the European countries (for every 10 ton of oil recovered in the sea it avoids 100 ton of oil contaminated sand and sediments in land). We are without any efficient control in the passage of these ships by our coast; without any emergency plan against similar situations, and we have found the complete absence of information and involvement from the government. Several offers of antipollution ships from other countries were refused in the beginning by the central government because “it was not necessary”. During almost 15 days there was no answer from its part to the necessary petrol withdrawal. When there was, it was just regularizing the already existing volunteer action and sending, at last, some personal from the Army. The personel dedicated to the oil withdrawal worked for a long time without means, guarantee, management or even education for the volunteers. Volunteers risked damaging the ecosystems when they were trying to clean beaches, just because they didn’t know how to do it properly without spreading and burying the fuel.

Also, we were witnesses of the catastrophe and its consequences but the government continued to mislead us, showing a complete scorn for the coast, its people and economy. The central government spokesman’s press conferences were always denied in less than 12 hours, by the facts announced in some private TV channels or by Portugal and France. It appears that  the government, because of the impossibility of controlling the situation, chose to hide the information by deceitfully reassuring messages, developing obstacles for the media, lies and even censorship (forbidding for example the flights over the sinking zone). This kind of system doesn’t work when it is perfectly evident what’s going on and people can contrast it with false official information. The government even prohibited the public TV workers from  using the term “oil spill”.

All this has produced a huge social reply, not seen before creating some of the largest demonstrations seen since the fall of the dictatorship. The majority of the society have asked for responsibilities and resignations of government officials. These have been common facts for the last two months in the coast and in the main towns.

Now it’s time to think about the consequences. More than 10 years will be necessary to recover the sea. Previous studies point out the disappearance of species and other disturbances in the marine ecosystems. The damage is extended to a large variety of organisms, given that the pollution is present in several levels in the water column and that exits the problem of the setting of the fuel in the sea bottom. At the beginning of December it was estimated that more than 10,000 birds had died including a number of endangered species. It’s almost sure that some species, like the guillemot (Uria aalge), of which only around a dozen couples were left, will disappear. The 40% of the places proposed in Galicia to be part of the Natura 2000 net were affected, as well as many of the values that lead to the definition of the Atlantic Islands National Park. These ecological losses together with the problems in the coastal economy and the subsidies granted to fisherman will create, (according to psychologists) a high percentage of depressed and alcoholic people in the future.

So there is a lot of work to do, and while the work is being done, the people are asking only one thing: NEVER AGAIN.
 

by Ana Vilas Paz
Marine Scientist from Vigo, Spain
Member of Archipelagos Aigaiou researcher team