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Reporting
in progress - expect updates
the politics of irresponsibility —
Can the Spanish authorities be trusted?
the Prestige, March 2003
30.03.2003 As
French beaches are opened (no contact with the water allowed), the Spanish
authorities, yet again, are being criticised by their scientists, this
time for an irresponsible decision regarding fishing.
A technical journal from the University of Santiago de Compostela
reports that scientists would not have recommended the reopening of Spanish
fishing and shellfish activities in the majority of the zones affected
by the Prestige oil spill, until there were indisputable analyses
available that the waters concerned were no longer polluted. Of course,
the fish and molluscs will also need to be checked properly.
Fishing has been authorised in many regions of Galician waters since
early in March, even though the sunken tanker continues to leak oil, and
deposits are still being collected from the sea floor close to the coast.
23.03.2003 Closing
in on the culprits 
The
investigating commission [article in French] in Galicia will
hear evidence from three members of the crisis cabinet created on 13 November
2003. It was these three who later decided to send the already damaged
tanker, the Prestige, into the teeth of a Force 9 storm, with
result that it broke and then sank in over two miles (3.5 km) depth of
water. The three are
- José Luis Lopez Sors, director general of the Merchant Navy,
- Arsenio Fernandez de Meas, the central government attaché in
Galicia,
- Angel del Real Abella, harbour master of La Coruna.
Although Nunca Máis (Never Again), the Galician campaign group
born out of this mess, thinks that there is sufficient evidence for the
three to be closely questioned, we can expect the central Spanish government,
and their minions, to keep tryng to minimise their responsibility.
A
new Spanish web-site, independant of central and local Galician
government sources, has appeared. It provides information and links concerning
the Prestige sinking. This site [unfortunately in Spanish only]
is created by members of Spanish universities that the Spanish government
claimed to have asked for expert advice. The site includes, amongst much
else,
- the letter
by 422 Spanish scientists published in Science,
- reports on the consequences of oil spills and the significance for
the Prestige,
- photographs of clean-up operations,
- and information for volunteers.
17.03.2003 The
forgotten people
Four months after filthy, clinging oil started arriving on the beaches
of Galicia, as far as the regional and central governments are concerned,
the trouble has finished. Beaches are ‘clean’, sea fishing is
permitted in some sectors—this trying time is over and done with.
Except it is not.
The Galician fishermen have hired their own scientists at the University
of Coruna, to assess the cleanliness of the waters and whether the shellfish
are no longer contaminated. The fishermen say, this is like BSE, one has
to be very sure, and sure some more, before trusting that the local sea
produce is safe to eat. The scientists point out how tricky it is to ensure
that the shellfish are truly clean, given some of the hydrocarbons are
carcinogenic, that is capable of mutating DNA. Fishermen collect lumps
of oil from the bottom of the bays, the spider
crabs have oil-soiled claws, and the goose barnacles on the
rocks are also tainted.
The Galicians cleaning their rocks—still—are disheartened that
now no-one, other than the occasion foreign reporter comes to visit,.
They have not seen a Spanish TV crew since .... too long.
I suppose the Spanish authorities think, if everyone shuts up, the whole
horrible, embarrassing disaster will just go away, or most of the voters
in Madrid forget about it.
12.03.2003 Today, in the Galician Regional
Parliament, the opposition Nationalist and Socialist Parties intend to
appeal to the Constitutional Council, if the ruling Popular Party go ahead
with their intention to dissolve
the Commission of Investigation during full parliamentary session.
The PP, who also run Spain’s central government, have an absolute
majority in the Galician parliament.
The Popular Party (PP) say they will dissolve the investigatory commission
because the nationalists are using it “as a smokescreen” to
hide their internal divisions, while the socialists tag along. Meanwhile,
the opposition parties say that such dissolution is just a legal subterfuge
by the PP to liquidate an inquiry that is asking awkward questions.
The Socialist Party (PSOE) is not participating in the Commission of
Investigation as a protest to central government’s decision to forbid
those “in high positions”and those running “family companies
connected to the State administration” from being witnesses.
Previously, the central PSOE have denounced the government for trying
to prevent
University scientists from appearing as witnesses at the Galician
Commission of Inquiry; like, for instance, Professor Pablo Serret of Vigo
University. He has previously criticised the government for towing the
stricken tanker away from the coast, and for not consulting scientists.
Remember that the central Spanish government has repeatedly refused to
convene a Commission of Inquiry itself, for determining those responsible
for an ecological disaster worse than that of the Exxon
Valdez.
05.03.2003
French objectivity and Spanish official fantasy
A
French official report, by the Office for Accidents at Sea,
published today:
-
The likelihood that the Prestige was hit
by a floating object was “very probable”;
however, a design fault of the internal dividers, common in many tankers
of that size, meant that there was a “conceptual” structural
weakness;
- there had been various insufficient, or uncompleted, repairs;
- towing the ship, and righting its list to port, provoked supplementary
stresses on a structure that was [apparently] already starting to break
up;
- but it was the order by the Spanish that the tanker be dragged in
full storm, during 6 days, that was its death knell.
[Note this news item comes from a Spanish
source and, as such, must be looked at with scepticism, if not downright
mistrust.]
A
Spanish minister reckons that the oil still leaking from the
Prestige (officially 1 or 2 tonnes a day, but there are other reports
of 5 tonnes a day) is “disappearing” because “in 10 to
20 hours, it dissolves into the water”, or evaporates into the air.
The stuff that is arriving on Galician shores is ‘old’ oil,
has been in the sea for a month and, because it has degraded, will cause
minimal damage.
Obviously, Spanish government officials have never heard of ‘the
conservation of matter’, nor do they understand that the severe toxicity
in the oil will probably have just gone somewhere else, if it is no longer
in the degraded pollutant. Nor do they remember that oil and water do
not mix, let alone one ‘dissolving’ in the other!
A
lawyer at Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, in Galicia, thinks
that the silence of Madrid is intolerable.
“They are manipulating the press, forbidding
Spanish reporters to use the phrase black tide, while the representatives,
both of the Aznar government and locally, never stop minimising the
drama.
“We have to read foreign
newspapers to know how things are evolving.”
“The citizen’s movement, which is
growing rapidly, with hundreds of thousands of people and including
more than 300 associations allied to Nunca Mais (Never
Again in Galician). You can find everyone in our ranks – from a
Nobel Prize winner to civil guard trade unionists, by way of fishermen,
writers, shellfish collectors, actors and scientists.”
—
“Madrid has refused to create a commission of enquiry, we want
to know the truth and to demonstrate the responsibility of the Spanish
State and the Galician authorities.”
In
the light of the ever-accumulating evidence, it is clear that the Spanish
government, as well as the local Galician ‘Junta’,are lying
in order to avoid their responsibilities for this enormous disaster, while
assiduously trying to minimise its effects.
Related material
the Prestige debacle (March 2003)
photos
more ...
the web address for this article is
https://www.abelard.org/news/oii7.htm#oil050303-2
|
last updated
04.04.2003
Related material
the Prestige debacle (March 2003)
photos
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Reporting
in progress - expect updates
Sandcastles
– yes, swimming – no
—the Prestige, March 2003 |
| Latest reports |
|
| 23.03.2003
French mayors may now decide when they will let the public—sand-castle-building
holiday-makers—back on the beaches; but bathing is still forbidden.
The general consensus is that the beaches, at least superficially,
are the cleanest they have been for years.
One method for clearing all the little bits of oil mixed into the
sand has been to bundle the whole lot up into giant muslin-type
bags, and let the wave action of the tide wash out the sand, while
the oil remains trapped in the bags.
Meanwhile, the fishing ships off the southern Aquitaine
coast do their daily fishing for oil – a catch of
3.5 tonnes, of which two thirds is large bits of rubbish and wood
– is fairly typical. At the same time, no oil is being observed
out to sea.
On the Spanish ‘front’, oil still oozes from the wreck,
beaches in Galicia continue to be cleaned – the Spanish Development
minister asserting that they will all be clean by June 1st. Oil
still floats north of Santander and Bilbao, necessitating Spanish
oil-fishing duty. |
© 2003, abelard.org
Cleaned,
but off limits
Sources:
Xuntia
de Galicia (Click on Xeral,
under Situación Actual. For detailed maps of the
Gallician coast, click on Rias.) This site has regular
updates on where pollution from the Prestige has been observed.
CEDRE
This page has links to daily maps showing aerial observation
of pollution, and the progress on cleaning up the Aquitaine coast.
Unfortunately, the page is often a day behind.
Prefecture
Maritime d’Aquitaine regular reports on cleaning
the seas off France and northern Spain
IFREMER
(Reports on the Nautile.)
Institut
Hidrografico (this site has not been
updated since 06.01.03) |
| 
© 2003, abelard.org
Prestige
oil on the beach |
Slow
return to life....
17.03.2003 Biarritz
beach is the latest Aquitaine beach to be re-opened to the public,
by order of the town’s mayor. The sea is till off limits, everyone
awaiting an announcement from the Prefect (the central government’s
representative in a department).
Lumps of oil have been spotted south-west of South Brittany, while
there is still oil to collect off the North Spanish coast. The short-term
prediction is for winds to blow it north-east, away from the coasts.
|
| Meanwhile, back at the cliff-face on
the ‘Coast of Death’ in Galicia ....
Four months after the first oil arrived from the Prestige, tar-covered
fishermen and their wives still scrape at inaccessible rocks with
trowels. A Spanish military helicopter lifts off the huge white
sack of oil, it is impossible to use any other method.
They have collected about 2,500 tonnes of oil from the rocks in
those four months and there is still much more to clean off.
The beaches
look clean....
12.03.2003 Cleaning up has all but finished on French beaches.
The beaches of Les Landes will be opened again to the public on
the 1st April, after the big equinoctial tides and in good time
for the Easter holiday visitors.
The Spanish Minister of the Environment is convinced that
Galician
beaches would be “perfectly
clean” by 1st June. The Galician Junta says that
69% (498) of their beaches
are now clean. 20% (145 beaches) still have some oil
on them, while 11% (80 beaches) have some oil on the rocks.
When the weather permits, ’planes and helicopters spot floating
patches of oil in the Bay of Biscay (Gulf de Gascogne) for French
and Spanish fishermen to fish out.
2.1 tonnes of oil from the Prestige were fished from near
the Ile d’Yeu, north of La Rochelle, while oil-balls were seen
off Charente-Maritime, further north still. The oil collected today
from near Finistere in Brittany (at the entrance to the English
Channel) has gone for analysis, to determine whether more Prestige
oil has drifted that far.
Collections of oil pancakes were spotted yesterday off the North
Spanish coast near Santander. Some of the oil was dispersed and
some was in shoals of various sizes: 30 bits of 2 metre diameter
in one case and in another, 100 bits of 1 metre diameter.
As always, now that the escaping oil flow has been reduced to 1
to 2 tonnes a day, where the wreck sunk, there is an ‘iridescence’.
The escaping oil, for the most part, emulsifies with the water before
reaching the surface.
05.03.2003 Although the northern Aquitaine
beaches are now open again to the public, those of Les Landes and
Pyrenees Atlantique are still forbidden.
Regularly, teams of professionals are still digging up and removing
lumps of fuel oil from the sandy beaches.
The French are preparing the oil sludge from the sea and beaches,
in order to recycle it by burning it in furnaces used for cement
manufacture.
Fishing ships patrol the Aquitaine and Basque coasts, still fishing
out oil, though in smaller quantities.
The Portugal
current changes direction
in April (to go southwards), so do the prevailing winds (from west
to eastwards). Thus, the various authorities hope that the days
of oil-fishing and beach cleanup will end, as the sea and winds
sweep the remaining oil into the wide Atlantic and thence, who knows
where. |
Related
material
The politics of irresponsibility (March 2003)
the Prestige debacle (Feb 2003)
The politics of irresponsibility
(Feb 2003)
The
politics of irresponsibility (Jan 2003)
The Prestige
debacle, part 2 (Nov. & Dec.2002)
The politics of irresponsibility (Nov & Dec
2002)
The Prestige
debacle, part 2 (Nov. & Dec.2002)
Another potential
ecological oil mess (Nov. 2002)
World oil
resources
World oil
reserves and oil-based fuel development
World
primary energy consumption (at the end of 2001)
Oil
technical information and data
photos
the web address for this article is
https://www.abelard.org/news/oil7.htm#oil050303
|
last updated 23.03.2003
Related material
The politics of irresponsibility (March 2003)
the Prestige debacle
(Feb 2003)
The politics of irresponsibility
(Feb 2003)
photos
more ... |
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