Tanker spills remaining fuel near Galapagos as captain detained

Galapagos National Park rangers set a floating barrier to contain leaking diesel fuel around the tanker Jessica

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PUERTO BAQUERIZO, Galapagos Islands -- The captain of a tanker that spilled at least 185,000 gallons of diesel into this fragile marine environment has been detained, officials said Wednesday.

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Capt. Tarquino Arevalo was detained in Puerto Baquerizo on San Cristobal Island, officials said.

"I have requested penalties of prison for the vessel's captain and for the company (owners)," said Ecuadorean Environment Minister Rodolfo Rendon.

The captain has not been formally arrested, but was being held for questioning. Authorities said convictions on charges of negligence and crimes against the environment could carry prison sentences of up to two to four years.

The tanker Jessica, which started leaking fuel three days after it ran aground January 16 off San Cristobal Island, spilled the last of its cargo late Tuesday, apparently after pounding surf caused new ruptures in its hull.

Capt. Ramiro Morejon, chief of control and marine monitoring for Galapagos National Park, said the ship ran aground because a signal buoy had been mistaken for a lighthouse. The tanker regularly transported diesel and bunker, a heavy fuel used by tour boats, into the Galapagos from the mainland. It carried some 234,000 gallons of fuel when it hit bottom 550 yards (500 meters) off San Cristobal, the easternmost island in the Galapagos archipelago.

An international team of recovery workers had stemmed the leak, but not before some 170,000 gallons escaped into the water. About 50,000 gallons more were unloaded from the ship before spilling. Workers suspended operations and were waiting out rough tides when the ship's remaining cargo -- an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 gallons of fuel -- spilled out late Tuesday.

How much of an environmental setback the additional spill represented was not immediately clear. Officials scattered dispersants and established a perimeter of floating containment buoys.

"We have taken all precautions to confront this situation," said Eliecer Cruz, director of the Galapagos National Park.

A U.S. Coast Guard team helped recover about 10,000 gallons of fuel from the tanker.

Earlier Tuesday, it had appeared that nature was providing a helping hand for the islands -- an ecosystem populated by species found nowhere else in the world and an inspiration for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Authorities said fortuitous winds and strong currents had shifted the direction of the spilled diesel to the northwest, where there are no major islands.

The Galapagos, 600 miles (1,000 km) west of the Ecuadorean mainland, is the country's main tourist attraction.

Despite the wind shift, the spill has taken a toll on the chain's unique wildlife.

Oil reached Santa Fe Island, 35 miles (60 km) west of San Cristobal, the easternmost island in the Galapagos archipelago and home to large colonies of sea lions and marine iguanas. Rendon said one pelican had died and that the fuel had harmed some 40 other animals, including sea lions, seagulls, blue-footed boobies and albatrosses, which had been rescued and cleaned.

Robert Bensted-Smith, director of the Charles Darwin Research Station, said long-term damage was still being assessed.

He said that beside the strong currents pushing the fuel out to sea, strong sunshine helped evaporate some of the oil. But, he said, there was evidence that an undetermined quantity of sea urchins and seaweed died on San Cristobal.

A pelican coated with diesel fuel dries his wings on top of a boat

One long-term threat is that the escaped fuel will sink to the ocean floor, destroying algae that is vital to the food chain. That could threaten marine iguanas, sharks, birds that feed off fish and other species, officials say.

"So far the number of animals affected or killed is relatively low," journalist Guy Hedgecoe told CNN from Quito, Ecuador. "But the worry obviously, is that the fuel could have a longer term impact on the life cycle of the Galapagos."

Ecuador declared a state of emergency Monday to speed up funding for the cleanup. But the World Wildlife Fund hopes Ecuador does more. The international conservation organization on Wednesday called on the national government to enforce with urgency its own laws on protection of the oil-threatened islands.

And it said the current cleanup operation could be only the beginning of efforts to ensure that the unique flora and fauna of the Galapagos could survive in the future.

Ecuador should "urgently approve and apply a series of regulations to ensure effective implementation of the Special Conservation Law for the archipelago," the Geneva, Switzerland-based group said.

CNN Mexico City bureau chief Harris Whitbeck, The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

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