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Winds drive oil to Spanish beaches
FINISTERRE, Spain (CNN) -- High winds have pushed a black tide of thick sludge to a once-pristine Spanish shore as oil from several other slicks threaten Spain's northwest coast. The beach at Finisterre is one of 90 along a 300 kilometre (180-mile) stretch of shoreline that have been affected so far. And the weather, with winds sometimes reaching gale force, has become a major obstacle to containing the spills from the oil tanker Prestige which sank on Tuesday, almost a week after first getting into trouble. Some of the barriers put in place to contain the spill have been broken up by the wind and high seas and more of the slicks could be pushed inland, officials said. About 80 percent of the 77,000 tons of diesel fuel originally on board the Prestige remains with the boat at the bottom of the sea, officials said, but they fear it will not remain there. The first wave of fuel from the sunken tanker -- a slick 70 miles long and five miles wide -- reached shore after the ageing ship sprung a leak in rough seas. The area's $300 million fishing industry has been hard hit and wildlife has suffered as well. "Nearly 20 species of birds have already been affected," said Simon Cripps, a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Spanish officials have estimated the damage from the initial wave of fuel to the fishing industry to be about $42 million -- but they do not know how much fuel may have spilled on Tuesday when the Bahamian-flagged Prestige finally split apart and slipped beneath the waves. As many as six undamaged containers settled on the ocean floor under pressure one expert described as like stepping on soda can. Salvage officials said the ship's stern sank first, quickly disappearing with little seepage of fuel from its tanks. The bow, however stayed afloat for several more hours. Officials said they did not immediately know whether a slick that has formed above the wreckage was a new spill or residual from the break-up. The Prestige went under about 210km (130 miles) off Spain's northwest coast, six days after being caught in heavy seas and gale-force winds off Cape Finisterre.
The environmental damage may be astronomical. Environmentalists feared the spill would be larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska's Prince William Sound, where 11 million gallons of crude oil spread over about 700 miles of coastline and killed as many as 700,000 birds, otters, seals and other wildlife. Greenpeace official Maria Jose Caballero said the sunken tanker is "a time bomb at the bottom of the sea." "It's very important in these sorts of catastrophes to act quickly," said the WWF's Cripps. "There are plans throughout the European Union and within Spain to deal with this ... to avoid an even larger environmental catastrophe." Even with a fast response, officials speculated, the clean-up effort might take as long as four years. The stern section of the Prestige, which contained about 24,000 tonnes (7.1 million gallons) of fuel, sank with its fuel tanks intact, said John Nixon, an official with Smit Salvage, the Dutch firm which had been attempting to move the ship away from the Spanish coast. Nixon described the spillage from the stern section as "minimal." He said the sea at that point is 3,600 metres (about 11,800 feet) deep and the contents of the tanks should congeal at the temperatures at that depth, minimising further damage. He said the bow section contained about the same amount of fuel as the stern. Environmental experts said the thick, viscous fuel is very difficult to clean up. One expert said it had the consistency of chewing gum. Spanish government teams were stringing orange ribbon-like barriers to protect the openings of inlets near the port of La Coruna. While the desperate efforts to contain the spill were ongoing, another battle loomed -- the blame game, made difficult because the single-hulled, older ship is Bahamian-flagged, Liberian-owned, Greek operated and leased by a Russian company based in Switzerland with offices in London. The Spanish government has already initiated action against the ship's owner, Mare Shipping, and its insurance company, the Interior Ministry said. -- CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman contributed to this report.
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