The Never-Ending Oil Spill

Western Europe's worst environmental disaster is unfolding at this very moment, but it's receiving little coverage here in the U.S -- even though a similar disaster could occur at any time in U.S. waters.

The single-hull oil tanker Prestige split in two and sank off the coast of Spain on Nov. 18. Oil slicks, however, are still washing up onto the shores of Northwest Spain and threatening the coasts of Portugal and southern France. Oil is leaking from 14 cracks in the Prestige's bow and stern sections -- a total of about 33,000 gallons per day, which has formed an oil slick 35 miles long and 11 miles wide above the area where the tanker sank. So-called "experts," who said that all that heavy fuel oil would solidify when it hit the cold temperature and high pressure two miles beneath the sea, were obviously wrong.

Two oil slicks have already washed ashore in the Galician region of Spain, contaminating one of the most productive ocean fisheries and shellfish beds in Europe. The fishermen of Galicia -- some 21,000 of them -- run out a fleet of boats that is larger than all the rest of the fishing fleets in Europe put together. Most of these boats are family operations, with small crews. In addition, Galician shellfish gatherers supply Western Europe with a host of delicacies, from crabs, clams, cockles and mussels, to the exquisite goose barnacle which is found nowhere else in the world.

All of this food is much appreciated by marine mammals, too, including dolphins, porpoises and several species of whales -- minke, fin, pilot, sperm, Cuvier's beaked whales and Risso's whales -- which draw tourist cruises from England, France and Spain. Galicia's rocky coast and sheltered, hard-to-reach coves provide some of the best wintering habitat for seabirds from all over the North Atlantic region and Europe, including gannets, razorbills, guillemots, cormorants, puffins, gulls and petrels.

The effect of the oil has been devastating. The Spanish government closed the Galician fisheries and 1,000 miles of coastline, putting most of Galicia's population immediately out of work just before the height of the fishing and shellfish season. Environmental groups estimate that 15,000 birds have died so far, including rare and protected species.

The Prestige could go on leaking its remaining cargo of 20 million gallons -- approximately twice what the Exxon Valdez spilled into Prince William Sound in Alaska -- for years, possibly until the year 2006. Lessons learned from the Exxon Valdez oil spill show that it could take more than a decade for the shellfish population to revive, and most of the area's mammals may never fully recover. At least two threatened bird species will likely become extinct: the Balearic shearwater and Spain's dwindling population of guillemots. Ditto for Galician family fishermen.

This is terrible news, but most people in the U.S. think it has no bearing on us. After all, we have a law in place -- the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (enacted after the Exxon Valdez spill) -- that will phase out aging, single-hull oil tankers like the Prestige by 2015. But Europe has the same type of law, enacted after the single-hull oil tanker Erica spilled oil off the coast of Brittany three years ago, and that didn't stop the current disaster from happening.

Until the ban goes into effect in 2015, the international maritime inspection system is supposed to prevent unseaworthy vessels from carrying oil. In fact, the Prestige has been inspected several times recently, including by the U.S. Coast Guard, which cleared it to sail. In 1991, the Prestige sailed to China to have cracks in its hull welded. Rescue operators who attempted to salvage the Prestige before it sank think that those cracks might have been responsible for the leak, and that the ship split in two along the line of one or more of those welds. Obviously there's something wrong with the current international inspection and repair system.