More on the Prestige Spill

[Ed George <edgeorge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There hasn't been an enormous amount of coverage in the English language
media but the Prestige oil-spill off the coast of Galicia is having
dramatic repercussions here in the Spanish state.  Apart from the scale
of the spill - which is currently effecting an environmental disaster of
truly catastrophic proportions - the attitude of the Partido Popular
governments in both Madrid and Galicia has come under enormous
criticism.  The governments have been perceived, with a great deal of
justification, of having done effectively nothing to assist in the
tackling of the successive waves of oil.  The news that the oil that
sank with the tanker will not, as we had been reassured, remain at the
bottom of the sea only reinforces the picture, as do the daily
television pictures of local people and volunteers from all over the
Spanish state scooping up the toxic fuel oil from beaches with their
bare hands since there is a chronic lack of protective equipment
available to them (from a news report today volunteers from elsewhere in
the Spanish state who have come to assist the cleanup over the current
long holiday weekend have had to buy *themselves* from the authorities
protective clothing if they want to wear it).  More than once over the
last few days the state television station TVE has had to cut short its
daily live 'on-the-spot' news reports because of the crowds of local
people and volunteers on the beaches and quaysides who spontaneously
chant anti-government slogans - two examples from Saturday: 'Fraga,
Aznar: ¡Os Queremos Dununciar!' (Fraga, Aznar, We Denounce You!) and
'¡Televisión! ¡Manipulación!' (no translation necessary) - behind the
backs of the reporters speaking on prime-time television news.

As I write the slick (or rather slicks) are now heading for the northern
Spanish coast - Cantabria and País Vasco - and for both the French and
Portuguese coasts. This latter was welcomed by a PP spokesperson as
'good news for Spain', while PSOE (Socialists) and IU (Communist)
criticisms of the government's (lack of) action have been met by
condemnantion from deputy first minister Mariano Rajoy as 'unpatriotic'.

Incidentally, the Manuel Fraga - President of the Xunta of Galicia -
referred to below is a former minister of the Franco dictatorship.

Here are some snippets from the English language media of the last
couple of days.


Galicia boils with anger as black tide engulfs politicians

By Elizabeth Nash in Aguino, Galicia

07 December 2002

The black tide still spilling from the sunken tanker Prestige is lapping
at the heels of Spanish politicians, threatening to destabilise Spain's
ruling Popular Party in its Galician heartland.

Galicia's veteran leader Manuel Fraga cancelled plans to inaugurate a
bus station and sports centre in Lugo after slogans daubed in oil
appeared on the gleaming walls, calling for him to resign.

Lugo, in Galicia's conservative interior, is Mr Fraga's home territory
and political fortress. It was a dramatic warning of the growing rage
among Galicians at politicians' inability to grasp the magnitude of the
disaster.

As slicks advanced on Europe's finest mussel beds on Wednesday and
fishermen clawed filth from the sea with their hands, Mr Fraga travelled
to Madrid to inaugurate a book about herbal remedies of the convents and
monasteries of Spain.

Full: <http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=359258>


Licensed To Spill

By Elizabeth Nash The Sunday Herald

[snip]

This terrible week has revealed not just political indecisiveness but a
breathtaking lack of physical resources. Galicia has suffered four big
oil spills in 10 years but still has no specialist anti-contamination
ship to deal with them.

A French and a Dutch ship have been frantically trying to suck up the
giant slick that is embracing the coast, but nothing is available to
tackle the thick oil drifting on the high seas that was vomited by the
tanker as it sank to the ocean floor.

Mayors in the coastal towns railed against the central government. 'We
in the town halls are the most affected, and we are condemned to watch
impotently while the situation worsens,' said Lois Perez Castrillo,
mayor of Vigo, Europe's principle fishing port, second in the world only
to Tokyo.

Vigo is just south of the area contaminated but, with the Prestige lying
130 miles due west, the huge port is on the front line if the wind
should change and the ship continues to disgorge thousands of tons of
fuel. 'We are being deluged with offers of help but we have no powers to
do anything, not even provide equipment to clean up the beaches,'
Castrillo said.

Volunteers have converged upon the coast this weekend to help clear up
the mess but some had to abandon their efforts, or leave their stinking
piles of tar by the shore, because there weren't enough containers or
vehicles to cart them off.

More than a week after the ship started to leak, politicians started to
make their pilgrimages to the stricken shore, among them the elderly
conservative regional president Manuel Fraga, who reassured his
electorate that all would be well if they prayed to the Apostle Saint
James - patron saint of the regional capital Santiago.

Full: <http://www.gvnews.net/html/EnvironmentImpact/impactabs060.html>



Oil slick raises fear of 'Spanish Chernobyl'

By Leslie Crawford in Madrid

Published: December 9 2002 4:00

[snip]

In Madrid, Mariano Rajoy, Spain's deputy prime minister, said after an
emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday: "We must prepare ourselves for a
new invasion of fuel." In Brussels, meanwhile, Francisco Alvarez Cascos,
industrial development minister, told European Union colleagues that the
Prestige had triggered "a Spanish Chernobyl".

EU ministers agreed on Friday to bring forward a ban on single-hulled
tankers from 2015 to 2010. Tankers older than 23 years will also be
banned from EU waters.

The government's sudden concern has brought little comfort to the
fishing communities of Galicia, a bastion of the ruling Popular party
until the latest environmental disaster. When the first oil slick hit
Galicia three weeks ago, Mr Cascos was hunting in the Pyrenees. The
following weekend he was mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, south of
Granada. Manuel Fraga, Galicia's 80-year-old regional president and a
founding member of the Popular party, was shooting deer in central Spain
at the time of the disaster.

Full:
<http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1039366553215&p=1012571727166>

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