Editorials
Five years since the Prestige went down
By h.b. - Nov 13, 2007 - 7:28 AM
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EDITORIAL COMMENT
The oil tanker tragedy in the Black Sea last weekend was a timely reminder, if one was needed, that today is the 5th anniversary of the Prestige Oil Disaster – the largest environmental disaster in Spanish history.
A series of confused decisions finally resulted in the Prestige Oil Tanker, registered in the Bahamas and owned by a Liberian company, being towed out to sea off Galicia’s so-called Coast of Death. The hull would finally break into two on November 19. An estimated 63,000 tons of fuel oil then made its way from the wreck to the coasts of Portugal, Galicia and Cantabria.
The fishing industry in these areas, together with the shellfish beds in Galicia were hard hit. The World Wildlife Fund estimated that 300,000 seabirds died.
Where are we five years on? Repsol has extracted the remaining oil from the wreck and continues with regular inspections. We are told by Government that the Prestige no longer poses a threat to the environment, but that comes after 147 million € was paid out by the Spanish Government in compensation and 153 million € more to local town halls in the affected areas.
A new EU law which was supposed to hold ship owners and Captains responsible in such cases back in 2005, but the lawyers are not happy, and a new draft is still being drawn up after a first attempt to introduce the legislation failed.
The plan to phase out single-hull tankers has been brought forward as a consequence of the Prestige disaster, but even so the EU legislation has a final cut off date for some vessels of as late as 2010 in some cases.
The actual trial in the Prestige case is now expected to start in Spain at the end of next year.
We can only hope when the new legislation is introduced, and after the punishments are handed down in the Prestige case, that owners of such vessels will take all the necessary safeguards in the future.
It is just shameful that it takes so long for such measures to come to court and into legislation, because all we can do in the meantime is keep our fingers crossed that it won’t happen again.
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