An Avoidable Disaster?

After breaking in half, the oil tanker Prestige finally went down 210 kilometers (130 miles) off the northwestern Spanish coast on Tuesday. The tanker, whose hull had cracked in a storm on Nov. 13, was carrying some 70,000 tons (18.5 million gallons) of oil, which now threatens birds, fish, marine mammals and plants along the Galician coast.

So far, 7,000 to 8,000 tons of oil have leaked into the ocean, according to Spanish officials. Experts hope that the cold sea temperatures and the high pressure will harden the oil, preventing it from spreading from the tanker.

But this isn't the first oil spill in the waters off Galicia. In December 1992, the Greek tanker Aegean Sea exploded in the Bay of Coruña, releasing 100,000 tons of crude oil and polluting 200 kilometers of the coast.

Environmentalists have been lobbying for tougher rules for international shipping for years, but policy-makers have been slow to respond. Under regulations previously approved by the European Union, the United States and the International Maritime Organization, only double-hulled tankers will be allowed to sail into ports from 2015. But critics say that must happen sooner.

"The 2015 deadline is much too long," says Hans-Ulrich Rösner, a spokesman for the conservation organization WWF. Greenpeace, meanwhile, estimates that more than 3,600 oil freighters are playing the seas that don't meet safety requirements.

Poor coordination

A further problem is that prevention usually doesn't begin until an accident has already happened. "That's what the 'Pallas' oil disaster in the northern German mud flats in late 1998 showed," the WWF expert points out.

Valuable time was lost in that accident because the various authorities failed to cooperate quickly. The German states are now setting up a shared headquarters to handle accidents effectively. "But we're afraid that it will be far from ready to significantly improve the situation for the next accident at sea," Rösner criticizes.

Since 1991, the Helsinki Commission (Helcom), focused on protecting the Baltic Sea, has coordinated containment efforts for oil spills. Each year an accident is simulated, most recently off the coast of Latvia. Instead of oil, Helcom uses popcorn, which behaves similarly, for the tests. The simulation was a success this past August: Within six hours the spill was under control thanks to Latvia's cooperation with its neighbors.

Helcom simulations, however, are limited to the Baltic Sea. In the nearby North Sea, oil was still being pumped out of the wreckage of the Pallas tanker months after it broke apart off Denmark's west coast.

Rusting fleets

Gradually clients, and not just shipping companies, are starting to be held responsible for transporting dangerous cargo. The tanker Erika sank off the coast of Brittany in 1999, spilling 13,000 tons of oil and turning the French public against Totalfina, the French oil company that had hired the vessel.

The Erika was 24 years old when it sank; Aegean Sea was 19. And Prestige, the sunken tanker off the Spanish coast was 26. The ships' old age is no coincidence: It is still cheaper to insure an old ship than to buy a new one.

Ministers in numerous countries bordering the Baltic Sea recently reached an agreement that crews should be required to receive training in environmental protection methods. But when it comes to the so-called "cheap" flag countries -- where ship registration is subjected to fewer fees and regulations -- such measures are not a matter of course. And in the case of Prestige, a Greek shipping company was sailing under the flag of the Bahamas.