...here is the picture Drudge had:
Posted on 11/18/2002 6:02:12 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Rescue craft from across Europe were racing to the stricken oil tanker Prestige, 60 miles off the Portuguese coast, last night in a desperate attempt to stave off a looming ecological disaster.
More than 4,000 tons of oil has already smothered Spain's rugged Galician shoreline of the Costa de la Muerte from Finisterre to La Coruna. The shoreline is the main source of a wide variety of shellfish, from scallops and mussels to exotic delicacies such as Percebes (goose barnacles) and spider crabs, vital to the Spanish region's depressed economy.
Should the Prestige break up and spill its 21 million gallons of oil, a far greater disaster threatens, on double the scale of the 1989 Exxon Valdez episode in Alaska, still considered the world's worst environmental oil spill. The Exxon Valdez lost 11 million gallons.
The ageing Prestige has a 50ft gash in its hull, with a new crack reported in an oil tank. Tugs from a salvage company managed to turn the vessel around yesterday, so the damaged hull is no longer facing the waves. The risk of it splitting in two was reduced, but far from eliminated as a row erupted between Spain and Portugal over which nation was now responsible for the vessel.
As the ship drifted into Portuguese waters, arguments raged over whether it should be sunk, burnt at sea or have its cargo syphoned to another vessel. Neither Spain nor Portugal would allow the vessel into port, and the mayor of La Coruna, Francisco Vasquez warned that today might bring the greatest danger, because the wind was forecast to turn and gust inshore.
The Exxon Valdez clean-up effort cost $2.1bn (£1.3bn) and some Alaskan beaches are still oiled. It took 10,000 workers, 1,000 boats and 100 planes and helicopters. Hundreds of thousands of seabirds, bald eagles and otters were killed as well as up to 22 killer whales.
All fishing along the Galician coast has been suspended indefinitely. The devastation along the beautiful shore is almost complete. In the hardest-hit areas, lines of sombre fisherman and their weeping womenfolk shovelled away stinking blankets of filth that enveloped the shellfish beds.
Xose Manuel, a fisherman in the village of Corme in the area worst affected, west of Malpica, held out a dripping, reeking handful of knobbly percebes, among the most prized shellfish harvested in the region. "See these? I would have got 14,000 pesetas a kilo for these beauties at Christmas time. Now they're ruined, and so are we."
Galicia's coast is already depopulated because of poverty and a prolonged fishing crisis. Wildlife groups and fishermen's spokesmen said the effect of the spill could be worse than the disaster 10 years ago when the Aegean Sea leaked oil in the same area. That spill halted shipping for more than a month.
This one has left unknown numbers of seabirds dead or covered with oil in an area renowned as a haven for gannets, cormorants and guillemot, an endangered species. Environmentalists say the damage pales in comparison with the potential disaster if the ship breaks up.
The Prestige's Greek captain, Apostolus Maguras, is in detention in La Coruna, accused of disobeying authorities and harming the environment. Maritime authorities say he failed to co-operate with rescue crews after sending a distress call on Wednesday. For hours, as the Prestige drifted perilously close to shore, Captain Maguras refused to let tugboats secure cables to his stricken ship, officials said. He is also said to have stopped the motors, for fear of worsening the gap in the hull, thereby allowing the vessel to be blown towards shore.
France, Holland, Italy and Britain have sent tugs and skimmers to clear up the mess. Eighteen miles of inflatable barriers are being unrolled to try to keep floating islands of slick from washing up along the coast including the ports of La Coruna and El Ferrol, but in many cases these broke, or failed to hold back the advancing black sludge.
Additional reporting by Xose Hermida of 'El Pais'
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Salvage company manages to turn damaged oil tanker to reduce chances of splitting
By ED McCULLOUGH, Associated Press Writer A CORUNA, Spain - A salvage company managed Monday to turn a damaged tanker so that its ruptured hull no longer faces the waves — reducing the risk the ship will split and spill the nearly 20 million gallons of fuel oil that remain on board.
But as tugboats continued to pull the Prestige southwest, away from Spain, and the salvagers sought a port to carry out repairs or transfer the oil to another vessel, Portugal warned it would not allow the crippled ship into any of its ports.
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Durao Barroso, speaking in the northern city of Porto, said the Bahamas-registered oil tanker would not be allowed into any of the country's ports.
"That ship has already caused an ecological disaster," Durao Barroso said.
The Prestige spilled more than 800,000 gallons of fuel when it ruptured during a storm Wednesday, blackening sea birds and beaches near the Spanish city of A Coruna and prompting Spain to close some 96 kilometers (60 miles) of its coastline to fishing.
If the tanker, located about 160 kilometers (100 miles) off Spain's coast as of Monday night, loses its entire cargo, the spill would be nearly twice the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska.
The Portuguese Navy was sending a warship to the limit of Portugal's territorial waters to prevent the Prestige entering without permission, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported.
The tanker has leaked additional fuel into the rich fishing grounds off Spain's northwest coast, said Lars Walder, spokesman for the Dutch SMIT salvage company.
The amount of the additional spill was not immediately known.
The Spanish government warned late Monday that the oil could seep into some of the many inlets that penetrate the Galician coast. It all depends on the sea's currents, the Interior Ministry said.
The ship is roughly on the border of areas for which Spain and Portugal have responsibility for maritime rescue operations, the ministry added. SMIT, the salvage company that recovered the Russian submarine Kursk (news - web sites) last year, is seeking to tow the Prestige to a port for repairs, Walder said. Spain has barred the company from towing the ship to any of its ports, in an attempt to protect its fishing and tourism industries from further damage. The salvage company said it had reduced the chances of the Prestige splitting and losing its entire cargo. "We've been able to turn the ship around so that the damaged hull is not facing the waves, and that certainly reduces the chances of the ship breaking up," Walder said. Crews cleaned beaches and skimmed oil from the sea's surface, but the Spanish Development Ministry said a new slick was approaching unspoiled coastal stretches of Rias de Nova and Arosa. "The dangers are the isolated slicks that are arriving ashore," regional fish councilor Enrique Lopez Veiga said. "But if no more fuel hits the coast, the cleanup could be finished in a month." The Spanish government's decision to have the ship towed out to sea and to set up skimmers and other barriers to protect its coast appeared to reduce the effects of the spill. Still, soldiers could be seen shoveling blackened sand into bags along the shore in the fishing village of Caion, near A Coruna. Several birds, including cormorants and gannets, were taken to animal shelters after they were found covered in oil. The northwestern coastline of Galicia is Spain's chief source for a wide variety of fresh shellfish, from scallops and mussels to more exotic delicacies such as goose barnacles and spider crab. It is also known as the "Coast of Death" for its many shipwrecks. "People here live off fishing," Antonio Gonzalez, a middle-aged salesman, said as he walked his dog along the boardwalk of Caion's beach. "Will we be able to eat at ease something that comes out of polluted waters?" The tanker's Greek captain, Apostolus Maguras, was being held on US$3 million bail after he was jailed on charges of disobeying authorities and harming the environment. The ship, owned by the Greek company Mare Shipping Incorporated, was bound for Singapore when the storm hit. Spanish authorities asserted the Prestige hadn't been inspected since 1999, despite regular stops in the British colony of Gibraltar — a charge that Britain denied. Spain's northwest coast has suffered several tanker accidents in recent years. The worst was in 1992, when the Greek tanker Aegean Sea lost 21.5 million gallons of crude oil when it ran aground near A Coruna.
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