Spain begins legal action over tanker slick
by agencies in galicia and london
www.londontimes.com
The Spanish Government has begun legal action over the environmental damage caused by the oil tanker Prestige, which leaked 6,000 tonnes of oil off the Spanish coast before sinking yesterday.
The Development Ministry in Madrid has said it had notified the ship's insurers, London Steamship, that a case was being filed against the company, the ship, its owner and its captain.
The Government has demanded a deposit of €60 million (£38.2 million) from the company as a guarantee against a possible future fine or compensation claim. The Government has also presented its case to the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund in London.
The tanker's Greek captain, Apostolus Maguras, has been charged in Spain with disobeying authorities and harming the environment.
There have been no new leaks from the tanker since it broke in two and sank, according to Arsenio Fernandez de Mesa, the government representative in Galicia. "We're controlling the evolution of the slicks both where the tanker sank as well as the around the coast of Galicia," he said.
But the chances of an ecological nightmare grew as salvage experts said it was unlikely millions of gallons of oil trapped on the ocean floor off Spain could ever be recovered and might seep into the ocean over time.
Lars Walder, of Dutch-based company Smit, which led the salvage operation, said the vessel was now two miles down on the Atlantic ocean floor and that although his company has the specialist equipment to to pump out oil in such environments he is unlikely to try.
More on the clean-up
The clean-up operation continued in Galicia today against the oil slick which is about 150 miles long and 15 miles wide. Ecologists rushed distressed sea birds coated in tar to a rescue centre in the regional capital of La Coruña, and hundreds of Navy officials joined volunteers on some beaches, shovelling and even vacuuming up thick black sludge.
Tony Blair and Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, today discussed the loss of the Prestige. The Prime Minister's spokesman said that they agreed to press the International Maritime Organisation to ensure that the agreement on phasing out single hull vessels was enforced on time. The Government intends to raise the issue at next month's EU summit in Copenhagen.
The spokesman again rejected any suggestion by the Spanish government that the disaster had been caused by the failure of the authorities at Gibraltar to inspect the vessel properly. He said the Prestige had only called once at the port to refuel in the last five years.
The ship had no history of major safety problems and had been inspected as recently as last month in St Petersburg according to the American Bureau of Shipping, a Houston, Texas-based firm that validates a ship's structural and mechanical fitness.
"At the time of this incident, the Prestige was fully in compliance with all of our requirements," said Stewart Wade, an ABS vice president.
A spokesman for the Greek ship manager Universe Maritime Ltd, complained that the ship's travels far off shore during the past week had exposed it unduly to storms.
The ship is owned by the Liberian-registered company Mare Shipping Incorporated. But it will be represented in the damage claims process by Universe Maritime Ltd, said a spokesman for the latter, Stephen Askins.
Mare Shipping's office is in Monrovia, but through the ship's managers the firm is eager to work with Spanish authorities, insurance companies and international maritime insurance funds that activate when major oil spills occur, Mr Askins said.
"There is no suggestion that the owner, as a small Liberian company, would be expecting people to try to find it in Liberia and register their claims," he said. |
