How about this as a potential boon to ship builders?:
January 22, 2000
LE CROISIC JOURNAL
Oil Spreads Gloom on Brittany Shore
By SUZANNE DALEY
LE CROISIC, France, Jan. 20 -- J‚r“me Guiheneuf works for this
little fishing village on the Brittany coast tending to its parks and
gardens. But these days he can usually be found on the beach in a
disposable white jumpsuit, which from a distance makes him look like an
astronaut.
Up close the work he is doing, trying to scoop and scrape tons of gluey
black oil off the sand and the rocks, has taken its toll. He is splattered
with the stuff and it smells bad. He says there is nothing much to be done
about it. He is out here with every municipal worker who can be spared:
the electricians, the carpenters, the painters.
"It is such demoralizing work," Mr. Guiheneuf said, leaning on his shovel.
"It breaks our hearts to see this. Even when the beach looks clean, it
isn't. You see a little glob and underneath there is more. It will be here for
years, sticking to our feet."
That is what almost everyone in Le Croisic is worried about. It is the
same up and down the coast here. More than 200 miles of beachfront
has been splattered with the thick crude oil since the tanker Erika broke
up in stormy seas 65 miles off the coast on Dec. 12.
The oil lapping ashore has the consistency of hot tar. It clings to
everything, a shimmering black menace stretching its tentacles over white
sand and mossy-green boulders.
Many of the oyster beds along the coast have been polluted. The salt
beds could be ruined soon. And the hundred of thousands of tourists
who pour into these towns each summer may look elsewhere this year,
which would be a financial disaster for everyone here, including Le
Croisic's 4,300 year-round inhabitants.
French officials have promised that the oil will be cleaned up by the end
of March. More than 800 soldiers have been sent to shovel, and work
programs for the unemployed have directed their efforts at the beaches
too. Everywhere it seems that the shoreline is interrupted by tractors,
huge steel vats, cranes and trucks ready to carry the foul-smelling oil
debris away.
But the Erika oil spill is only one of France's recent disasters. The country
is also trying to recover from the two fierce December storms that
destroyed a quarter of the country's electric grid and knocked about 270
million trees to the ground.
The people here fear they will be forgotten. In the early days of the spill
thousands of volunteers turned up on the beaches ready to pitch in with
the cleanup. But that was during the holidays. Now everyone is back at
work.
"I bet you see the forests near Paris fixed up before we get taken care
of," Mr. Guiheneuf said. His colleagues nodded in agreement.
Gerard Lemerle, the president of Le Croisic's tourism office, sounds near
desperation. He has done a survey on reservations this year, comparing
them with last year's. They are down 85 percent.
"Maybe France is in a state because of the storms," Mr. Lemerle said.
"But people do usually make vacation plans six months ahead of time."
France is still investigating what happened to the Erika. A preliminary
report issued last week found that the spill had probably been caused by
a rusty bulkhead. At first the crew, all citizens of India, were detained.
But they have since been absolved of blame and released.
The criticism has focused instead on the French company TotalFina for
hiring the Maltese-registered boat. Investigators found that at least one
other oil company, Shell, had rejected the boat as unseaworthy.
President Jacques Chirac toured Le Croisic's beaches today and sat
down to talk with local officials. Some said they had heard that the
government was going to help them, but when they called local offices
nothing was in place.
One fisherman, Pascal Chellet, described the regulations governing his
work, including the various temperatures for holding bins and the inside
of trucks.
"I have to ask you," he said. "How is it that I have to follow all these rules
and this boat is allowed out in such a state of disrepair?"
Mr. Chirac promised that France would push for international rules
including banning old and single-hulled vessels like the Erika from
European ports and the fulfillment of a Europe-wide monitoring system.
But some of those who listened were not convinced.
"We will see," said Philippe Genot, who works in a fish store in town and
has lately spent his days answering questions from customers concerned
about his products. "Politicians talk."
The Erika broke in two, spilling 10,000 to 12,000 tons of heavy fuel into
the sea. After floating for 15 days, the fuel was brought to shore when
two storms rolled into Europe over the Christmas holiday.
Cleanup efforts have so far picked up more than 75,000 tons of a
mixture of oil, sand, stones and water. Experts estimate that about 10
percent of it is oil. For the time being it sits in storage. No one knows
what to do with it.
The amount of oil is far smaller than a spill north of here in 1978,
when the Amoco Cadiz dumped 220,000 tons of light fuel. It is smaller,
too, than the Exxon Valdez spill, which dumped 44,000 tons of light fuel
off the coast of Alaska.
But some environmentalists say the size of the Erika spill belies the
damage the heavier fuel can do. Bruno Rebelle, the director general of
the environmental organization Greenpeace France pointed out that the
Erika spill had already killed thousands more birds than the Amoco spill.
"The lighter fuel evaporates," Mr. Rebelle said. "It is more toxic, but it
goes away faster. This heavy fuel is just not biodegradable, and there is a
cancer factor if it accumulates in the food chain."
Out on the beach, Yann Drouin, 22, who usually just collects
unemployment benefits, volunteered to shovel for a salary of about $500
a month. Mr. Drouin, who lives 40 miles away, said pitching in made him
feel good.
"Of course, I would rather not do this work," he said. "I would rather this
mess wasn't here."'
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company |
