Spanish minister blames salvage firm for tanker spill

Amid increasing criticism over the Spanish government’s handling of the Prestige disaster, Environment Minister Jaume Matas blamed a Dutch salvage company for the spillage of millions of gallons of toxic fuel oil from the sunken tanker last week, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Questioned about the salvage company SMIT’s criticism of Spain for having forced it to tow the stricken Prestige out to sea, instead of providing a shelter for it to be repaired, Matas told the daily La Razon: “It’s a disgrace that we should have to provide explanations for these people.”

“They are the ones who provoked the spill. The government has done everything possible to avert a greater damage and to solve the problem.”

Matas did not, however, give details as to how the company may have caused the spillage. SMIT dismissed the allegations.

“We completely reject the charges,” spokesman Lars Walder told The Associated Press by phone from Rotterdam. ”We wanted a place to repair the vessel and Spain made us go out to sea with a ship that was sinking and leaking oil. That was the worst of all possible solutions.”

SMIT, which took charge of the Prestige after it nearly ran aground on November 13, repeatedly claimed that it needed a sheltering port or bay to repair the ship or to transfer its near 77,000-ton (20 million gallons) fuel oil cargo onto another vessel.

It argued that the Spanish government’s decision to force the 26-year-old, single-hulled vessel out to sea would only worsen the situation.

“These decisions are always questionable,” Matas told La Razon. “But the government took them after serious and rigorous meditation and under the technical and scientific advice of those that know.”

With a large hole in its side plating and storms raging across the north-western Spanish coast, the Bahamas-flagged vessel was towed out to sea. It finally snapped in two and sank last Tuesday, taking most of its fuel oil to the ocean floor.

SMIT has not been alone in its criticism of Spain.

“If, on the contrary, the Prestige had been towed in and run up onto a beach, so that most of its fuel could have been pumped out ... the damage would have been minimised without a doubt,” Javier de Mendoza, Organic Chemistry Professor at Madrid’s Autonomous University, wrote in a letter to the leading daily El Pais on Sunday.

He said he believed the boat was towed away “for political reasons ... it was deemed preferable to push the danger hundreds of kilometres away, like sweeping the dirt under the rug.”

Spanish authorities reckon the Prestige lost some 11,000 tons (2.9 million gallons) in all while environmental organisations, such as Greenpeace, claim it spilled closer to twice that amount.

Portugal, meanwhile, rejects Spain’s assertion that the oil on the vessel has solidified and insist it is still leaking from the bottom of the sea.

Over the past week, some 600 people have been working daily to try clean the north-western shoreline, scooping up tons of the poisonous slop with shovels and plastic container boxes. The slicks have swamped hundreds of beaches and coves over a distance of some 400 kilometres (250 miles) leading authorities to prohibit fishing in the zone.

But with the main slick still 190 kilometres (120 miles) off the coast, many fear the worst is yet to come. Government ministers, however, claim the situation is under control.

“I don’t think we can call this a black tide,” Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told journalists Saturday. ”These are isolated and localised slicks.”

On Sunday, improved weather conditions permitted Dutch and French anti-pollution boats to leave harbour and head out to suck the spilled oil from the sea.

Another four anti-pollution vessels are scheduled to arrive this week from Britain, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.

Spain has also asked France for a three-person submarine that will be sent down 3,600 metres (11,800 feet) to check for any leakage from the vessel.

Spain has begun legal action against the ship owners – the Liberia-registered company Mare Shipping Inc. – , its insurance company and the vessel’s captain, who has been jailed preventively.