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| Prestige disaster summary report, June 2004 the Prestige debacle (March 2003) March 2004
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six years on, captain scapegoat mangouras expected to be acquitted at the echr [article in Spanish] Context: “In November 2002, on the orders of Spanish authorities, an oil tanker in difficulties was dragged through a raging sea-storm away from the Spanish Galician coast, despite the advice and warnings of the soon-to-be arrested captain [2], and others. For six days, a damaged tanker was hauled through 30-, 40-metre waves and almost hurricane-force winds. “The Prestige broke in two and sank, spilling tens of thousands of tonnes of residual heavy crude oil. She sank in deep waters, so very difficult to salvage the remainder of the oil before further ecological damage was done.” It has been obvious since the first day that the disaster was overwhelmingly, primarily, caused by irresponsibility by the Spanish government in its attempts to scapegoat Mangouras and avoid their own responsibility. Captain Mangouras was sixty-nine at the time of the accident, and has so far suffered stress and other damage since 2002 at the hands of the political venality of the Spanish government.
The defence team of 75-year-old Captain Apostolos Mangouras, master of the ill-fated oil tanker Prestige, lodged a complaint at the Great Court of the the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg. This complaint has been accepted for deliberation. The ECHR will investigate whether Spanish law was breached by the imposition of an excessive 3,000,000 euro bail and the holding Captain Mangouras in Spain for two years on the pretext that he was responsible for one of the most polluting spills ever experienced. Remember that Captain Mangouras requested that the damaged tanker be taken to harbour, whereas the Spain authorities ordered the ship out into the teeth of a near hurricane-strength storm. Having been dragged into French waters and back to Spanish waters, bleeding filthy oil all the time, the tanker broke in half, its cargo spreading from Spain to the British Isles. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has just declared admissible the complaint lodged by Apostolos Mangouras claiming that Spain did not respect his right to liberty and security. Captain Mangouras’s lawyers see this as “a very important step”. Statistically, the chances are high that this court will find for the Greek ship’s master. The Grand Chamber usually accepts only 3% of the complaints it receives, and of those admitted for deliberation, two-thirds of the cases are won by the complainants. Spain has until February 2010 to explain why they had set the bizarrely high bail of three million euros. Further, Greece will now have an opportunity to make representations in this case.
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Context: “In November 2002, on the orders of Spanish authorities, an oil tanker in difficulties was dragged through a raging sea-storm away from the Spanish Galician coast, despite the advice and warnings of the soon-to-be arrested captain [2], and others. For six days, a damaged tanker was hauled through 30-, 40-metre waves and almost hurricane-force winds. “The Prestige broke in two and sank, spilling tens of thousands of tonnes of residual heavy crude oil. She sank in deep waters, so very difficult to quickly salvage the remainder of the oil before further ecological damage was done.”
The Bar of the Spanish Courts has just published a report, absolving former prime minister, José María Aznar, and his government of any responsibilty for the Prestige catastrophe. But the only thing the Spanish government did correctly was airlift off crew from the troubled ship. They did not:
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shell experiments on oil shale
Claimed EROEI 3.5 : 1. the web address for the article above ishttps://www.abelard.org/news/oil040629.php#shell_shale_070905 |
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at last, spanish political prisoner captain scapegoat temporarily released After 1 year, ten months and 17 days of imprisonment in Spain,
Captain Scapegoat Mangouras spent the first ten months in a Spanish jail. This was commuted to house-arrest in Barcelona, reporting every day to a police station (later slightly moderated to once a week). Now of course, the Spanish torture of a man nearing seventy years old continues because,
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| prestige wreck: emptied at last [1] The last 13,000 tonnes of heavy crude oil have been removed from the sunken wreck of the Prestige. The Prestige was a victim of Spanish governmental irresponsibility two years ago. The summary report below provides some background to the saga of one of the worst marime environmental disasters ever. the web address for the
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Prestige oil disaster: more cleaning up [1] In November 2002, on the orders of Spanish authorities, an oil tanker in difficulties was dragged through a raging sea-storm away from the Spanish Galician coast, despite the advice and warnings of the soon-to-be arrested captain [2], and others. For six days, a damaged tanker was hauled through 30-, 40-metre waves and almost hurricane-force winds. Little surprise that the poor lady collapsed. The Prestige broke in two and sank, spilling tens of thousands of tonnes of residual heavy crude oil. She sank, but not in shallow waters, easy to access to salvage the remainder of the oil, quickly before further ecological damage was done. The bow sank down to 3,500 metres – three and a half kilometres, or two and a quarter miles – and the smaller stern section to 4,000 metres deep, there to gush oil. The Spanish patched up the majority of leaks using a submarine, they wiped up oil where it could be seen on beaches, and started a big publicity drive to lure tourists back to their now oil-blackened northern coast. Would the Spanish have bothered to initiate research on extraction from such depths without external pressures? Well, they did, eventually. By April 2003, the Spanish authorities were consulting foreign experts. Having eventually decided what to do, tests began in August 2003. By the time tests were regarded as successful, the approaching stormy winter prevented any oil-emptying and the wreck continued leaking. Thus, is only now in mid-2004, over nineteen months after instigating one of the worst-ever oil spills, that the wreck of the Prestige starts to be emptied. It is an engineering feat. Drilling holes in a wreck beneath 3500 metres of water, fixing valves so that the oil can be controlled as it is let rise out of the wreck, channelling the oil into one of five special aluminium containers (the Spanish call the shuttles) which are taken up to about 40 metres where the oil is pumped into a waiting tanker, the Odin, for shipping back to land. The emptied shuttle returns down to be filled again. The intention is to fill two shuttles simultaneously from the five holds in the bow section. How much oil? The Spanish estimate that, of the 70,000 tonnes cargo, 14,000 tonnes remains in the ship, most in the bow section, about 1,000 tonnes in the stern. They have so far removed 1,000 tonnes. Their estimate is that by October, they will have removed all but 10% of the oil (11,700 tonnes). They then intend to use bacteria to speed the ‘natural’ breakdown of the remainder, and the oil that is in the stern section. How rapid and efficient this will be remains to be seen. end notes
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