How ready is Ireland to deal with a similar tanker disaster? Despite steps taken since the Kowloon Bridge accident, there is still no State-run salvage tug, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent
Could this island cope with an incident like the Prestige? Not without considerable, immediate, international assistance, according to the more optimistic maritime experts. The precise scale of pollution from the sunken oil tanker still has to be quantified, but it would take a spill one-sixth the volume of the Amoco Cadiz to suspend coastal activities and marine tourism on this coastline. That grounding off the Brittany coast in 1978 spewed out 221,000 tonnes of crude oil which severely polluted 380 kilometres of the north-western French seaboard.
A report conducted in 1999 for the Department of the Marine and Natural Resources noted that in spite of a series of international conventions on maritime safety, the State was still exposed to "significant pollution" resulting from accidents at sea. The coasts of counties Donegal, Mayo and Galway should be designated as "high risk" marine environmental areas, it said, and passing vessels which posed a pollution threat due to their size or the nature of their cargo should be required to stand a specific minimum distance off.
There can be 28 "route committed" ships (mainly merchant vessels) and 100 "mission committed" vessels (mainly fishing) in the Irish Pollution Responsibility Zone (IPRZ) at any one time, according to the team of analysts from Cork's Nautical Enterprise Centre, UCC's Coastal Resources Centre, and from the Netherlands, who carried out the 1999 study. It was west Co Cork which sustained the worst effects of two major incidents here in recent memory: the Betelgeuse explosion in Bantry in 1979, when 51 people died, and the Kowloon Bridge cargo ship, which ran up off the Stags near Baltimore in 1986.
Though the volume of oil from the Kowloon Bridge was relatively small, there was still considerable damage, and rows over State inaction led to the formation of the first Department of the Marine. Yet in the immediate aftermath, Cork County Council did a "very good clean-up job", according to Dr Tony Lewis, director of the hydraulics and maritime research centre at UCC. "Between that and the Betelgeuse, there is a body of experience here in dealing with such incidents," he points out.
Currently, there are several key pieces of legislation before the Oireachtas involving the tightening up of regulations on the transport of hazardous substances, and increasing compensation for victims of oil pollution. The Irish Coast Guard has made considerable strides, in just over 10 years since it was established, to develop marine rescue resources and pollution response capabilities.
Recent groundings off the east coast, such as the barge Skerchi off the Co Wicklow coast in April 2000, have provided useful experience; in that instance some 7,500 gallons of diesel was removed safely. There are stockpiles of pollution response equipment at bases in Dublin; Killybegs, Co Donegal; and Castletownbere, Co Cork. However, a national pollution contingency plan is still being updated, and final approval hasn't been given for action programmes submitted by individual ports and harbours.
The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Dermot Ahern, made much of pollution preparedness during his visit to see the State's new marine research vessel, Celtic Explorer, in Norway this week. The €31 million vessel has limited pulling power for towing.
The Irish Lights tender, Granuaile was designed with anti-pollution capabilities in mind; its 50-tonne towing capacity can hold a stricken vessel offshore pending arrival of tugs. Naval Service vessels are also equipped with limited capabilities, and demonstrated them when the LE Eithne and Air Corps helped to salvage the Yarrawonga, the 85,000-tonne bulk carrier abandoned 170 miles off the west coast with 800 tons of fuel oil on board in January 1989.
Should a serious incident occur today, the Coast Guard's plan of action includes aerial surveillance for oil-spill tracking and use of suitable tugs.
However, as the 1999 report highlighted, the State has no dedicated tugs, and would have to contract out this vital service at a stage when time is at a premium. It was the delayed response to the Braer tanker grounding off the Shetlands in 1993 which led to extensive pollution there.
The report recommended purchasing an emergency towing vessel which could double up for use in fishery protection. As a cost saving, it suggested sharing such a vessel with Britain. The Naval Service offered to run it.
In May 2000, the then minister of the marine, Frank Fahey, announced that he had secured Government approval for an emergency towing vessel. Access to such a rapid response was "essential", he said, given that the cost of an oil pollution clean-up here was estimated at €140 per gallon of oil deposited - amounting to a potential bill running to "millions".
There has been no word of an emergency towing vessel since.