It pisses me off that Green Peace is getting mad at the Spanish Gov. about the oil disaster have we forgotten that the was owned and operated by a Greek company and had papers on it proving that it was heading to Gib. And was previoulsy there it seems any excuse is a good excuse to get mad at the Spanish gov. agreed?

Q- where do you get this stuff?!?!

Keep in mind, that when debating and discussing these things, yes you can get passionate about it, but keep a calm, clear head!-otherwise you just seem like your babbling and you'll never get your point across.

Greenpeace, yes, a worthy organization... can be a bit fanatical at times. I haven't read anything about Greenpeace criticizing the Spanish government, although it wouldn't surprise me. However, I don't think that they would blame or argue with the Spanish government that this accident was their fault, but they would that they handled it poorly.

Environmentalists love to use shock as an eye opener and take advantage of situations such as these to drive the point home. Since people and governments tend to put aside environmental issues aside between disasters, the environmentalists use these tragedies for everything they can get out of it! (Like the red cross and United Way with the World Trade Center... people were falling all over themselves to donate money, something these organizations need badly, ALL THE TIME to keep doing the work they do, not just when something horrible happens- which is usually when people are more giving and sensitive to these needs.) Good or bad, this is the way it works.

Could have the Spanish government handled it differently? Of course. There were several different options that were considered before taking the action they did. Environmentalists also advised on what would be different soultions and which would be the best ones... but there are many factors that needed to be taken into consideration. One of those things is the weather. In ideal circumstances, there would have been different logical options to take, but considering how the seas were behaving, well, they did the best they could under the circumstances. Again, could they have done better, possibly, but that's irrelevant, just as it is placing blame right now. The more important thing, while blame is being investigated, is damage control- clean it up the best way possible, deal with the sunken bomb at the bottom of the ocean, and try the best possible to prevent further damage.

Environmental groups and radical environmentalists are going to attack whichever target is easiest. From what you say that's Spain. But the international maritime laws are not set by Spain, but many countries, and that's an issue these countries will be visiting very soon.

Changes in these laws were being made, but obvioulsy did not go in to effect soon enough, so again, the EU now is looking to speed things up. Avoid another disaster like this one.

Espe3 wrote: I know that and you know that but apparently the writer of the article didn't know that.

I've been thinking a lot about this problem and worrying it will change Spain, as we know it, for the next serveral years. Worse yet, as if Spain's economy didn't already have enough problems, NOW they have this problem too?? SO many thousands of people depend on fishing and growing shellfish that ... well... what's going to happen to Galicia??!?! How will GALICIA seem like GALICIA if you/they can't even get seafood there?

If Galicia isn't part of the seafood market economy, I assume Spain will rely more heavily on other coasts to collect their catch and maybe the prices will go up?!

Pulpo a la Gallega won't be found?? Will they just get the pulpo ("octopus", by the way) from other regions??

My god. Spain, to me (I should add this to that other thread), IS seafood.

Since the disaster, I've been putting up and changing daily my PC's wallpaper at work to show the different photos I took last Semana Santa during my week there. We visited the coastal cities of Fisterra, Corcubión, Baiona Bay, Sanxenxo, & O Cebreiro among other amazing places. We also spent several nights in Santiago de Compostela.

If you'd like to see coastal Galicia (and inland too) as I saw it last year, you can view (and feel free to take all you like for your own wallpaper) them @ http://members4.clubphoto.com/madridman300945/ .

Nearly all the aforementioned coastal and inland cities can be seen on live webcams @ http://www.crtvg.es/ingles/camweb/primenucamarasflash.htm

Sadly, MadridMan

What a horrible disaster! And yes MMan, I guess no pulpo, no percebes, etc for a while. But the worst part is the reprercussions in the lives of many families AND all those poor fish and birds!

But I wanted to at least bring forward a positive note; it's amazing the amount of volunteers from all over the country that have traveled to Galicia to help out with the cleaning of the oil from the beaches, there're groups of young people from Cadiz there "as we speak" for God's sakes! They deserve all my admiration

One can watch a 60-second video from Telemadrid HERE (In Spanish - if you already have installed the Windows Media Player) about how the prices of seafood have gone up 20-30% in Madrid.
Another article & video HERE :


pim, if ANYONE lives in Spain - or better yet IN Galicia and unemployed & looking for work - I can't see any reason why they wouldn't WANT to volunteer with the cleanup & containment efforts. My god. If I lived there and unemployed I'd be there immediately. I spoke with my ladyfriend in Madrid today and she said prices have gone up a lot for seafood. Thing is with this, even AFTER things are more-or-less back to normal, those prices will NEVER come back down after we get used to the higher prices.

I need to go to my local latino store soon and clean out their existing supply (cans) of mejillones (mussels) and pulpo (octopus) before it's too late.

Sadly, MadridMan

MM,
Many thanks for your reporting of the circumstances in Galicia. I hope the people of Galicia will be dully reimbursed for their present and future losses. Do you know if the northern coast of Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria could have potential damage to their beaches as well?
Saludos

[originally posted by Quintos233 on 11-27-2002 @ 06:09 PM]
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I went to the el mundo website and I believe it said that the Prestige is contnuing to spill oil under neath the ocean if this is true and I didn't missunderastand it where in for a disaster which "some body or some entitiy needs to be held responsible for". PS this really [bites] for the Galicains and for the rest of Spain for that matter. I hope this incident does not turn into something the Galicains will blame Madrid for.

11/29/2002 - Updated 12:33 PM ET

More oil approaching Spain

MADRID, Spain (APOnline) — A local government official warned coastal residents to brace for the worst this weekend as another massive oil slick from a sunken tanker drifted toward shore Friday.

The official also said the tanker Prestige, which was carrying about 20 million gallons when it sank, probably is still leaking petroleum from the bottom of the ocean.

Reconnaissance planes have spotted new slicks near the area in the Atlantic Ocean where the Prestige split in two and sank Nov. 19 after a six-day struggle at sea, Galicia's fisheries minister Enrique Lopez Veiga said in the regional capital Santiago de Compostela.

French and Portuguese planes also have detected signs of fresh oil at the site of the sinking, 150 miles offshore.

"It is probably still spilling fuel oil," the national news agency Efe quoted the official as saying.

The central government said anything bubbling up from the Prestige was likely the ship's own fuel or a lubricant, but it did not rule out that its cargo of fuel oil could be leaking.

Meanwhile, strong winds and currents off Spain's northwest coast were pushing a sprawling, amorphous petroleum mass toward Cape Finisterre, one of the areas already tarred by oil from the Prestige, Lopez Veiga said.

The slick — estimated to contain 2.4 million gallons of fuel oil — was about 19 miles offshore Friday afternoon, meaning it traveled about 18 miles since Thursday night and probably would come ashore this weekend, he said.

It was unclear how the oil will spread once it reaches the offshore continental shelf, where currents are unpredictable.

"We have everything against us," Lopez Veiga told Galician radio. "We must prepare for the worst."

Officials say this oil spilled when the ship broke apart and sank, and anti-pollution ships have suctioned off 613,000 gallons so far.

If the whole slick came ashore, it would be far more oil than that which has hit the craggy, economically vibrant coast of Galicia since the ship started leaking fuel when its hull cracked in a storm some two weeks ago.

The 26-year-old, single-hulled ship took most of its fuel-oil cargo with it when it sank, but it spilled some 1.6 million gallons — contaminating a region that suffered another big spill a decade ago.

The oil has blackened hundreds of miles of beach and rocky shore and forced a ban on fishing and seafood harvesting along a 300-mile stretch. Tens of thousands of fishermen and other sea-dependent workers are living off government handouts.

The oil that went down with the ship was expected to solidify at that depth of more than two miles and temperatures just above freezing. A small French research submarine was heading to the site to check for leaks.

Seven oil-sucking skimmer boats from other European Union countries traveled to the main slick Friday but waves up to 23 feet kept some of them from working, the Interior Ministry said.
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How sad. How very VERY sad.

News story from CNN.COM Sunday, December 1, 2002 Posted: 1500 GMT

Fresh Oil slick hits cloast!

The latest slick is far bigger than an initial oil spill produced when one of the Prestige's tanks was holed, for unknown reasons, in a violent storm on November 13.

The new slick appears destined to pollute many of the same beaches that teams have laboriously cleaned up. The biggest fear is that it will strike rich shellfish grounds further south which have so far been spared.

The Galicia fishing region has been cleaning up its beaches and coastline since the initial spill of some 5,000 tonnes of oil fouled beaches with a foul-smelling bed of tar and killed or coated thousands of seabirds.

SEO, a bird conservancy group, estimates 10,000 birds have been killed or seriously injured by the slick.

The Prestige is more than 100 miles off the coast and more than two miles below.

A French submarine is to be deployed Monday to determine how much oil the tanker is still leaking.

Between 15 to 25 percent of the total 77,000 ton cargo of fuel oil is thought to have spilled.

-- CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman contributed to this report

I hope and pray that there is a way to extract what there is still inside the prestige otherwise were in for a REALLY LONG HAUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!