It was March 12. the Great AmericaItalian ship from Hamburg had to go to Casablanca when a fire broke out on board, sending the ship to 4,600 meters deep 333 km off The Rochelle.
24 hours later, the authorities as well as Prefecture warned of a risk of an oil spill. Oil slicks having been located on the surface of the wreckage. But if at first the fears hovered over the face of the Charente–Maritime and some Girondethe currents and meteorological conditions have gradually deflected this pollution further south, to finally take the direction of the Spanish coast. Since ? Little or more news.
An ever-present risk
“An oil spill is maritime pollution by hydrocarbons, so whether this pollution reaches land or not, we are in a state of oil spill”, clarified Jerome Pensu, “oil slick” coordinator for Sea Shepherd when he was questioned by our colleagues from LCI.
As a reminder, the containers that sank transported 62 tons of resin, 16 tons of turpentine substitute (White Spirit), 720 tons of hydrochloric acid, 25 tons of fungicides, 9 tons of aerosol as well as 85 tons of sodium hydrogen sulphide, used in particular in industry leather.
Among the materials considered non-hazardous were 5 containers of lubricants, 2 tonnes of tires, 18 tonnes of fertilizer and 24 steel containers. Of the 2,100 vehicles transported, the load contained 190 trucks, 22 buses and 64 construction machines.
Only one anti-pollution vessel still on site
But last Tuesday, April 2, the Prefecture maritime of the Atlantic said that only one anti-pollution vessel remained on site, out of the ten made available. The other buildings having left the sinking area and joined the coast. The reason ? “Despite very good sea conditions and visibility in the Bay of Biscay, it has been several days now that neither satellite observations, nor observation flights, nor even drones have located any significant pollution in the areas front front”.
To date, it is several tens of tons of heavy fuel oil in solid form and several hundred tons of water polluted by hydrocarbons which were recovered and transported to the port of the Rochelle for treatment. The Prefecture warns, however, that “The fact that we have not located any areas of pollution on the forward front for several days does not mean that they have entirely disappeared.”
Why then do the ships retreat? “Because the remaining pollution is no longer detected on the surface and can therefore no longer be treated by the current cleaning device” teaches us LCI.
Less visible pollution
Francois de Rugy Minister for the Ecological Transition meanwhile declared last Tuesday to the Assembly that if one “cannot say that the risk of pollution on land has completely disappeared, (…) it will undoubtedly be reduced to dumplings, to small oil pancakes of which we cannot yet predict either when or where they would arrive on our shores”. Safe ? Not that easy.
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If the French beaches will generally and generally be spared, pollution remains very present. The long-term impact on marine life is going to be threatened and the threat now is less visible pollution. Who says less visible, says less covered in the media. And that is not necessarily reassuring.
>> Featured photo: @wistomsin
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