Photo credit: Nan Marr, Ocean Futures Society
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 Jean-Michel talks with volunteers as they battle the exhausting effort to halt the oil spill's damage. Note the rubber boots, chemical suits, gloves, and ventilators to prevent the caustic effects of the oil spill and its fumes. Photo credit: Nan Marr, Ocean Futures Society |
December 27, 2002
La Coruna, Spain:
"We are in Spain, traveling the rugged Galicia coastline with our Ocean Futures Society team to lend support, listen, document and experience the 'Black Tide' that has wrecked havoc on these ocean-dependent communities. Yet another oil spill catastrophe that could have been prevented by proper industry standards and global regulations has meted out its devastation on these usually quiet towns and hard-working people.
"Here is another human environmental disaster affecting the natural world and the future of generations to come. Tens of thousands of people, plants, animals, birds and sea life have been immeasurably harmed. What we're experiencing is nearly incomprehensible, but for the fact of being here and being with people on their hands and knees, picking up highly toxic petroleum slop and carrying bucket after bucket to dumpsters.
"We are taking photos of local residents and volunteers running up to us, because our hands are clean so they can ask us to adjust their protective ventilator masks and hoods. Amid high winds and pelting rain, the overwhelming stench of oil permeates everything. It's frightening just being exposed and we are here only a few days.
"Since November, Spain's coastal communities continue to be immersed in and living with this nightmare of toxic oil. Still, 150 tons of oil a day continues to flow outward and upward from 10,000 feet below the ocean's surface from the single-hulled tanker, the Prestige. After calling for assistance, the leaking vessel was turned away by the government and was towed out beyond the 200-mile national zone, broke apart and sunk. Deep in the ocean, the Prestige may be 'out of sight, out of mind' to some. But, the 'Black Tide' from this sunken tanker resurfaces each day through the thousands of gallons of oil and inexorably re-contaminates new coastal areas and beaches previously cleaned, and many more hundreds of miles north and south.
"This is the 21st Century’s new 'Black Plague' caused by negligence from the oil industry and elected decision makers everywhere. The oil industry's CEOs and bureaucrats from around the world should come here and experience, for themselves, this toxic nightmare. Would any of them want their families and children exposed to this horror? Obviously, not.
"It's time for the world community to demand that this negligence stop. After the Exxon Valdez and the Prestige, do we need more evidence that this environmental and cultural carnage must end? Now is the time to take action on a global scale. Community security is the right to live in a safe and toxic-free environment.
"We need the help of world opinion to force these changes. Protect the ocean and we protect ourselves."
Jean-Michel Cousteau and the OFS Team
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