February 21, 1996
Web posted at: 11:30 p.m. EST (0430 GMT)
From Correspondent David Mattingly
OFF MILFORD HAVEN, Wales (CNN) -- Off the coast of Wales, the tanker Sea Empress is afloat after spilling more oil than the Exxon Valdez in 1989. But this time, the volume of the spill may not matter. Weather, technology, and just plain luck may make the difference between a mishap and a catastrophe.
The good news: A dozen tugs working in tandem managed to wrench the supertanker free from a ridge of rocks Wednesday after seven days of pushing and pulling.
The tanker ran aground Thursday at the mouth of the estuary at St. Ann's Head while on its way to a Texaco Inc. refinery at Milford Haven.
It was towed to dock up the channel to Herbrandston jetty, about 3 nautical miles from where it went aground, the Milford Haven Coast Guard said.
Coast guard officials said the tanker was stable and not leaking oil. The remaining crude on board will be pumped out Thursday, they said.
The bad news: They're already calling the spill of an estimated 19 million gallons of oil near Britain's most important wildlife refuge the worst in the United Kingdom's history.
But the experts say the size of an oil spill is not always what determines its damage. "The kinds of things that are going to be important in this response operation will certainly include the type of oil, the natural environmental conditions," said Charles Ehler with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Wind and waves can break up a spill and carry it away from ecologically sensitive coastal areas or directly into them, he said.
High waves can make salvage efforts difficult and dangerous. Containment booms don't work well in rough seas. And while the chemical detergents being sprayed on the Sea Empress spill will help disperse the oil, the detergents themselves can be mildly harmful to marine life.
Like the Valdez spill in 1989, there's criticism that the government was ill prepared for this week's accident. There were no ocean-going tugboats in the area, leaving smaller boats to struggle through the swells.
Temperature is another vital factor. The warmer the weather and water temperatures, the more quickly spilled fuels evaporate. Warmer weather usually helps limit spill damage, but the chilly waters of the North Atlantic won't likely help with this week's spill.
The type of oil involved also makes a big difference in the degree of damage. The North Sea light crude leaked off the Welsh coast is more toxic than refined fuel, like the 800,000 gallons of heating oil that coated Rhode Island beaches in January when a barge ran aground off the southern coast.
"Crude oil tends to degrade and disperse in the environment much more slowly than a product like heating oil. Light crude will disperse a lot easier than the Exxon Valdez spill," Ehler said.
The biggest factor in gauging damage from a spill is time. Seven years after the Exxon Valdez, there's still debate on how great its long-term damage could be. The wreck of the Sea Empress is not likely to yield immediate answers, either.
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