The real price of oil
Poisoning the earth
By Catherine Brown
Thirty-five kilometres separate Fair Isle from Sumburgh Head, Shetland, a channel used by approximately 1000 tankers a year. A plan, approved by the United Nations International Maritime Organisation, to protect Shetland from these tankers and potential oil spills sets an exclusion zone of 16 km around the islands. The plan failed abysmally when the tanker Braer, on the edge of the zone, lost all power amid 70 knot winds and a 10 metre swell.
Within six hours of the Braer losing power at 5.30 a.m. on January 5, it had drifted onto the rocks known as Garth Ness on Shetland's coast. Within an hour, fumes could be smelled up to three kilometres away. By early afternoon, seals were covered in oil and thousands of birds were endangered.
Barely a month earlier, the tanker Aegean Sea ran aground along the coast of north-west Spain, in high winds and rough seas. It was carrying 79,341 tonnes of crude oil. The fire that broke out was allowed to burn on, to get rid of the oil. Greenpeace warns that such burn-offs can ruinously destabilise climate.
The wreck of the Braer so soon after the Aegean Sea accident is focusing attention on the safety of tankers. The European Community is looking at tightening rules governing tanker traffic. The oil and shipping industries, already campaigning against controls, dismiss some spills as inevitable.
The Braer, carrying 84,000 tonnes of light crude oil (much more than the Exxon Valdez), was sailing from a Norwegian refinery near Stavanger to Québec. The short cut through Shetland waters saves time and fuel and hence money.
Shetland lies midway between Scandinavia and Scotland. It became part of Scotland only in the late 15th century. Today Shetlanders assert their own culture and are fighting to preserve their language.
The sea is never more than a few kilometres away, although the islands stretch for 120 km. The tradition of the sea is strong in Shetland. It used to be said young boys grew up in boats; their skills at sea made them much sought after by the press-gangs during the Napoleonic wars.
The site of the disaster at Garth Ness is a region of high cliffs and sheltered coves teeming with wildlife all year round. Sumburgh Head, the southern tip of Shetland, is about to be designated a special protection area for birds by the European Community.
Recognised as an internationally important area for seabirds and marine life, four sites are already designated as having special scientific interest. A chain of life from microscopic marine organisms to birds, porpoises and whales is now at risk from pollution. Environmentalists predicted the oil would be quickly broken up by the rough seas, thus making a large oil slick unlikely. But this won't prevent destruction of wildlife; it will merely spread the damage more and make it more difficult to estimate.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Wildlife estimates that around 10,000 birds will die. Three thousand seabirds died from the wreck of the Aegean Sea in an area not noted for its bird population.
The birds most immediately under threat are sea ducks and diving species. The Wildfowl and Wetland Trust rates Shetland as probably Britain's most important site for wintering sea ducks, with about 10,300 birds wintering there — roughly 7% of the British population.
Sea ducks are particularly vulnerable because they stay close to shore and dive for food. Contact with oil interferes with seabirds' buoyancy and insulation, causing them to sink and drown. Desperate preening of oily feathers only poisons the birds.
Shetland has 800-1000 otters, all of whom live on the coast and feed on fish. Oil consumed by otters causes stomach ulcers, while oil on their skin can lead to fatal hypothermia; seals face similar problems. Fish can suffocate when the oil blocks their gills. Shellfish have their feeding apparatus clogged. Worms are poisoned by oil.
Environmentalists from at least six different groups have congregated at Shetland to give immediate aid to endangered wildlife. Oil-drenched birds are being sent to specialist centres in Britain in the hope of saving their lives. Old towels and blankets are being collected throughout Britain to use in cleaning the wildlife.
For many it will be too late. Some 300 otters were saved from the Exxon Valdez spill, taken into care. Even after a specialist rehabilitation process, at $80,000 an otter, many died once released.
Despite criticism by environmentalists and Shetland farmers, as soon as the weather permitted, chemical dispersants were sprayed on the oil. Jeremy Leggett, a Greenpeace scientific director, explained to Green Left Weekly, "Spraying just transfers the oil from the surface of the sea to the floor", with the risk of prolonging the pollution.
Proximity to land and strong winds mean the chemical dispersants have covered farmers' crops and grass where cattle and sheep graze. Even government authorities don't pretend to know what effect the chemicals will have on the soil: in theory, such contact is not meant to happen. Shetland sheep in winter eat protein-enriched seaweed on the beaches. Many farmers have taken their livestock indoors in order to hand feed them.
A film of oil has settled on thousands of hectares in the south of Shetland. Some crops have been condemned, and livestock possibly will be also. In the long term, more persistent toxic residues like benzene and its derivatives, which cause cancer, might remain in the soil. Shetland fisherman placed a cautionary voluntary ban on some 1000 square km of fishing grounds. Scientists acknowledge that the taste of oil may be detected in the fish for many years. Almost one third of Shetland's 10,000-strong work force are employed in the fishing industry. Their future too is uncertain.
Shetlanders have been assured by the government that there is no short- or long-term risk to their health. But locals are complaining of the classic symptoms of exposure to crude oil fumes — headaches, dizziness, nausea and sore throats. The oil industry warns its employees that such exposure can cause chemical pneumonia.
"The problem is this", explained Leggett. "From the short-term drowning of seabirds, through the intermediate-term effects of carcinogens in the food chain, to the long-term impacts of greenhouse gases cooking the atmosphere, oil is poisoning the earth by increments. And today, among an environmentally sensitised public, ever more people are coming to see oil in these terms."
Oil is a mixture of very toxic chemicals, many proven to cause cancer, added Leggett, regardless of whether the oil has evaporated into the atmosphere or is in the water. Authorities have explained to an apprehensive public that 40% of the oil will evaporate and no longer be a problem.
This, says Leggett, is "another trick the media and the oil companies will try to play on us. For even when oil is not visible in Shetland, it will still be there. It will still be there in the sediments on the seabed, still there in suspension in the water. Even the atmosphere people breathe will be highly carcinogenic. It will be many, many years before the chemicals are broken down, in some instances."
Shetland Council has offered "free face masks" to people who have to spend a long time outdoors.
The Shetland health officer, Dr Derek Cox, came up with a not very comforting metaphor is his attempt to reassure the population: "It is a difficult point to get across to people that they are smelling something and we do not think it is a health hazard. The analogy I use is — if you hit someone on the head with a hammer, it need not be hazardous if at the moment the hammer blow is not strong enough."
Leggett argues that we have barely begun to understand the long-term effects as biochemists study the link between cancer-causing chemicals in oil and increases in fish liver cancers in oil polluted harbours. Many of these chemicals bio-accumulate in the animals that eat the fish. "How many of us", asks Leggett, "will die in the future by eating fish that have come in contact with the hydrocarbons from the Braer?"
What legislation should the Major government now be forced to bring in? "Toughen up laws where tankers can go, for sure. We need offshore exclusion zones, that's number one on the agenda. Why should we tolerate an ever-ageing fleet of tankers in transit — perfectly legally — just ten miles off our coast? "We have to change liability rules so that the companies really have to pay — the tankers' owners are actually going to make money out of this. As things stand in British law, the maximum payout for the Braer — from the tanker owner and the international pollution fund combined — will be around £50 million. This is a scandal not just for the Shetland fishermen, who are likely to be massively uncompensated." Greenpeace is campaigning for unlimited liability.
The Braer and Aegean Sea oil spills have highlighted the problem of tanker safety. Many workers in the industry are relieved that public anger is demanding tightening of legislation on safety standards.
There has been a gradual increase over recent years of owners registering ships under overseas "flags of convenience" to cut costs. Owners continue to use ageing fleets by adopting the lower safety standards of countries such as Cyprus, Panama and Liberia, whose flag the Braer was flying while being managed by a US company.
Sixty per cent of foreign ships inspected in British ports were found to have safety defects in 1991. Ninety-five were found to be unseaworthy, an increase of 60 since 1985.
Only last year the Merchant Navy Officers' Union warned the government of the danger of allowing "coffin ships" to carry dangerous goods around Britain's coast. The union pointed out that pollution incidents had risen by 250% between 1985 and 1990.
The English Channel, which is subject to Atlantic storms, is most at risk, with more than 300 tankers a day passing a mere 20 km from either the French or British coast.
The reasons for the dramatic decline in the safety standards of foreign ships were described by Mike Gibson, research officer for the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT). "Firstly, there's the cutthroat competition in the shipping industry — more and more ships chasing fewer and fewer cargoes", he told Green Left Weekly.
Gibson explained the pressure is then on to cut freight rates to win contracts. "There are two ways to cut cost in the industry — crew costs and expense on new tonnage, leading to maintaining existing ships. A British crew costs around £19,000 a day and a foreign crew only £900.
"Now there is nothing intrinsically wrong with foreign crews if they're properly trained. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with an older ship provided they're dry-docked. Now, the Braer travelled with four extra crew to carry out repairs rather than being dry-docked."
Foreign crews, Gibson added, work longer hours, up to 100 a week; put up with substandard food and accommodation; and at the end of the day are paid less than British crews, around £650 less a month, and that's if they're well paid! Gibson raised the question of morale on the ship. Two years ago a ship's master died in service; today his in poverty without compensation. The Braer's crew is currently in dispute with the company over wages.
"A point I want to make is about the xenophobic reporting — that the crew was gutless and left the ship too early. It's not true."
When the crew did pull out, the Braer was at the mercy of a 10-metre gale-driven swell with no power and less than two kilometres from shore. The ship's captain had been told by the RAF pilot that his crew "wasn't long for this world". Yet various people have been regularly quoted by the press as saying, "If it was a British crew, they would have stayed".
Often crews aren't trained in emergency procedures. Gibson cited an incident a few years ago in which 200 passengers and crew were killed when a liner caught fire off the Danish coast. The media criticised the largely Filipino crew; yet they hadn't been trained to use fire extinguishers (the instructions were in Danish) or how to launch lifeboats.
Gibson dismissed double-skinned hulls as an answer, saying they fail to confront the root problem of safety standards and crew training.
RMT is demanding the government ban all bulk carriers and tankers more than 15 years old from entering British waters unless they meet British safety standards.
Yet even flawless safety would not stop the gradual poisoning of the planet. Accidental oil spills account for only 10% of total oil spills. Industry daily spills and leaks oil deliberately. The Braer was carrying almost 500,000 barrels of oil. Every day, 50,000 barrels are deliberately dumped in the seas by ships cleaning out their tanks and bilges.
Leggett points out, "Ultimately we have got to get out of oil, and we can do that".
But governments are resisting a shift to renewable, non-polluting energy sources. "The next round of exploration and production licensing is now under way. It includes many acutely important areas such as Cardigan Bay in Wales and Moray Firth."
The government plans to fast track approval for new oilfields "to ensure that the British continental shelf remains a major oil province for at least the next 25 years".
Now, says Leggett, is the time to break our oil dependence and instead look for alternatives, such as solar power, battery cars, hydrogen cars and conservation.