Ship off Antarctica Takes On Water; Fuel a Potential Threat

An Argentine ship that ran aground near a U.S. research station in Antarctica has partially sunk, but it has not yet broken up as had been feared, authorities said Tuesday.

“Right now, I would have to say we have no worse than a moderate problem (from leaked diesel fuel), but there is great potential for a very severe problem if the ship breaks up,” said Jack Talmadge, a spokesman for the National Science Foundation, which operates the U.S. facilities on the usually frigid Antarctic continent. Temperatures this time of year--their summer--reach into the 40s.

NSF has assembled 52 tons of oil-containment equipment, and a U.S. Air Force C-5B carrying the equipment and 13 specialists was scheduled to leave from Norfolk, Va., this morning. The plane is scheduled to land this afternoon (in Punta Arenas, Chile, where the equipment will be loaded onto a ship for transport to the wreck site, about 600 miles south of Cape Horn.

The Argentine Navy has dispatched two vessels to the site to pump the ship’s diesel fuel into their own tanks, but the first of the ships is not expected to arrive before Thursday or Friday.

The ship, the Bahia Paraiso, was carrying supplies and tourists to an Argentine base in the region and has 250,000 gallons of diesel fuel aboard for its own use, as well as drums of gasoline and jet fuel for the base. The 400-foot ship struck rocks off the Antarctic Peninsula at noon local time Saturday, gouging a 30-foot hole in its side. Passengers and crew were safely evacuated.

By Tuesday, according to NSF, the Bahia Paraiso had slipped off the rocks and drifted against a rocky island offshore from the peninsula. It is listing to one side and has taken on water in the stern above the level of the main deck but has apparently stopped leaking fuel for the moment.

The fuel that has already leaked is killing off krill, a tiny shrimp-like crustacean that is a vital element of the Antarctic food chain. Sea gulls and giant petrels have been eating the dead krill and becoming sick themselves, Talmadge said. The birds are also becoming coated with the diesel fuel, he noted.

Refined petroleum products such as diesel fuel are generally considered much more toxic to marine life than crude oil because of their higher concentration of poisonous compounds and their greater mobility in the environment, experts said, and scientists are fearful of their potential effect on the pristine Antarctic environment.

The area of the wreck is rich with wildlife, and the U.S. Palmer Station, about two miles from the wreck, was placed there so researchers could study the wildlife.