Bid to Contain Antarctic Oil Spill Stalled

Foul weather off the tip of South America on Thursday forced one Argentine ship to abandon its effort to reach a stricken vessel that is leaking oil into the pristine waters off Antarctica, and scientists warned that as winter approaches in the Southern Hemisphere, storms could soon cut off any hopes of salvaging the ship and containing the spill.

“If they don’t solve it right away, the winter storms will tear it up,” said UCLA marine biologist Bill Hamner, who has spent five seasons studying the area where the ship ran around last Saturday just two miles from the National Science Foundation’s Palmer Station. A second Argentine vessel should arrive in the area today, but it is not clear if that ship is equipped to attempt salvage operations.

The foundation said that the stricken ship was still afloat despite earlier reports that it had sunk.

Hamner and others said the accident could not have happened at a worse time for the wildlife in the area, particularly the penguins.

Birds’ Insulation in Peril

One of Antarctica’s largest penguin colonies is in the area, Hamner said, “and this is the time when the penguins are fishing most heavily” and young penguins are beginning to swim.

That will expose them to the oily water and tar that could destroy the insulation system that protects them from the cold temperatures.

Hamner said the penguin’s feathers trap a layer of air between “the skin and the outside, so the birds can swim in ice water, and they are not cold because they are beautifully insulated. It probably wouldn’t require very much tar to break down the insulation and bring cold into direct contact with the body core.”

Anton L. Inderbitzen, head of the Antarctic staff for the National Science Foundation, told reporters in Santiago, Chile, that the greatest concern now is that the oil will affect the young birds.

“All the young penguins are just about at the age where they take their first swim,” he said. “When these birds enter the water for the first time, it could be the last time.”

There were conflicting reports Thursday over just how much oil has already leaked from the vessel, which is 80% under water but still afloat, according to Jack Renirie, spokesman for the National Science Foundation in Washington. The Argentine Ministry of Defense initially said the leakage from the Argentine cruise ship, the Bahia Paraiso, “really wasn’t a significant spill” but later conceded some contamination is inevitable.

Observers in the area radioed to officials in Washington that a spill several miles long had been sighted.

Any spill in such a pristine area is bound to have a serious local impact, although Renirie said the incident was not likely to be as “catastrophic” as some reports have indicated.

“This was not a tanker,” Renirie said. The ship was carrying about 250,000 gallons of bunker oil used for its own propulsion system, plus 200 barrels of other types of fuel.

By contrast, large tankers carry many millions of gallons of oil and are capable of creating massive oil slicks during accidents.

The temperature in the area is running in the mid-40s, because it is still summer in Antarctica, but winter is rapidly approaching. Heavy storms could hit the area by the end of this month, and by late March the weather is expected to be so foul that little could be done.

Killed Every Animal

When the tanker Tampico ran aground near Ensenada in April, 1957, it released diesel fuel into the Pacific, and Stewart said it proved extremely toxic to marine life.

“It essentially killed every animal in the area,” he said.

U.S. experts with 52 tons of cleanup gear arrived in Chile on Thursday aboard a U.S. Air Force C-5B. From there the experts and their equipment were to be loaded aboard the U.S. research ship Polar Duke for the 600-mile, four-day trip to Antarctica.

All 316 persons aboard the 435-foot Bahia Paraiso were rescued by other vessels in the area.