Tanker Off Wales Pulled From Rocks
A dozen straining tugs pulled a tanker off a cluster of rocks Wednesday after it spewed an estimated 19 million gallons of oil, far exceeding the Exxon Valdez’s spillage in 1989.
British conservationists said they feared it may be too late to avert an environmental catastrophe in the Milford Haven estuary, near one of Britain’s most important wildlife conservation areas.
“We believe the management of the whole process appears to have been inadequate,” said Tony Prater, deputy officer in Wales for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Salvage workers were attempting to disperse a 12-mile-long oil slick, as well as smaller slicks and other oil patches along a 25- to 30-mile front in southwestern Wales.
The tanker ran aground at the mouth of the estuary, at St. Ann’s Head, last Thursday en route to a Texaco Inc. refinery. The tanker was freed, but bad weather and strong tides moved it again, leaving it impaled on rocks about 300 yards from coastal cliffs.
In 1989, the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska, causing a major environmental disaster.
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