CD: How hard has this been to clean?

JB: If the oil is coming on a sandy beach you can manage it. But if it's coming on a rocky coast or near a cliff, it's incredibly difficult to clean. That's the main problem in Gallacia. I just read a few minutes ago that there were 200 beaches in Spain that had not been cleaned at all yet. It will be long, hard work. You have to wait for the sea to be still, then set up work teams and work for weeks.

JB: It will be possible. But our government has to be very careful with what they say. Because, for instance in Spain they sent a lot of volunteers to the beaches to clean -- because there was nobody else to clean the oil. They said, 'go ahead,' and all the main organizations like Surfrider, we said, 'there's no way. It's industrial pollution. We're not going to clean that. People should have hazardous material suits. This stuff is toxic.'

For the spill of the Erika 3 years ago, we now have two to 300 people complaining in front of the court who became sick as a result of trying to clean that oil without suits. And in Spain, I heard that it was around 500 or more already sick or under medical control from the Prestige oil.

Bakio Beach in Spanish Basque Country

Right at the beginning, right after it happened. There were people just picking the muddy oil up with their bare hands out of the sea. There were some fishermen who for days and days, were working completely unprotected.

On the Spanish government's side, it was really terrible. They did the same thing we did in France 3 years ago. Now, they're in a very bad situation.