European Surfing's Oily Apocalypse

CD: Do you think this disaster will bring about any real change in Europe as to how oil tankers are handled?

JB: The difficult thing will be to change things so it doesn't happen again. We had people from another association called Keep it Blue -- a guy named Joe Leguinn, a French Navigator and sailor. He just went to this meeting with the oil company executives from all over the world in London, and the level of arguing was so loud that he just left. The way they were dealing with things, he left -- he was disgusted. They're trying to escape responsibility. From them there will be nothing.

And at first Jacques Chirac the French president took a major approach to this spill. But we know that France is very bad on boat inspecting. And there were many plans prepared following the Erika spill, but they didn't end up doing anything. They had all these rules and laws, but they did nothing. We're very upset with the French Government for that. You know, it's politics, the same as everywhere.

JB: Surfers are really getting mad out there. Especially recently. We've had perfect waves for the last few weeks. And actually, since the beginning of the week, the water has been beautiful. But just on shore you'll see the darker mud. Some have started to go out, but you'll get a penalty, a ticket, if you do. I think the government will be careful not to open the beaches too quickly. And the surfers around here may become even more mad over that.

Last week, we had a local surfers/shaper who wanted Surfrider to make a demonstration and to go to the water to say to people it's not risky, you can go surfing We said, 'but you are crazy. That's the worst thing Surfrider can do. It's toxic'. He said, 'no we can go and go surfing'.

Others would say that Surfrider is lazy and just want to think of itself, I was amazed they could think of something like that. If surfers want to go and take the risk by themselves, that's one thing, but Surfrider, we can't ask people to go into pollluted water -- it would be incredibly irresponsible of us as an organization.

JB: In our area of France, they're cleaning everyday. But we have it somewhat easier than Spain too, because our beaches are sand. But since it got so broken up, if you go to the beaches that are lightly developed, you will find big and small pieces of fuel oil all over .

And to make it worse, we had this terrible weather. With all this wood and garbage that washed up. There was over 1000 tons of wood and it's all full of fuel oil. The amount of things you have to take out with the garbage is unbelievable, and you have to bring it to a special factory. If one ton of wood is on the beach, 10 tons of wood, oil and sand has to be taken off the beach.

With the Erika, they did a 5-10 year impact study. And the results were that there wasn't so much impact on the food supply.

But on the rocky Spanish coast, there is no way to get rid of it. People are poor, they are living off the sea and it's just not a priority for the government. But you've got to take it out. Maybe it will take 100 years. In Spain, Gallacia, it's the end of the world.