TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/022089/02208900.008

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 3KB | 56 lines

ENVIRONMENT, Page 77

Stains on the White Continent

A disastrous oil spill stirs fears about Antarctica's future

By Dick Thompson


    On the once pristine shores of the Antarctic Peninsula and
nearby islands, a vast oil slick has become a tide of death. The
spreading film has killed thousands of krill, the tiny shrimplike
crustaceans that are a major food source for fish, birds and
whales. Oil-soaked penguins are in danger of freezing to death, and
nearly all of the skua chicks have died.

    As teams of divers from the U.S. and South America struggled
last week to plug a hole in the Argentine ship Bahia Paraiso, which
had sunk and was leaking 3,000 gal. of fuel a day, squadrons of
scientists rushed in to assess the damage caused by Antarctica's
first major oil spill. "This is the worst ecological disaster for
Antarctica, period," says James Barnes, general counsel to the
Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. It is sure to stoke the
already heated debate over the future of development, tourism and
mining in Antarctica.

    The calamity began on Jan. 28, when the captain of the Bahia
Paraiso, a naval resupply ship that doubles as a tourist boat,
sailed through waters identified on charts as having "dangerous
ledges and pinnacles." The ship was shaken by a "terrible jolt,"
says passenger Nadia Le Bon. "I thought we hit an iceberg."
Instead, the ship had struck Full Astern Reef, which ripped a
30-ft. gash through its double hull and into the engine room. With
the ship listing and the smell of gasoline thick in the air, the
314 passengers and crew members were rescued unharmed by scientists
in small boats from the U.S. research center at Palmer Station, a
mile away. But the ship began leaking its 250,000 gal. of oil and
spilling cargo, including drums of diesel and jet fuel and tanks
of compressed gas, from its deck.

    The shipwreck is one result of the largely unregulated growth
of Antarctic enterprise. Says Peter Wilkniss, head of the National
Science Foundation's polar programs: "We are witnessing the dawn
of the commercial age in Antarctica." Thousands of tourists are
flocking to the once inaccessible continent. Throughout the 1984-85
season, only 400 people visited Antarctica, but in the week before
the Bahia Paraiso hit the reef, more than 500 visitors passed
through Palmer Station alone. And Antarctic tourists are doing more
than sailing to research centers for short visits and lecture
tours. In 1988, 35 adventurers paid $35,000 each to set foot on the
South Pole, and this year another group is skiing 600 miles to the
bottom of the world. "Tourism really needs to be regulated," says
Mary Voyteck, a scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund.

    Whatever happens to tourism, the devastation from the oil spill
could be a serious setback to the idea of oil and mineral
exploration in Antarctica. Last May, 33 nations drafted an
agreement that would eventually open the area to mining and
drilling. That treaty, which the U.S. Senate will consider for
ratification in the next few months, is vigorously opposed by a
broad coalition of environmental groups. Any hopes that the Senate
will approve the agreement may have sunk with the Bahia Paraiso.