By
The Associated Press
PUERTO BAQUERIZO, Galapagos Islands - Shifting winds and prevailing tides are pushing about 170,000 gallons of diesel fuel from a stricken tanker toward open sea and away from the fragile environment of the Galapagos Islands, officials said yesterday.
Ecuadorean Environment Minister Rodolfo Rendon said the fuel was now moving "toward the northwest, which is an open zone where there are no major islands."
He characterized the spill as "a problem, not a tragedy."
The leaking began Friday near the islands, a natural treasure 600 miles off Ecuador's west coast. About 170,000 gallons of diesel fuel prompted Ecuador, which controls the territory, to declare a state of emergency late Monday to speed funding for the cleanup.
As of late Monday, currents had spread intermittent slicks over 488 square miles - an area bigger than Los Angeles.
The crippled tanker ship has threatened not just the Galapagos' famed and fragile wildlife. Residents on nearby San Cristobal island who depend on the sea for their livelihood say the tanker has also interfered with their fishing and spoiled the waters that are the azure backdrop of their lives.
"The sea is our sustenance. Because of this spill, we are left without work," said Pedro Mieles, 35. "We have nothing to do. We are immobilized."
Local radio warned residents not to eat the fish or swim in the water - an alarming message in a community where some 700 of the island's 4,000 residents are fishermen.
Fisherman Robin Betancourt said he saw about 50 mullet fish floating dead in an area to the south of the island known as Manglecito.
The islands were catapulted to fame in the 19th century, when naturalist Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution by studying wildlife there.
Formed roughly 4 to 5 million years ago by underwater volcanos, the islands are mostly arid and rocky, dotted more by cactuses than lush vegetation.
In recent years, they have become the focus of a struggle between fishermen and conservationists as migration from Ecuador's mainland poses a major threat to the islands' fragile ecosystem.
The Galapagos, inhabited by fewer than 1,000 residents in 1950, is now home to some 16,000 people. To feed and employ the population, fishermen have stepped up demands for loosening regulations on catch sizes.
Park spokesman Fabian Oviedo said Monday that absorbent materials were being used to lessen the impact of the diesel but some of the spill had already reached Santa Fe Island, 37 miles west of San Cristobal.
Sea lions and pelicans have been spotted there with diesel stains, and workers were trying to capture birds for cleanup, Oviedo said. Monitoring flights were being conducted over Santa Cruz, the next major island in the chain.
A team of U.S. coast guard specialists were working with local officials to recover remaining diesel fuel from inside the damaged 28-year-old tanker Tuesday, but pounding surf and strong waves were complicating the recovery efforts.
Some 10,000 gallons were still left of the ship's cargo of about 243,000 gallons, officials estimated.
Long-term threats included the possibility that escaped fuel would sink to the ocean floor, destroying algae vital to the food chain and threatening marine iguanas, sharks and other species, officials said.
The damage could also be grave for the hundreds of sea lions and thousands of iguanas that populate Santa Fe, said Carlos Valle, coordinator of the World Wildlife Fund's Galapagos program in Ecuador.
"It is very difficult to move them because they are very territorial," he said. The most vulnerable animals are the blue-footed boobies and frigate birds that feed in the area of the spill, he said.
Giant land tortoises, which can reach 550 pounds and for which the Galapagos are named, were not in danger because they live in the higher elevations of the islands.
