Like Braer, which spilled 84,000 tons of crude oil after running aground in the Shetlands in 1993, the Sea Empress was a Liberian registered oil tanker. Under a flag of convenience, it was manned by a Russian crew and had no protective outer hull.

After the Braer disaster, a report by Lord Donaldson made more than 100 recommendations in order to prevent further accidents. Most of these were accepted and implemented, but they still failed to protect the South Wales coastline. The grounding of the Sea Empress resulted in 70,000 tons of oil spilling out into the sea and polluting the Pembroke and Gower coastlines--another spill to add to the lengthening list on Celtic coasts, along with the Torrey Canyon off Cornwall, the Amoco Cadiz off Brittany and the Braer off Scotland.

In theory, the extreme southwest coastline of Wales is one of Europe's most protected marine environments. The Pembrokeshire coast is Britain's only coastal national park, and a Heritage Coastline. As an ecologically fragile area, it has many nature reserves and protected sites. The offshore islands of Skomer and Grassholm have been designated as Special Protection Areas under European Commission legislation designed for the conservation of wild birds. Dyfed Wildlife Trust and other environmental action groups have been pressing for the whole sea area to be declared a marine Special Area of Conservation—the highest conservation status in Europe--an action that the Port Authority of Milford Haven opposes.

A deep, natural harbor, the Haven has seen its potential realized as an important oil port in this century. A former naval base and a yacht owner's paradise, it remains an internationally important waterway for wildlife. It was here, beneath St. Anne's Head at the entrance to the Haven, that the 147,000-ton Sea Empress went aground in the final moments of its voyage to discharge a cargo of North Sea oil at the Texaco Oil refinery.

This is a coast that is used to ravages. Facing the Atlantic, Pembrokeshire is an oceanic county, with a shoreline frequently battered by storms and gales. In the 8th century Viking raiders wintered in Milford Haven and drove out the native Welsh. Norse names remain, especially for the islands—Skomer (Cloven Island), Ramsey (Raven's Island), Grassholm (Green Islet).

The islands are internationally famous for ornithologists, and thousands more know of Skokholm in particular from the writings of pioneer ecologist Ronald Lockley, who lived there for 13 years. As early as 1969 he had noted the effects of increasing oil pollution by tankers in the Atlantic seaway. "Cleaning out their bilges has caused the severe reduction in the numbers of surface swimming birds, such as the puffins, guillemots and other auks...We constantly find them dead or dying of the tarry filth on the coast of Wales," wrote Lockley in The Island Harmondsworth (Penguin Press, 1969).

On board the Balmoral this summer, Skokholm was the first port of call out from Milford Haven. The cruise then continued on to Grassholm, the Bishops and Clerks Islands, passed the south Bishop lighthouse, erected on Queen Victoria's coronation day, and went on to Ramsey Island before rounding Skomer and returning home. One potential victim of the oil spill was a colony of 32,000 gannets in Grassholm, the second largest in the world. (The largest, in Scotland, occupies two islands.) As the steamer approached the island, it resembled a low, snowcapped mountain floating at sea, gleaming white in the bright summer sunshine. The distant snow turned out to be a colony of nesting gannets and their deposits of guano: they had survived the oil spill.

The group was also on the lookout for gray seals, especially as the Balmoral rounded Ramsey Island. Some 500 sea pups are born here annually, and a total of 5,000 seals are found in West Wales waters. Bottlenose and common dolphins are also found here, though in much lesser numbers than in the great fishing days of the 18th and 19th centuries, when shoals of bottlenose and porpoise were run on shore and used to make oil. Cardigan Bay is the home and calving ground for one of the only two groups of bottlenose dolphins remaining in British waters. Once a common sight around British coasts, these sociable sea mammals were known as "tumblers" because of their aerial acrobatics. Now they have almost completely disappeared. Photo-identification research by Greenpeace and other groups has revealed the presence of at least 100 of them in Cardigan Bay, but both dolphins and porpoise are under environmental threat from pollution, oil exploration and viruses from inadequately treated sewage. These mammals are at the end of long food chains; poison present in their food accumulates in the fat tissue of their bodies and is passed on from mother to calf. Oiled seals had been reported by coast guards on the island of Skomer shortly after the spill, and porpoise and dolphins were seen swimming through the oil in Camarthen Bay. As the Balmoral raced with the tide through Ramsey Sound, gannets wheeling over rough water signaled the presence of feeding harbor porpoise. The porpoise dive for about one minute before surfacing, taking a couple of breaths, then diving again. Apart from the occasional gray seal, these were the only sea mammals spotted during the cruise.

During the trip little environmental damage was visible. Some traces of oil pollution were evident at sea, and although most of the beaches and rocky shoreline seemed clear of oil, tar balls continued to surface. The cruise commentators, led by Jack Donovan, were initially disappointed at the apparent lack of sea birds in the Haven, but their excitement mounted as storm petrels, shearwaters, kittiwakes and puffins were spotted passing the ship. On the surface at least, the ecology of maritime West Wales seems to have withstood the oil disaster.

Initially almost 1,000 people were involved in the clean up; six months later, 200 were still working on the beaches, and at Tenby and Marloes Sand, near Milford Haven, the sand beaches and the sea waters have recently been judged to be of the highest European Commission quality. This good news can also be bad news. As one local organic farmer put it, "If people think the oil spill was no long term disaster, there will be a let up in the pressure to stop these accidents from happening."

There is no doubt that this was a major disaster. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds counted 1,500 oil-smeared sea birds in the first weeks after the spill. Current estimates are that at least 7,000 have been affected. The biggest casualty has been the common scoter, with up to 4,500 either dead or oiled. Sea going ducks that breed in Africa, and one of the many sea birds that winter on the west coast of Wales, it was the scoters' misfortune to be sheltering when the Sea Empress grounded.

The timing was critical; a few weeks later and the breeding season would have been in full swing, with the largest colony of manx shearwaters in Europe, and half a million guillemots and razorbills returning to breed. Nonetheless, many bird species have suffered, as have crustaceans and shellfish beds, fishing and fish stocks, as well as the tourist industry. The impact has come not only from the oil itself, but also from the effect of the dispersants used during the clean up operation.

Some marine biologists have sought to minimize the possible long term effects of the oil spill, suggesting that the ecology of the rocky and exposed sand shores will recover in two to three years. They point to the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, where Prince Edward Sound recovered in three years. Similarly, the long term effects in the Shetlands following the Braer oil spill have been less than expected, mainly because most of the oil remained at sea, where it was dispersed by storms. In Scottish waters, contamination of fish had almost disappeared two months after the spill, but shellfish are failing to breed successfully, and research suggests that there could be adverse effects for up to eight years. Furthermore, although fish are unaffected, there is evidence that they are avoiding their usual breeding grounds after the oil pollution.

In the Shetlands the major shellfish grounds are scallops; in Wales there are extensive cockle beds, and the Pembrokeshire coast is rich in crustaceans, minor corals, jewel anemones and sea fans. In the Milford Haven waterway and in the Skomer Marine Nature Reserve, existing monitoring studies of these environments will provide an important baseline for long term understanding of the full effect of the oil spill.

Following the accident the Welsh Office provided £250,000 for a study coordinated by the Countryside Council for Wales to assess and monitor the damage. This independent Sea Empress Environment Evaluation Committee published an interim report at the end of July '96. Its chair, Professor Ron Edwards, proposed 84 separate studies to assess the impact of the disaster, and the European Commission immediately responded with a £680,000 grant towards their cost. The total reestimated cost of the studies is £2 million, and the final report is expected in 1997, although the monitoring program could continue for another 10 years.

Meanwhile, local residents and action groups are bracing themselves for the struggle against two further threats to the marine environment. One is the continuing "rush for gas" in Welsh coastal waters. In 1993 the UK government's Department of Trade and Industry granted licenses to four oil companies to explore for oil and gas in a number of ‘Blocks,' some of which are within five miles of the Pembrokeshire coast, and one, Block 103/3, is only two miles west of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reserve, on Ramsey Island. Action groups are concerned that environmental safeguards are minimal and ineffective, and argue that these coastal waters should be inviolable, and that no oil exploration should take place under any circumstances.

The other threat comes from orimulsion. Imported from Venezuela, this high-sulfur fuel, a mixture of bitamen and water, produces large quantities of sulfur dioxide, a major cause of acid rain. National Power has applied for a permit to burn orimulsion at their Pembroke Power station, and had hoped to start work on the £500 million conversion plant--expected to create 100 extra jobs in a high unemployment area--by the summer of 1996, provided the necessary approvals were given. One of the applications pending is a permit to build a new jetty into the Milford Haven waterway. The Milford Haven Port authority is promoting the jetty, but local action groups are opposed to the development. The Pembroke Labour party is now demanding that no decision be made on the jetty application until the results of the Sea Empress inquiry are known.