>From Lloyds List PRESTIGE (BAHAMAS) London, Nov 7 -- A press report, dated yesterday, states: A huge oil spill off northwestern Spain last year will cost eight billion euros to clean up the coast and revive the tourism and fishing industry, an environmental group charged today. A report by WWF said the bill for ten years of cleaning more than 1,000 beaches across the formerly pristine northwestern coastline would add up to three billion euros, with losses to fish stocks and the fishing industry making up the rest. The damning report evaluating the environmental and socioeconomic consequences of the crude oil tanker Prestige sinking in an area of outstanding natural beauty, dwarfs official government estimates of between 650 and 700 million euros. Spanish-Argentine firm Repsol-YPF is currently carrying out tests on the wreckage to determine whether the remaining fuel can be floated to the surface via balloons. WWF denounced the lack of transparency by the government, saying the catastrophe has already cost some 1.5 billion euros, twice the official estimate. But in its 25-page report, it forecast the bill will escalate massively in the coming years. "WWF urges the Spanish authorities to manage the consequences of the oil spill in a more transparent and responsible way than it has done until now," the report said. T he group demanded an efficient and well-funded environmentally-based recovery plan be put into action. The report said environmental studies into the disaster had produced reliable estimates that the coastal clean-up would cost three billion euros with "total economic damage of... around five billion (euros)" on top of that. It added the government had to do more to help. "Until now the management of the catastrophe has not been driven by environmental criteria. "It will take between two and 19 years for the affected ecosystems and resources to recover," the report said, noting that there was evidence oil was accumulating on the sea bed. Jose Luis Garcia, who heads the marine programme of WWF/Adena, the Spanish branch of WWF, dubbed the accident the worst since the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident off Alaska. WWF accused the government of spending too little on the spill, charging that research into the Spanish spill was likely to total barely 10 million euros, compared with 270 million euros into the impact of the Exxon Valdez spill
