Oil Tanker Prestige sinks off the coast of Spain. Photo: Spanish Government
March 2004
Waterworlds
Bay Area Filmmakers Test the Waters
by Elisa Williams
Journalist Mark Schapiro rakes corporate muck for a living, but his most recent investigation was triggered by a casual pastime. Like most folks, he enjoys going down to the waterfront and watching the boats go by, dreaming of where they’ve been and where they’re going. Although Schapiro, deputy editorial director of San Francisco’s Center for Investigative Reporting, had noticed that boats visiting ports around the world often flew flags from only a handful of small nations, he didn’t give it much thought until November 2002 when the oil tanker Prestige broke in two and sank in rough seas off the northern coast of Spain, spilling twice as much toxic fuel as the ExxonValdez. Although owned by a prominent Greek shipping family, it was registered in Liberia to limit its liability should just such a billion-dollar disaster happen.
Schapiro began digging, and this environmental catastrophe story, largely ignored by the American press, ended up on PBS’s Frontline/World program as the Lawless Seas. It aired in January but can still be viewed on the Frontline/World website (www.pbs.org/frontlineworld). His 20-minute segment focuses on the tangled web of antiquated maritime regulations that allowed an aging ship to travel from Russia to Singapore with toxic cargo even after the captain had warned that the vessel was unsafe. “Water is the most highly shared resource in the world,” said Schapiro in an interview after the screening. “There was no authority anywhere in the world to stop that ship. The extent to which this was the case was surprising even to me.”
A print story might have fleshed out more details than a 20-minute documentary, but the video footage dramatically captures the devastation as Spanish authorities board the sinking ship by helicopter drop and smell the sludge while environmentalists fight a losing battle to clean the beach. This ecological disaster occurred off the coast of Galicia and the seaside town of Finisterre (”End of the World”), whose diverse, world-renowned seafood and shellfish habitat provides one of the area’s main livelihoods.
An eclectic assortment of water-themed cinema, including a quartet of environmental films by local filmmakers, was recently screened at Fort Mason Center’s Cowell Theater as part of what was billed as the “maiden voyage” of the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival. In a sequel to the much acclaimed Empty Oceans, Empty Nests, the festival premiered Steve Cowan’s Farming the Seas, a splashy 55-minute work examining the effect of sustainable fisheries and aquaculture on the ecosystems and economy of commercial farms in British Columbia, Thailand, and Spain. (The film, produced by San Rafael’s Habitat Media, is expected to air on PBS stations nationally this spring.)
Tim Kelly and Perry Pickert’s Hanging in the Balance takes viewers to the Bahamas to explore a network of existing marine reserves and plans for their future expansion. Interviews with local fishermen — some support the reserves as a way to build up fish stocks for future generations; others are angry that they cut into their immediate livelihood — illustrate the difficulties that local officials face in selling the program to their citizenry. Produced with support from the Bahamian government, the film will be shown in schools throughout the country to help educate the next generation about the reserves’ long-term importance.
The 11-minute Watershed by Stanford graduate students Liam Dalzell & Andy Schocken provides an evenhanded overview of the ongoing battle between cowboy ranchers and Yurok Indians for water along the Klamath River. The ranchers say they are just exercising their historic rights and aren’t using any more water than they have in the past; but the Yurok and local tourist industries have been devastated by the decline in salmon. Indeed, 33,000 adult salmon died in the Lower Klamath in September 2003, a catastrophe that, claim the Yurok, was prompted by the federal government’s violation of a treaty protecting their water rights. Presently the Yurok are going to court to seek redress. Although the film flicks at the economic, political, and environmental issues polarizing communities along the Klamath River, it focuses on those whose livelihoods have been most endangered. While the villains in The Lawless Seas were obvious, there are no easy answers in Watershed.
Heart of the Sea: Kapolioka’ehuka shows the most direct impact of environmental mischief on a human life. This work, by San Francisco filmmaker Charlotte Lagarde, is an understated but inspirational portrait of Rell Sunn, the Hawaiian surf legend. It chronicles her life — which was cut short by breast cancer, diagnosed when she was only 32 and her love of the ocean. On camera, she tells a support group about her vivid childhood biking memories of pedaling like mad to keep up with a truck spraying DDT in her native Hawaii. She also describes spreading the oily substance over her body like suntan oil. She thought there might be a connection to the cancer. Do you?
Elisa Williams is a freelance journalist who lives in Alameda. Her work appears in Newsweek, Real Simple, and Southwest Airlines’ Spirit magazine.
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