A DIRTY STORY (BIG SCIENTIFIC QUESTIONS)

On December 12 1999, The Erika, a 180-meter
long Maltese petrol tanker sank off the coast of Belle-Ile. In the following weeks, the wreck of the ship hired by Total Fina lost two thirds of its cargo, i.e. 20,000 tons of oil, painting 450km of coastline black. Regularly, for nearly a year and a half, we followed the volunteers, engineers and military personnel who worked on depolluting the sites. We accompanied the very rare scientists rushed to the coasts. We met salt-marsh workers who were hit hard by this unprecedented oil spill. We came to the sad conclusion that since the Torrey Canyon sank in 1967, nothing has changed in this dirty story. Or very little…