Last Wednesday, a French senator, Roland Courteau, presented a report by OPECST (Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technical Choices) on pollution in the Mediterranean. And the least we can say is that the situation is alarming. All the more alarming as oil drilling is currently legion in the Mediterranean and will not cease to multiply, in the years to come, according to a consultant in oil geology.
While, according to Le Figaro, many boreholes are underway, the Mediterranean has around 232 hydrocarbon operating platforms, a third for oil. Tunisia comes at the top of the countries that welcome the most platforms; 43 Exactly set foot off our country. Not to mention the many boreholes that are underway.
The oil exploitation is therefore “comfortably” in the Mediterranean benefiting from new drilling techniques which allow farms more than two kilometers deep. The Mediterranean being a very deep semi-farmed sea, this craze is easily explained.
But for the French senator, the time is for concern. What happened in the Gulf of Mexico, in April 2010, is still in all memories. An incident had taken place on the “Deepwater Horizon” platform, killing 11 people and leaving more than 4 million crude barrels. This incident is unfortunately not an isolated case and this is what worries Roland Courteau. The age of most platforms is pointed out as well as the weaknesses of the legal supervision of the exploitation of platforms. Not to mention the maritime oil transport that has increased exponentially for decades, hence a larger risk of dark tide, and boats that clean their vats in the open sea!
The Mediterranean already suffers from an accumulation of waste. The density of macrodechets is 40 rooms per km². Solutions? Roland Courteau reports in his report of a dozen proposals mainly focused on research and governance. In addition to emphasizing the fact that all the countries of the Mediterranean should unite to combat pollution, it proposes the creation of an environmental protection agency and protection of sustainable development in the Mediterranean. This agency would include existing systems such as the Barcelona Convention.
