Facts and figures of oil disasters, how it spreads:

Authorities have years ago calculated the following:

1. 1 metric ton crude oil in the water will in 100 minutes spread to a 0.1mm thick film and cover some 8000-10000 squere meters of water area. ( About 10% of the oil will evaporate increasing the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere! ).

2. 10000 metric tons will thus in 100 minutes hours cover hundreds of hectars of water area.

3. 50000 metric tons will be just a huge disaster.

The ships transporting crude oil from the bottom of the Finnish Gulf ( from 2 large Russian oil harbours ) out through the Öresund to the Atlantic are all large supertankers, about 50000- 100000 metric tons.

What is the present situation for preparedness in the whole south coast of Finland? How many kilomters of protective boom do we have? As far as I know there is not many kilometers at all.
The largest stock is actually kept by Neste refinery themselves ( 2.5 km about ) in Porvoo, the authorities do not have almost any booms in stock. How fast can these booms be placed out so that they will eventually help and prevent at least some of the oil reaching the shores?
Those of us who have been out on the high seas know that 2.5 km is not very long distance out there, in fact it is so short you would not believe it! So what then? The main part of the oil will land on south-west winds on the Finnish coast on northerly -north-easterly winds on the Estonian coast. Then the mess and huge problem is there.
This will cost a huge amount of money to clear up... and it will be a disaster for the animals and sealife in general.

Should we not be better prepared in order to have at least a small change to fight the mess?

There are laws on how many kilometers protective boom there should be in any community, specially in the communities by the Finnish Gulf and Botnian Sea, but no one is applying to the law! It is very frustrating!

Should we do something?