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Pembrokeshire has always had its fair share of shipwrecks. In the days of sail it was inevitable that, with a westerly wind driving frail schooners and ketches onto the rugged coast, maritime disasters of one sort or another were bound to happen.

And when the oil industry came to Milford Haven in the early 1960s there were many prophets of doom who predicted ecological disaster should one of the giant oil tankers that regularly sailed in past St Ann's Head ever run up onto the rocks around the south Pembrokeshire coast. In the main, such disasters have not occurred - that does not mean, however, there have been no accidents and when shipwrecks have taken place the threat from oil spillage has been real and terrifying.

In fact there was near disaster right at the beginning. Esso's new refinery at Gelliswick Bay in the Haven had only just opened for business when, on 8 July 1960, the "" began discharging 32,000 tons of crude oil at the terminal. She was the first ocean-going tanker to tie up at the refinery and expectation and excitement ran high. Unfortunately, so did the risk of danger, not only for the ship and refinery but for the whole town of Milford.

Almost as soon as the tanker began to discharge her cargo, there was a structural failure in one of the arms that took off the oil in huge pipes from the ship and a serious spillage took place. Within seconds the oil had ignited and a massive explosion rocked the area. Firemen quickly put out the flames and the majority of the cargo was saved but the hull of the "Esso Portsmouth" was seriously damaged and buckled.

The explosion was a warning. No serious oil leak had occurred but the incident could so easily have resulted in chaos. The next time an oil tanker was in trouble off the Pembrokeshire coast things did not go quite so well.

On 12 October 1978 the "", en route from Rotterdam to Belfast, ran onto the Hats and Barrels Reef, some 10 or 15 miles off the coast. The ship was quickly re-floated and the captain decided to continue with the voyage. Unfortunately, the rocks had ripped a large hole in her bottom and the ship was now leaking oil at an alarming rate. The owners, BP, ordered her to stop and two tankers came alongside to take off over 20,000 tons of crude oil.

Although the "" was towed out into the Atlantic and scuttled, thousands of tons of oil leaked into the sea. Over forty vessels were deployed, laying down booms around the oil and using skimmers to try to reclaim what they could. Aerial spraying, when it was feared the slick might reach the bird sanctuaries of Skomer and Skokholm, was also employed. In the end, after many days of hard physical effort, the oil was mopped up but not before somewhere in the region of 9,000 sea birds had been killed.

Clearing up at Milford Haven

Pembrokeshire's next oil disaster, the third largest oil spillage in Britain, took place on 15 February 1996 when the "" grounded on the rocks of St Ann's Head at the mouth of Milford Haven. She was bound for the Texaco refinery on the south shore of the Haven but was pushed off course by the current and hit the rocks just after 8.00pm.

The "" had punctured her hull and rescue attempts by tugs from the Port Authority served only to make matters worse as the ship repeatedly re-grounded, slicing open her bottom even more. Over the course of the following week 73,000 tons of crude oil spilled into the water and the was faced with an ecological disaster of major proportions.

It took six weeks for the oil slick to disperse and in that time thousands of birds had died, caught up in the cloying and clogging mixture. Shearwaters, guillemots, puffins, birds that had made their homes on the islands off shore, fell victim to the oil. There was also serious damage to the shore line right around the coast, seaweed and invertebrates being particularly badly hit.

A rescue centre for oiled birds was set up in Milford and dozens of volunteers (as well as paid workers) toiled for days to try to minimize the extent of the disaster. Tugs and other vessels from as far away as Dublin and Plymouth also came to help.

The "Sea Empress" disaster was only the third major incident involving oil tankers to take place in and around Milford Haven. Perhaps the area has been lucky. One thing is certain - the potential for future disaster remains and the only way to avoid trouble is with extreme caution and vigilance. It is the least our coastline deserves.