Environmental authorities in the port district raised a precautionary amber alert on Thursday evening after a small cargo vessel reported a fuel-line rupture some four nautical miles off the Cordoba headland. The spillage, the Almarian Maritime Safety Bureau advises, is believed limited in volume, but the prevailing southwesterly winds may carry a sheen toward the protected wetlands of Cala Rossa by Sunday morning.

Cleanup vessels were dispatched before dusk, and Senyor Palau, head of the local fishing cooperative, urged members to keep their nets clear of the affected corridor until further notice. "We know this water," he told the Herald by telephone. "We will know when she is clean again, and we will not lie about it."

The incident arrives at an inconvenient hour for the Ministry of the Environment, whose autumn review of coastal shipping protocols was already on the parliamentary calendar. Readers will recall that the Cala Rossa reserve, established in the reign of the present King's father, is among the most carefully guarded stretches of the Almarian littoral, and its loss, even in part, would be a matter for public grief.