Word: cleanup
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BUSINESS: A string of oil spills triggers a cleanup campaign...
...scene has become painfully familiar this year: exhausted workers struggling to scoop up a noxious tide of inky goo. A major cleanup campaign was under way once again last week in three different spots in the U.S.: the Delaware River, Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay and the Houston Ship Channel. Crews were deploying rakes, hand-held skimmers, oversize absorbent pads and "supersucker" vacuums to scoop up the oil spilled in the accidents. While all the slicks were much smaller than the 10.5 million-gal. spill of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska last March, the timing of the latest mishaps, which...
...that it had recorded 6,700 oil spills during 1988, ten of which involved at least 100,000 gals. While total spills were down from 10,000 in 1984, environmentalists contend that the level remains unacceptably high, especially in light of the poor results of most mop-up efforts. Cleanup crews recover on average no more than 10% of major oil spills, a performance that has failed to improve during the past 20 years, according to Amy Stolls, editor of Oil Spill Intelligence Report. Declares Alaska Governor Steven Cowper: "It is clear that the industry does not have the equipment...
...fumes from the spill wafted by the beach-front mansions in Newport, cleanup crews promptly deployed booms to contain as much of the spreading slick as possible. Robert L. Bendick, director of the state department of environmental management, reported that the disaster had attracted so many curiosity seekers that they were hampering cleanup efforts. The department ordered sightseers off the beaches until after the cleanup, and boaters were asked to stay at their docks...
...Uruguayan tanker Presidente Rivera, en route to Marcus Hook, Pa., was loaded with 28 million gal. of medium-heavy oil when it ran aground in the Delaware. While the spill was conspicuous, the Coast Guard's marine-safety office in Philadelphia moved quickly. Cleanup crews surrounded it with booms and began pumping the remaining oil in the ship's tanks into barges in order to limit the damage. The fast response was heartening. But the U.S. really needs a way of preventing more spills...