Word: exxon
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...spraying the fertilizer Inipol to promote the growth of naturally occurring microbes on the cobbled beaches where rocks were slathered with oil. Certain bacteria "eat" oil, but they grow slowly in Alaska because of the cool water temperatures. Inipol speeds the reproduction of the oil-consuming organisms, and once Exxon began spraying it on with pump-driven wands, beaches showed considerable improvement. "I was impressed with Smith Island," says biologist Jill Parker of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Before, you couldn't walk on it. It looks so much better." Exxon treated some 70 miles of shoreline with Inipol...
After an embarrassing false start, during which workers futilely hand scrubbed individual rocks, Exxon refined some techniques that show promise for future oil-spill cleanups. The omni-sweep, a spray nozzle at the end of a 100- ft.-long mechanical arm, allowed workers to hose steep shorelines that were otherwise inaccessible. High-temperature, high-pressure rinses proved moderately effective in scouring oil-fouled rocky beaches, but they killed intertidal creatures such as barnacles and snails. Coast Guard Captain David Zawadzki compares the process with chemotherapy...
...necessary because beaches often became re-oiled. In many cases oil that had seeped down through shoreline sediments to a depth of as much as three feet was pumped back to the surface by 15-ft. tides. "We treated some of those areas as many as seven times," says Exxon spokesman David Sexton. In all, the company says, it recovered 61,000 bbl. of the 260,000 spilled. The $1 billion spent on the cleanup translates into $390 for each gallon of oil recovered...
What happened to the other 199,000 bbl.? Exxon professes not to know, a curious stance for a company that in other circumstances makes a corporate fetish out of accounting for every last barrel in its inventory. "I'm not going to speculate how much oil is left and where it is," says Sexton. As much as 25% of the crude may have evaporated in the early days after the spill. Much of the rest, guesses Lars Foyn, a fishery expert with the Marine Research Institute in Bergen, Norway, has become diluted in the water and disappeared. Most...
...Exxon maintains that the cleanup is a success. Says senior vice president K. Terry Koonce of the 1,100 miles of shoreline treated: "It's reasonably clean; it's pretty pristine." The Coast Guard, which must sign off on the work Exxon has done, is more guarded. "We don't like to use the word clean," says Captain Zawadzki. "It's not as easy as washing dishes." Protecting itself against future charges that it let Exxon off the hook, the Coast Guard will / certify only that the company's cleanup plan has been executed as described...