Word: oiling
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...flowed the oil and down sank the city. Soon the Navy, Ford Motor Co., the power company and the oil producers themselves were building costly levees to keep the salt sea away from their doors. As the sinking continued, one or two feet each year, the earth began to move sideways. Pipes broke and gushed water, oil or sewage. Pavements cracked. Bridges had to be rebuilt to keep them above the water. Such work has cost so far about $90 million...
...last the threatened city looked its enemy in the face. The geologists' reports left no doubt: the Wilmington oil sands, more than 1,000 ft. thick, have no strong rock over them. When the oil flowed out, the sands shrank slowly, and the surface sank, forming a great bowl, 24 ft. deep and more than 20 sq. mi. in area, that now reaches from the business center of Long Beach to the boundary of Los Angeles...
Reversing Sea Water. Geologists believe that Long Beach has two possible recourses, both expensive. It can stop oil production and thus keep the ground from sinking as much as it would if all oil were removed. This measure would be unpopular, and probably impossible...
...other alternative is to pump sea water down abandoned wells under high pressure to replace the oil in the sands before they collapse. Something like 900,000 bbl. per day will be needed, and the total cost is something that no one likes to think about (the pumps alone might cost $50 million). After three years of pumping, Long Beach might stop sinking. The land would never rise again, no matter how much water is forced into the sands. But pipes would stop breaking, pavements would stop cracking and dikes would not have to be raised every year...
...approve two simple changes in company bylaws. The changes: 1) remaining board members may elect new directors with "less than a quorum," and 2) surviving vice presidents may succeed the president in order of seniority. Other top U.S. companies have already taken similar will-making measures, including Ford, Standard Oil (N.J.), U.S. Steel, A.T. & T., Jones & Laughlin, Du Pont...