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From the Files of Heal the Harbor, Inc. December 3, 2002
Janet Clayton Dear Janet: Thank you for your return letters and past acceptances and publications of correspondence on envioronmental issues. Senator Mc Cain has expressed thanks to me about having him ask the Army Corps of Engineers to investigate a navigation canal for future sea water replenishment of the Salton Sea. I regard to the present hand oil spill clean up methods pictured recently in photos in the L.A. Times, I would like to point out that these same methods led to the deaths of 4 Japanese village volunteers when a Russian tanker carrying fuel oil wrecked there, I believe, four winters ago. The best method of oil spill handling method was investigated by "a major oil company" (as their contract stipulated that they be named) and was reported upon February 24, 1994 on the cover of the South Bay section of the Los Angeles Times and as is reported in the article involves first freezing the spilled oil with a sprinkling, spraying or shoveling tiny dry ice pellets on the oil, making it a "butter" spill rather than a oil spill and then rolling it up and taking it away for recycle, cleanly. This induced low temperature besides eliminating the gooyness and spreading spreading it also markedly reduces the amount of harmful and toxic VOCs released and breathed in down wide by people and animals during the clean up. This dry ice method is available on the internet posted on the Heal the Harbor Web Site at www.healtheharbor.org and click on "Spills". With best wishes for improved technology, Tim Beck, M.A. |