Clean Up
Following the oil spill Queensland Premier Anna Bligh declared two islands and parts of the Sunshine coast disaster areas. Cleanup efforts were reportedly going to cost at least A$100,000 a day and last more than a week as the oil continued to spread. Several search parties have been sent to the spill area to attempt to find the potentially explosive materials that were in the 31 containers. Press reports stated that if the ammonium nitrate were to mix with the heavy fuel, the mixture could ignite and cause a large explosion. If the chemical did not react with the fuel but still leaked out, marine life could be threatened by large blooms of algae. By 15 March, the cost of the spill jumped to A$10 million ($6.6 million USD). A team of 88 people were sent out to begin the cleanup process and another 58 were expected to join within the following days. On 16 March, the Australian Navy began searching for the 31 containers of ammonium nitrate which were knocked off the ship. A navy mine hunting ship was sent to look for the containers to reduce the amount of impact the chemical could cause.
The clean-up is a delicate operation as beaches had already been eroded from the high tides after ex-tropical cyclone Hamish battered the coast over the past week. High tides were carrying off some of the fuel oil initially deposited along shorelines and dispersing it back into the sea. By 15 March, the Government of Australia reported that 50% of the oil had been contained. The slick has been removed from about 95% of Bribie Island, 85% along the Sunshine Coast, and 25% around Moreton Island. On Moreton Island, a total of 290 people are working to clean up the oil with most of them focusing on Middle Creek and Cape Moreton. Even though hundreds of people are working on cleaning the spill, the average amount of oil cleaned each day was 1 km (0.6 mi) per day. At this rate, it would take more than a month to clean all the affected areas. The Federal Government promised to provide A$2 million ($1.3 million USD) to help with the cleanup.
Read more about this topic: 2009 Southeast Queensland Oil Spill
Famous quotes containing the words clean up and/or clean:
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)