Shipwreck Cleanup Leaks Oil Onto Popular Georgia Beach
More oil gushed into the water Monday from the remains of an overturned cargo ship being dismantled along the coast of Georgia, where dozens of workers were still busy cleaning up thick bands of blackened sand from a weekend oil leak that fouled a beach popular with tourists.
The multi-agency command overseeing demolition of the shipwreck dispatched about 70 workers to the shoreline of St. Simons Island, where oil had washed onshore across roughly 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of beach and marsh grasses. Cleanup efforts were expected to take several days.
“It’s terrible,” Fletcher Sams, executive director of the Altamaha Riverkeeper conservation group, said as he strolled the beach Monday. “We’re looking at probably 100 yard bags full of oiled sediment that they’re picking up right now. But they’re hardly putting a dent in it.”
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