Cleanup crews race Tropical Storm Lee to clean up oil spill

 

Heavy machinery moves around earth as efforts continue to clean up an oil spill Friday, Sept. 2, 2011 at Gulf Coast Asphalt Co. in Mobile, Ala. About 275,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil spilled at the facility which sits on the Mobile River. The Mobile River remains closed to boat traffic between the Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge to the McDuffie Coal Terminal as crews attempt to clean up the oil spill that occurred Thursday at the plant. (Press-Register, G.M. Andrews)

MOBILE, Alabama -- Cleanup crews swarmed across Gulf Coast Asphalt Company’s riverfront property Friday, racing to scoop up tens of thousands of gallons of heavy fuel oil before the arrival of Tropical Storm Lee. 

Greenland posts Cairn oil spill plan to combat fears

* Greenland publishes Cairn Energy's oil spill plan
* Acts to calm environmental fears over Arctic exploration
* Says authorities can take action 5 km around rig
COPENHAGEN, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Greenland has published British explorer Cairn Energy's oil spill response plan in a bid to calm fears about Arctic exploration after environmental group Greenpeace demanded that it be made public.
It also said it had new options to act against any unlawful attempts by protesters to interfere with oil rigs.
Greenpeace, which has tried to disrupt drilling off Greenland, argues that cleaning up a spill in the Arctic waters there would be extremely difficult.
Greenland's government had initially withheld the oil spill contingency plan drawn up by Cairn because it feared activists could launch more actions against rigs if it were published.
Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of the kingdom of Denmark, said the Danish foreign ministry had determined that under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea the Greenland authorities can take action within a radius of 5 km from a safety zone around oil rigs.
"These new options available will make it easier for the authorities to take measures in relation to unlawful actions against the safety measures of the drilling rigs," the Greenland government said in a statement on its website.