INTRODUCTION 



Federal legislation and Executive Orders place liability for 

 complete environmental restoration after an oil spill upon the parti- 

 cular industries or Federal agencies responsible for the mishap. While 

 development has been initiated within the Navy for oil containment/ 

 recovery systems, little effort has been directed to the development 

 of methods and equipment for beach cleanup. There is a critical need 

 for such development since beaches usually have a high public use factor 

 and correspondingly high financial liability for damage. In the interim 

 period, it is useful to adopt the best available methods used in previous 

 beach cleanup operations. GEL* was tasked by the Supervisor of Salvage 

 to review beach cleanup operations of the past , identify the various 

 cleanup methods and equipment that have been used, and recommend the 

 methods and equipment of record that are most suitable for restoration 

 of various classes of beaches. Available information is to be used by 

 the Supervisor of Salvage in compiling a manual for beach cleanup. This 

 report presents the results of the effort . 



BACKGROUND 



Oil spills, such as that from the Torrey Canyon, have attracted 

 world-wide attention. Because of increased dependence of the United 

 States on imported petroleum and the corresponding shipping and handling 

 of oils, it can be expected that accidental oil spills of considerable 

 magnitude will continue to occur. The lack of research studies in beach 

 cleanup precludes the direct development of satisfactory equipment, 

 methods, and procedures for such operation. Considerable experience, 

 however, has been gained in previous cleanup efforts. 



On 18 March 1967, the tanker Torrey Canyon, carrying 117,000 long 

 tons of oil, ran aground on Seven Stone Reef off the south coast of 

 England [1,2]. Seven hundred thousand barrels of crude oil were washed 

 ashore in England and some drifted to the beaches of Brittany, France, 

 In England, detergents were used almost exclusively to emulsify the 

 oil with the seawater. Since the dispersing agents were more toxic than 

 the oil treated, severe destruction of biota resulted. In Brittany, 

 large sumps were dug at the rear of the beaches and the oily sand was 

 deposited therein. Sands sank to the bottom of these sumps and the oil 

 floated to the surface and was skimmed off. Such operations require 

 large expenditures of both time and manpower. As many as 2,300 soldiers 

 were involved in the beach cleanup operation in Brittany. 



* Formerly the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory; now a detachment 

 of the Naval Construction Battalion Center, Port Hueneme , CA. 



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