speaking of oil

[Guest guest]

Delaware River oil spill elicits new criticism of single-hulled oil tankers

 

Last weekend's oil spill on the Delaware River -- which U.S. Coast

Guard officials now say may be considerably worse than previously

estimated, involving up to 473,500 gallons of crude -- is drawing

attention to single-hulled oil tankers. Sen. Frank Lautenberg

(D-N.J.) calls them " accident waiting to happen. " Single-hulled

tankers -- like the Citgo-chartered Athos I, which dumped in the

Delaware -- have been banned from certain sensitive waters in Europe,

replaced by safer double-hulled models. But single-hulled ships will

be allowed to ply U.S. waters until 2015, and laws passed in the wake

of the 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill established strict liability caps

for tankers. Lautenberg and fellow New Jersey Sen. Jon Corzine (D)

have now proposed removing those caps for single-hulled tankers, and

some enviros are pushing to ban such ships from the Delaware

altogether.

straight to the source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, Wendy Ruderman, 01 Dec 2004

<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=3758>

straight to the source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tom Avril, 01 Dec 2004

<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=3759>