Endless stretches of cliffs with deep coves andcaves were coated with Heavy Fuel Oil during the Erika oil spill.Professional rope workers were called in to help clean the cliffsand the coves as most of them were located in protected reserves.This was the very first time that such a technique was used toclean up pollution and it turned out to be original if only becauseof the size of the job to be done. The clean-up operation lastedtwo and a half years, involved over 800 work sites and the ropeworkers cleaned up more than 50 of them. As a rule, cliffs thatare hard to access are not cleaned up if only for safety andlogistics reasons. There were various reasons why so many worksites had to be set up during the Erika clean-up, namely: thenature and the quantities of the HFO, the ecological, amenity andheritage importance of the area, the know how and thecomplementarity of the rope workers and the clean-up companiesthat continually improved their techniques and their efficiency astime went by. Thanks to compliance with rules and safetystandards there were no accidents.
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