OIL SPILL CONTROL PRESENTATION JAPAN FEB 2001

Let me introduce myself :I am Patrick Le Floch, manager of the company LE FLOCH DEPOLLUTION which isregistered in France.
The company is a member of the SYCOPOL, association of professionals involved in the oilspill control actions all around the world.
Our main office is based in Morlaix, medium town of Brittany (West of France), a coastal
region which has suffered many major oil spills, because of the heavy traffic of tankers in theChannel carrying all the types of oil to feed the refineries of the north of Europe.
The major oil spills are:
TORREY CANYON :AMOCO CADIZ :TANYO :

100 000 Tons
220 000 Tons
12 000 Tons

196719781980

Furthermore, many minor oil spills have happened up to now.
Being involved in oil spill controls for 25 years now, the company LE FLOCH
DEPOLLUTION is specialised in all types of cleaning up works off-shore, on-shore, on rivers
and decontamination of soils and sands. We are able to control every kind of oil spill.
Active all around the world we make our clients benefit of our wide experience, ouradaptability and the know how of our technicians.
Our staff uses specific equipments designed or not by our company which enable a swift
reaction and a rapid intervention whateve r it is the contaminated site and that every where inthe world.
We was involved in the followings oil spill controls:

EXXON VALDEZARAGONAEGEN SEANASSIASEKIPROMOTEA
KATJA

AlaskaPortugal
Spain
TurkeyU.A.E.
JordanFrance40 000 Tons
15 000 Tons
69 000 Tons
15 000 Tons
17 000 Tons
12000 m of beach cleaning up
1800 m of quay and marina
12400 m of quay and beaches

1989
1990
1992
1994
1995-1996
19961997
1998

The diversity of oils, of climatic conditions, of tidal ranges as well as the diversity of thesupports (rocks, sand, mud etc) have forced us to adapt ourselves.
At the moment our teams are involved in oil spill control operations in Turkey, because of theshipwreck of VOLGONEF 248, in Taiwan and in France following to the wreck of theERIKA since December 1999 and that up to June 2001.
Our targets are as follow :Contractual obligations
Supervising of the teams and their permanent training
Maintenance of the equipments
At the moment our staff is composed of 3 coordinators, 10 supervisors, 10 maintenancetechnicians, 200 operators and the accounting and secretary department of the main office.
We are working for Total Elf Fina for 60 % and for the French government for 40 %.

ERIKA
As told us already our friend of the CEDRE, the 12th December of 1999 occurred a strong
gale on the French Atlantic coast with winds velocity from 160 up to 190 km which caused
the shipwreck of the tanker ERIKA. After that the crew had been rescued, and the tanker had
sunk, causing a oil spill, the control operation started.
As some equipments had shown their inefficiency, we shipped on a vessel of the French navy
on which we installed few months ago a skimmer Foilex type TDS 200.
During the complete oil spill control operation off-shore, we had to face an air temperaturenear to zero degree Celcius, 8 meters high waves and a blustering wind up to 140 km/hour, all
the equipments used by the 8 vessels have shown themselves not adapted. Some of them haveeven stalled in contact with the produc t. The best of them have not reached 10% of their
theoretical efficiency gradient.
During almost 2 weeks the oil slicks drifted towards the shore because of the sea currents andthe wind. They reached at first an archipelago of islands and arrived on the shore between the25th and 26th of December 1999.
On the demand of TOTAL ELF FINA we began our intervention as soon as the 23 rd ofDecember in applying some “FILMOGENE” on some harbour facilities. This biologicalproduct decrease the capacity of the hydrocarbons to stick up on the surfaces which have beentreated and enables an easy cleaning up of them. The “FILMOGENE” disappear 3 days after
to have been spayed. This product is efficient on harbour facilities such as quays but
inefficient on rough stones breakwater, rocks and beaches.
As the first slicks arrived on the shore and as thousands of volunteers and the first armycompanies began the hand gathering of the oil, we carried out at the same time skimming andpumping tests with the following types of equipments.

Screw pump
Peristaltic pump
Lobs pump
Skimmer TDS 150
Truck with vacuum tank
These tests was not satisfying because of the viscosity of the product and of the difficulties forreaching out most of the polluted beaches.
Our teams was involved at the beginning of the cleaning up of the following sites :Finistère and its islands
Morbihan and its islands
North of Loire Atlantique and its islands
South of Loire Atlantique
Vendée and its islands

PROBLEMS WE HAVE METBecause of the viscosity of the product which had the aspect of a french bread paste andbecause of the high tidal range, combined with south southwest strong winds we had to face
new problems:
Our new designed and approved equipments as:
The pumps: centrifugal pumps, lobs pumps, peristaltic pumps revealed quickly inefficiency
after to have been tested.
The skimmers reached out with difficulties 10% of their capacity
The sorbents were inefficient and clogged immediately
Therefore we have adapted some methods :On the rocky areas and some rocky plateaus we have removed the fresh patches of pollutants
in using flushing guns which we concentrated on certain areas in view to gather the patchesby hand or with a crane when the access to the shore enabled its use.
After to have removed the highest concentrations on the rocky areas it was necessary toremove by hand (scraping) or to generate a warm dripping water flow where some thickpatches was difficult to remove and that before to start the fine washing using high pressure
steam cleaners.
According to the nature of the rocks and their friability we used the high pressure steam
cleaners either with flat jet or with the rotating nozzle. The cleaning up principle remainedcommon with other pollution cleaning up jobs done previously by us.
The gathering of the pollutant has been done in using “geotextiles” and “pom pom”
(synthetics fibres which are more filters and captors than sorbents).
After that these systems was used the result was satisfying.
Due to the strong gale and the high tid al range the pollutant has been splashed up to 40 m highon many islands cliffs. As our speciality is the shore cleaning up, we employed professionals
mountain climbers for cleaning up these type of areas. This new phenomenon has led to theuse of important safety and protection devices.

A large part of ground and dunes vegetation was oil stained and required to be cleaned bybotanists and that mostly by hand.
As I told you that adaptation is an important aspect of our job these 2 examples are its
confirmation.
Further to that we meet rather often the same configuration on sand beaches where thepollutants seeped deep into the sand and we had to make borings on a large part of the shore
using flushing guns. We had also to excavate the rocks and sand of the higher parts of thebeaches by hand or with machineries when it was possible.
The cleaning’s technique of the pebbles is to put them in a concrete mixer with filtration andrecovering of the effluent.
Two techniques are used for the rough stone breakwater :In situ’s treatment with flushing and high pressure steam cleaning.
Ex situ’s treatment with removing of the rocks and high pressure steam cleaning.
Filtration and recovering of the effluents for the two techniques.
Concerning the concrete harbour works and quays, we haven’t met particular problems andthe washing methods have been more and less the same that we have done on others
operations.
On the other hand, on oyster sites, numerous on the Atlantic coasts, and on a specific site ofsaline, we have placed a number of equipments and booms in position to prevent them frompollution. The pollution was proving very serious in economical and ecological point of view.
THE ENVIRONMENT
All around the world, the ecology becomes a rising care. The environmental constraints are
more and more numerous and for me and our society’s staff, it’s really normal.
We have appealed to botanists for advising us to find the better position for protecting theenvironment according to the scarcity of some vegetable’s species or to the brittleness of thedunes during the preparation of the site and before the installation of the equipments.
Chirurgical washing methods have been devised to preserve the plants and the rocks when
they are crumbly.
The clean rocks and vegetation were protected by a geotextil to prevent them for being
splashed by the high pressure steam cleaner.
The storage’s site of big bag and waste were protected from the soil.
At the beginning, when the pollution has killed numerous of birds, we have helped for therecovering of the polluted birds, which were nursed by specialists afterwards.
By recovering the dead birds, we have helped to index and inform the bird’s association.
Now, we request advise from environmental associations in order to avoid working wherebirds nidify. So we defer sometimes the work to do.
In geological protect zone, chirurgical washing methods have been devised to protect what
was able to be.