The flow of these rivers into the Aral Sea in central Asia has been reduced by 75 percent for cotton irrigation. This has caused sea levels to recede 53 feet between 1962 and 1994. Consequently, competing claims to water between users within countries and between countries will have to be managed in a cooperative rather than a confrontational fashion. The needs of the poor and of future generations must be secured and issues of quantity and quality of water must be addressed. EPA recently settled with another Newark company, Hudson Tank, for similar violations.
Spills are certainly easier to prevent than to clean up.
A few relatively simple preventive measures taken now can avert a lot of headaches in the future. In addition, Atlas will replace its wooden fish oil tanks and perform upgrades of various pipelines. In the other SPCC case settled this past July with Hudson Tank, EPA found this facility to have an inadequate SPCC plan. An inspection of the property also revealed that there was not adequate secondary containment, around its oil storage tanks and loading and unloading areas at the facility. Secondary containment is a barrier that would contain spills before they can reach a surface water.