SES Completes Initial USAID Oil Spill Clean Up in Lebanon

In October 2006, SEACOR Environmental Services was awarded a $5 million contract by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to clean up a portion of Lebanon’s coastline following an oil spill from the Jiyeh Power Plant (30 km south of Beirut). Fuel tanks at the plant were destroyed during the July 2006 Israeli-Lebanese conflict resulting in one of the worst oil spill incidents in the region’s history.

Together with local partner company, Conapro SAL, SES completed the clean up of over 110,387 square meters of shoreline in 10 weeks. Utilizing resources from its worldwide operations, SES sent a team of highly experienced managers, supervisors, and technicians to Lebanon who trained over 220 local Lebanese to perform critical clean up functions. The local workforce consisted mainly of fisherman and tourism workers whose industries were decimated by the spill.

Project Hightlights

• The original Contract was for ten (10) sites for 72,263 square meters of shoreline; SES completed twenty (20) sites for 110,387 square meters, for the same contract amount.
• The original scope of work did not include submerged oil removal; SES went beyond that scope and performed over 3000 man hours of diver operations, recovering over 400 cubic meters of oil from the ocean, including nearly 30 cubic meters of waste bags left behind by previous clean up crews.
• SES removed over 30,000 bags of oiled waste and over 750 cubic meters of oil contaminated sand and rock.
• SES trained over 220 local Lebanese workers in Spill Response, creating an experienced response team for future spill events in Lebanon and beyond.
• 60% of SES’s contract proceeds went back into the local economy, to local Lebanese businesses affected by the spill.

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