To the editors:
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
I thought other Reader readers might be interested to know that that feisty little group of volunteers, working the oil spill clean-up near Homer, is still at it, too [“On the Spill,” September 8]. Their Alaska Recovery Coalition (ARC) just shut down clean-up activities on the demonstration beach at Mars Cove on November 1, hanging in for at least six weeks longer than the Exxon crews. A total of about 50 volunteers employed a variety of environmentally cautious, low-cost clean-up methods that Exxon never tried.
Alaskan state agencies seem pretty happy with the volunteers’ clean-up effort. A few of the volunteers’ new methods will be recommended as standard practice in any future spills. (Considering their persistent waste disposal problem it may seem ironic, but the volunteers’ greatest accomplishment probably was in creating much less waste than the Exxon crews.) Also, a stretch of coastline at Mars Cove may be the only beach in the path of the spill that will be officially declared “clean.”
