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- <text id=90TT0443>
- <title>
- Feb. 19, 1990: American Notes:California
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Feb. 19, 1990 Starting Over
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 67
- American Notes
- CALIFORNIA
- Bad Luck, But Good Behavior
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> It was apparently just plain bad luck that as the tanker
- American Trader was unloading off Southern California's
- Huntington Beach last week, a sudden swell caused an anchor to
- tear a 3-ft. gash in the ship's forward compartment. Working
- by night, the crew plugged the hole within four hours, but an
- estimated 300,000 gal. of crude poured into the Pacific. At
- week's end the oil slick covered a 30-sq.-mi. area and was
- starting to foul beaches and wildlife refuges.
- </p>
- <p> The accident gave new impetus to local efforts to require
- double hulls on all new tankers. But unlike Exxon, whose
- response to last year's catastrophic oil spill in Alaska's
- Prince William Sound was too little and too late, British
- Petroleum, the company leasing the tanker, lost no time in
- launching a cleanup. "Their response has been without equal,"
- said a Coast Guard spokesman. "The people and the equipment
- were ready."
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-