7. Find answers to the questions in the above article

1. What organization is making a report in the article?

2. What do large oil spills arise from?

3. Where do most oil spills originate?

4. What operations do most oil spills arise from?

5. What is the first response to oil spill?

6. Where can an ideal opportunity for effective recovery be provided?

7. What gives a real chance of getting a spill under control?

8. What problem is there in the industrial ports?

9. Why is it a continual source of oil contamination?

10. In what way can oil be forced out from under the wharves?

8. Insert the proper word (choose from the words given below)

1. Large oil spills arising from shipping … often make dramatic news.

2. Most oil … are small and originate in or near ports.

3. 80 per cent of all tanker spills … during loading, discharging and bunkering.

4. The first … in a port is the same as at any other location.

5. It is necessary to try to secure the … and to deploy … and skimmers to contain its spread.

6. An ideal opportunity for effective recovery is not available in the … seas off many coasts.

7. Response equipment is also usually … at hand.

8. This allows rapid deployment and a real … of getting a spill under control.

9. More specific to industrial ports is the problem of oil becoming … under long wharves.

10. This can be a continual source of … contamination.

11. Containing and recovering oil under … using traditional booming techniques is difficult.

12. It is sometimes feasible to force the oil out using ships’ … or fire hoses.

(accidents, booms, chance, close, occur, oil, propellers, response, rough, spillage, spills, trapped, wharves)

9. Give English equivalents

разлив нефтепродуктов, происходить во время бункеровки, первая реакция, попытаться заградить разлив, разместить боны и плёнкосниматели, сдерживать распространение топлива, защищённый от больших волн, предоставить возможность, эффективное восстановление, бурное море, вдали от берегов, оборудование для принятия ответных мер, близко под рукой, взять под контроль, попасть в ловушку под причалами, продолжительный источник загрязнения, многочисленные препятствия, выгнать топливо, судовой винт, пожарный шланг, вакуумная установка

Part 2. B – Health and safety

1. Translate the article using the vocabulary

Ventilation and accessibility are key health and safety issues for clean­up personnel in the semi-enclosed spaces under wharfs and other port structures. In some cases, the wharves are built with such short piles that it is difficult and dangerous for clean-up crews to get underneath the structures at all states of the tide. In other cases, the long access routes for working deep under some wharves make work impractical because of the danger of being trapped under the wharf by a rising tide. This is especially true for a commercially-active wharf, where the quickest escape routes may be blocked by vessels hundreds of metres long.

Once floating oil has been addressed, response operations can shift towards removing oil stranded on shorelines and facilities. Sometimes it may be possible to remove the bulk layer of oil by manually scraping or wiping with rags. This is often very easy where contaminated surfaces like concrete, steel and wood are smooth and accessible and it is sometimes possible to return these areas to their original condition quite quickly. The presence of' marine growths such as algal films can make the oil removal process easier. Sometimes stains are left, but aesthetic concerns are often minimal in industrial areas. With the ever-increasing availability of small, efficient hot and cold water pressure cleaners a good standard of cleaning can often be achieved relatively easily.

Porous surfaces, such as crumbling or rough cement, rusty steel or hard natural surfaces, can be more time consuming to clean, even with hot water high-pressure units and there is the added complication that aggressive cleaning techniques may cause structural damage. Common sense needs to be applied, perhaps using less aggressive cleaning (such as lower pressure ‘flushing’) and accepting lower standards of cleanliness.