Oil Slick Again Stains Rio Bay

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From the Associated Press

Oil Slick Again Stains Rio Bay Wednesday July 26, 2000 3:20 am

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - A large oil slick spread over Rio's postcard-famous Guanabara Bay on Tuesday, the third oil spill there this year.

Environmentalists said it probably was diesel fuel, lighter and less harmful than the crude oil that had spilled earlier in the year. Samples were taken to government laboratories to determine the type of oil and help investigators trace the spill's source.

The slick was broken up in patches across an area of more than 20 square miles, environmentalists said. It washed up on beaches within the bay and stretched out into the open sea.

Rio's most famous beaches, Copacabana and Ipanema, were not immediately threatened by the oil, authorities said.

In January, a broken underwater pipeline at the Reduc refinery, owned by federal oil giant Petrobras, spewed at least 340,000 gallons of crude into the bay. The oil washed over protected mangrove swamps, which ecologists said would take at least a decade to recover.

Last month, another spill was traced to a Petrobras barge that washed its tanks and dumped the water into the sea.

In southern Brazil, more than 1 million gallons spilled from burst pipeline at a Petrobras refinery. Much of it washed into the Iguacu River, and the cleanup continues.

http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Breaking_News/International/0,3561,319364,00.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 26, 2000


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