Workers Safety & Health During Iguassu Oil Spill Response Oil Spill in Iguassu River – Araucaria, Parana, Brazil

Abstract

ABSTRACT On July 16, 2000 a major oil spill occurred at the side of the Araucaria refinery. A total of 4,000 m3 of a light crude oil run down around two kilometers trough Saldanha creek, crossing and contaminating four wetlands. The oil discharged into Barigüi River, a tributary of Iguassu River contaminating 6 kilometers in Barigüi River and 60 in Iguassu River. An oil recovery and cleanup operation was mounted. Almost 3000 workers were hired in haste to clean and recover oil in the impacted wetlands area, as well as in the water streams. The accident happened on a Sunday afternoon, during one of the coldest (for Brazilian standards) winters in past years, with temperatures as low as − 6°C. At the start of the oil recovery work, a very important issue was worker's safety and health. Most of the workers were unskilled people, unemployed until the accident and among them a great number of illiterate persons. The paper describes the issues with regards to safety and health, the actions taken to protect worker's health during manual oil recovery in wetlands, the means used to reduce hydrocarbon vapor exposure and evaluation of worker's exposure to hydrocarbon vapors. The effort was successful, in nine days all the free oil was removed from the rivers. The cleaning of the riverbanks and inundation areas was completed in three months. The creek and wetland areas ascending Barigüi River held around 70 per cent of the spilled oil. In these areas the safety and health concerns where higher. All superficial oil was removed from the rivers and streams.