Oil spill response and prevention leader completes historical project

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, UNITED STATES, January 25, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- QualiTech Environmental Inc., the worldwide industry leader in providing equipment and services for oil spill response and prevention, is proud to have completed the emergency response and salvage pollution response for Golden Ray in St. Simons Sound, Golden Isles, Ga.

On Sept. 8, 2019, the 656-foot cargo ship, Golden Ray, capsized in St. Simons Sound near Jekyll Island after departing Brunswick, Ga. The 21,000-ton vessel was transporting 4,159 vehicles containing fuel and batteries, as well as the ship’s own fuel and oil load. As a result of the ship’s grounding, multiple fires occurred and residual hydrocarbons were found in the flooded engine room. During the first emergency response days, QualiTech Environmental provided subject matter experts, operational oversight and various specialized pollution response equipment to remove nearly 380,000 gallons of oil.

After all accessible bunker fuel was offloaded, QualiTech Environmental built a team to design an Environmental Protection Barrier (EPB), which is the first of its kind in this type of environment as it was designed and engineered for a Category 2 storm and can contain up to 12 vehicles at once against a single containment panel in a 6-knots current. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and three Atlantic hurricane seasons, QualiTech Environmental led the pollution response portion of the EPB with more than 100,000 man-hours without any safety incidents or lost-time injuries.

“With the ever-changing protocols, QualiTech Environmental responders were in constant sequestration to avoid illness and delays to the response, and we are proud of our team’s work on this historical project,” QualiTech Environmental Operations Manager Josh Clifford said. “The response from our QualiTech Environmental team, the United States Coast Guard and the Unified Command helped save marine life and protect our coastlines from what could have become an unimaginable nightmare.”

QualiTech Environmental provides consulting, training, equipment and support to combat and remediate oil spills. The organization partners with several leading equipment and service providers to deliver top-in-class, end-to-end solutions to the response industry. QualiTech Environmental prides itself on being a solution-driven supplier of environmental response equipment.

For more information about QualiTech Environmental, please visit www.qualitechco.com.

Caroline Seeman
Rhythm Communications
+1 770-570-2571
cseeman@rhythmcommunications