Monitoring Decontamination of Wildlife

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• Protect Cleanup Workers from Exposure to Toxic Oil Byproducts
• Monitoring Decontamination of Wildlife
• Monitoring Decontamination of People and Equipment
• Worker Safety on Oil Rigs
• Area Monitoring on Vessels
• Worker Safety on Supply Ships
• Area Monitoring of Shoreline

Seagoing and marsh-dwelling birds, as well as turtles and other aquatic creatures, are typically found soaked in oil during a spill scenario. Cleaning them requires the use of oil dispersants, such as dishwashing detergent, and a lot of patience.

During the time-consuming process of cleaning these animals, workers can be exposed to the toxic substances mixed into the crude oil on their bodies as well as any chemicals used to disperse it. In addition, dishwashing liquids typically contain ethanol, which is also a VOC (volatile organic compound). As a result, workers and the animals must be rinsed clean of both the oil and dishwashing liquid to ensure no VOCs remain.

Recommended RAE Systems Gas Detectors

In order to ensure that people cleaning the animals aren’t being exposed to hazardous VOCs, and to check whether contaminated animals contain unhealthy levels of VOCs, sensitive handheld monitors such as the MiniRAE Lite, MiniRAE 3000 and ppbRAE 3000 can be used to perform checks to ensure that all VOCs are removed.