The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

August 15, 2010

Feds could learn a lesson from disaster response here


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---- — THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT could certainly learn something from the recent response to the Duferco Farrell oil spill into the Shenango River.

One of the biggest complaints in recent years was the response of government agencies to national tragedies, including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and to the massive BP oil well spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In those cases, the government appeared not only slow to react, but unsure how to go about responding to the problems.

Not so, locally.

When it was learned that an oil-water mixture accidentally had been dumped into the Shenango River on Wednesday, emergency crews sprang into action. A lot of the credit must go to Duferco officials, who promptly contacted the proper authorities and immediately took measures to clean up the mess.

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