A Few Companies Clean Up Supplying Oil Cleanup Gear

Phillip Mamatas was awakened at 2:30 a.m. Saturday by an unusual business phone call. Someone wanted to place an order for 100 rain suits, 100 hard hats, 24 pairs of rubber boots and 20 eyewash bottles--and they wanted them delivered to Long Beach on the double.

Despite the odd hour, Mamatas, president of Century Safety Instruments & Supply Corp. in Orange, was not surprised by the call when he heard who the customer was. It was Southwest VECO Inc., the Long Beach company hired by British Petroleum Co. to clean up the huge oil spill off Huntington Beach.

Since last Friday, when BP asked VECO to help clean up the spill, VECO has bought $850,000 in supplies and equipment from about two dozen Southern California companies for use in the beach mop-up operation, said Sharon Hagelstrom, a VECO spokeswoman.

Century Safety has received a nice chunk of that business--$71,000 to be exact--for a variety of equipment including megaphones and life rings.

While the spill has been a tragedy for the Orange County coastline, a small bright spot is that it has generated a good deal of business for some Southern California firms.

The spill “has almost doubled my business for this month,” Mamatas said. “But I didn’t want this to happen here or anywhere. I live within a mile of the beach.”

Out of the 23 suppliers hired by VECO, only four were Orange County firms. The remainder are located in Long Beach or elsewhere in Los Angeles County.

Bill Cates, VECO’s purchasing director, said his firm relied primarily on Los Angeles County companies that it has done business with in the past.

“We’re based in Long Beach, so we do a lot of our business in Long Beach,” Cates said. “When you call up vendors in the middle of the night, they’re going to expect cash. It’s nice if you have established credit with these vendors already.”

Besides hard hats and boots, VECO has purchased a host of other supplies to clean up the oily mess: 125,000 plastic trash bags, 58,500 absorbent pads, 45,000 rain suits, 13,500 rubber gloves, 240 flashlights, 20 portable light poles and 16 cellular phones.

In addition to the cost of all that equipment, VECO is spending about $200,000 per day to pay the cleanup crews, Hagelstrom said. VECO was also the prime contractor for last year’s disastrous Exxon-Valdez oil spill clean-up in Alaska.

Since Monday morning, suppliers have been flooding VECO with phone calls to offer their services--and leaving phone numbers where they can be reached at night, Cates said.

Mamatas and Century Safety’s general manager, Mike Luzzi, said they took turns delivering the supplies to the shoreline clean-up site from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. last Wednesday.

Luzzi said VECO uses inexpensive vinyl and rubber rain gear to protect the cleanup crews from toxic oil.

“That’s an intelligent and cost-effective way of doing things,” he said.

While VECO has been ordering more equipment each day, VECO says the bulk of supplies have already been purchased.

For Century Safety, the spill clearly has been a windfall. The company has already supplied more than 8,700 rain suits, 4,000 goggles, 1,000 hard hats and 2,000 pairs of gloves.

WHAT IT TAKES TO TACKLE A SPILL Item: Quantity Trash bags: 125,000 Absorbent pads: 58,500 Rain suits: 45,000 Boom (in feet): 20,000 Rubber gloves: 13,500 Boots: 4,400 Goggles: 2,000 Hard hats: 1,500 Rakes: 725 Shovels: 400 Flashlights: 240 First aid kits: 60 Water coolers: 60 Light standards: 20 Cellular phones: 16 Cars: 16 Pickup trucks: 6 Vans: 6 Front-end loaders: 5 Security guards: 4 Passenger buses: 3 Farm tractor-trailer: 2 Small boat & trailer: 1 Generator: 1 Source: VECO Inc.