Company hiring for Tufts Cove oil spill cleanup

It could be at least another weekbefore Nova Scotia Power knows how long it will take to clear last week's oil spill at Tufts Cove.

Five thousand litres of oil leakedinto Halifax harbour Aug. 2andcontractors are in the process of hiring more people to help with the cleanup.

According to Nova Scotia Power, there are about 65 people at the site using vacuum trucks and absorbent materials. Sixteen of those people are short-term labourers working to clean the shoreline.

Manual labour positions

MFROil Response is one of the companies contracted by Nova Scotia Power to do the cleanup work. Mark Ring, the company's president, said he's looking to hire more people to do manual labour at the site.

"We have main oil responders thatare fully trained and constantly trained, constantly trained in operating all the equipment the boats and skimmers and so on," said Ring.

"Once you get into a larger spill, we don't want to utilize these individuals for smaller tasks: moving absorbents, cleanup, just little stuff that needs to be done around thejob site to keep things safe."

Training, safety gear provided

Ring said those hired will receive job training, safety training and will be provided with safety gear.

"After they're into their roles, then we bring in more bodies to fill in gaps and we keep going until we have the right number to make everything flow smoothly," he said.

No special skills are needed, but those applying must be at least 16 and be physically able and immediately available to do the work.

The pay works out to be $16.50 per hour andworkers will be needed five days a week for the next one to three months.

Ring said he was able to pull together a crew immediately after the spill was reported, but is now tapping into those onemployment insurance looking for work,the local Syrian refugee population and the general public.

"My wife and I and four families in the neighbourhood created a family of five where we fundraised and brought in a family ourselves so we've been involved with the Syrian refugee for about two years now," said Ring.

"So I know there are a lot of individuals that are around who are studying to learn English as a second language and get involved in the communities and they would like to get out to do some work, so we reached out to that group."

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