Portland Public Library Portland Public Library Digital Commons Casco Bay Weekly (1989) Casco Bay Weekly 9-21-1989 Casco Bay Weekly : 21 September 1989 Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.portlandlibrary.com/cbw_1989 Recommended Citation "Casco Bay Weekly : 21 September 1989" (1989). Casco Bay Weekly (1989). 38. http://digitalcommons.portlandlibrary.com/cbw_1989/38 This Newspaper is brought to you for free and open access by the Casco Bay Weekly at Portland Public Library Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Casco Bay Weekly (1989) by an authorized administrator of Portland Public Library Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. RECE1VE SEP 22 i989 ascj •. ,'-.' \. .' ~,. .- ~ ~-" . ~ . , . , -~- .. , ~'. -.;;. Greater Portland's news and arts weekly ~i~~ '.} _ ~ - . , ~.' ",. ,I :.... __ SEPT. 21, 1989 An oil spill that never happened left a green stain on me. • On Tuesday, September 12, an imaginary 200,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into Casco Bay just off the Eastern Prom so that the Coast Guard could test the readiness of Portland's cleap.up crews. Within 'an hour, local contractors were on the scene to con- tain the peat moss used to simulate the spill; within four hours, Governor John McKernan and a pack of journal- ists were on the scene to soak up the pUblicity. I stayed ashore. I'd seen this act before. While growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, I watched similar demonstra- tions of how well-prepared the oil companies were - just in case oil ever spilled into the then-pristine waters of Prince William Sound. And, yes, the Governor of Alaska showed up ." for many of those demonstrations, too.