Demand Increases for Alpharetta Business After Oil Spill

By Martha Dalton

Atlanta, GA – An Alpharetta-based company is seeing an increase in business as a result of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Meltblown Technologies makes booms that are being used in the cleanup efforts. WABE's Martha Dalton has the details.

Meltblown VP George Gonzalez says the booms are made of polypropylene, a wicking material which acts like a sponge.

"It's almost like a sausage shape and they're usually either five inches in diameter and they're probably ten to twenty feet in length and they link together end-to-end, overlapping about 18 inches."

Gonzalez says Meltblown's plant in Sandersville produces about 400-thousand feet of booms each week. They're then sold to distributors, who sell them to contractors for BP.

The sharp increase in demand has led to growth for Meltblown's boom division.

"That specific area of the plant before the spill probably had a total of 14, 20 people. After the spill, that area alone has about 110 people ."

Gonzalez concedes that once BP contains the leak, demand will probably taper off. But, he says, the cleanup process could take several years to complete.