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The Selendang Ayu carried 132 million
pounds of dried #2 yellow soybeans in her cargo holds at the
time she grounded and was wrecked. Included in the beans were
up to 2% other materials such as other grains, dust, stems seed
pods and weed seeds. The beans were grown for human consumption
and contained no pesticides or herbicides above the USEPA acceptable
residual concentrations.
The grounding of the vessel opened the vessel’s cargo holds
to the sea and released the beans to the surrounding water. Most
beans will sink in seawater though a small percentage floated.
Over time the beans absorbed water and approached neutral buoyancy.
Wave energy and currents at the exposed wreck site were sufficient
to suspend, transport and strand a large portion of the soggy
beans on the nearby beach (named “Bean Beach” by
the response crews) while other beans remained on the sea bottom
close by the wreck. By early February, there was a very large
concentration of the beans deposited the full length of Bean
Beach in drifts and dunes similar in appearance and behavior
to coarse sand. As the winter turned into spring we saw the removal
of the vast bulk of the beans from the beach, the hulls split
and the beans broken in half by the surf and carried away by
the offshore currents. There remains on the beach a small portion
of the original cargo of beans which are actively decomposing.
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