BOSTON -- New England is playing a vital role in the oil cleanup effort in the Gulf of Mexico.

A Brockton company is making oil booms that are headed for the gulf to help contain the oil before it washes ashore.

Workers are racing to make enough boom to stretch hundreds of miles, where beaches, marinas and marshland are compromised.

"The oil really hasn't come ashore, but the slick is offshore," operations manager Tim Prevost said. "Unbelievable what we will deal with in next several years."

Spilldam Inc., is the only New England company that produces oil booms.

"They're working double shifts now. It's around the clock and that's something that we've never had to do before," company owner James Walter Miller said.

They're producing 10 times what they did during the Valdez spill.

"It's in very high demand. I mean it's become a black market item," Prevost said.