The factors that affect cleanup cost are complex and interrelated. Each spill involves a unique set of circumstances that determine cleanup cost. Estimating a universal per-unit cleanup cost is essentially meaningless without taking into consideration factors such as location and oil type, which can profoundly influence costs. This paper examines the host of factors that impact cleanup cost in ...

45 Oil spills from offshore drilling and coastal refineries often cause degradation of coastal wetlands that can 46 take a long time to recover. Early oil detection may prevent losses and speed up recovery if monitoring of 47 the initial oil extent, oil impact, and recovery are in place. Satellite imagery data can provide a cost48 effective alternative to expensive airborne imagery or labor int...

The sinking of the oil tanker Prestige off the coast of Galicia was not only the worst ecological disaster ever to affect Spain, it also led to thousands of people who participated in the cleanup of the contaminated areas being exposed to potentially dangerous toxic substances. As the airway is one of the principal routes of entry into the body of these toxic compounds, the possible effects of ...

Historically, about half the oil transported through the global marine environment has come through the Arabian Gulf and the annual input of oil to the gulf’s marine environment is skewed toward sources connected with marine transport. As a case study, we assess the damages from an oil spill caused by a collision between the crude oil tankers Baynuna and the Seki on 30 March 1994. The collision...

The risk of oil spills is a major environmental issue in the siting of proposed coastal refineries, oil terminals, deepwater ports, and in the leasing of offshore lands for oil exploration and development. As with any kind of risk, oil spill risk assessment is inherently judgmental and no analytic method can eliminate the need for judgment. This paper compares representative examples of oil spi...

The NAKHODKA and ERIKA oil spills in Japan and France, respectively, have once again focused the attention of politicians, regulators, the media and claimants on the potentially high cost of such events and the adequacy of the current international compensation arrangements. As will be explained by another speaker at the Conference, this has led to a proposal for a Supplementary Fund that would...

The Deepwater Horizon accident has brought oil contamination of deep-sea environments to worldwide attention. The risk for new deep-sea spills is not expected to decrease in the future, as political pressure mounts to access deep-water fossil reserves, and poorly tested technologies are used to access oil. This also applies to the response to oil-contamination events, with bioremediation the on...

Marine oil snow (MOS) formation is a mechanism to transport oil from the ocean surface to sediments. We describe here the use of 110L mesocosms designed to mimic oceanic parameters during an oil spill including the use of chemical dispersants in order to understand the processes controlling MOS formation. These experiments were not designed to be toxicity tests but rather to illustrate mechanis...

We conducted ship-, shore- and laboratory-based crude oil exposure experiments to investigate (1) the effects of crude oil (Louisiana light sweet oil) on survival and bioaccumulation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in mesozooplankton communities, (2) the lethal effects of dispersant (Corexit 9500A) and dispersant-treated oil on mesozooplankton, (3) the influence of UVB radiation/sunl...