Study of recovery from an oil spill on the Rocky Intertidal Coast of Washington. Final report

Technical Report · Tue Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1992

OSTI ID:6775728

The December 1988 spill of approximately 231,000 gallons of Bunker C fuel oil from the barge NESTUCCA resulted in oil coming ashore along the outer coast of Washington State and Vancouver Island. The spill provided an excellent opportunity to study the effects of such a disturbance on the rocky intertidal shore. The study provided a valuable adjunct to a concurrent study of disturbance in rocky intertidal communities in central and northern California. The present study had two main objectives: (1) to investigate the time and process required for rocky intertidal assemblages to recover from oiling, and (2) to determine how recovery from oiling compares to recovery after clearing. Five oiled, five cleared, and five control plots were established and monitored for three years. At the conclusion of the study, only two oiled plots and uncleared plots had recovered. Oiled plots were generally closer to recovery than cleared plots. The relatively faster recovery from oiling compared to clearing lends support to the possibility that estimates of recovery based on total clearing experiments may be conservative.

• Research Organization: Kinnetic Labs., Inc., Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
• OSTI ID: 6775728
• Report Number(s): PB-93-173839/XAB; KLI-R--92-14; CNN: DI-14-12-0001-30057
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020900 -- Petroleum-- Environmental Aspects
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540250* -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Site Resource & Use Studies-- (1990-)
540350 -- Environment
Aquatic-- Site Resource & Use Studies-- (1990-)
CALIFORNIA
COASTAL REGIONS
COMMUNITIES
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CONTAMINATION
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
EVALUATION
FUELS
LAND RECLAMATION
MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS RECOVERY
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
NORTH AMERICA
OIL SPILLS
PACIFIC OCEAN
PETROLEUM PRODUCTS
POLLUTION
PROCESSING
SEAS
SURFACE WATERS
USA
WASHINGTON
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE PROCESSING
WATER POLLUTION