Is More Research 

 Needed? 



Yes. The West Falmouth researchers 

 have shown the value of rigorous, 

 multi-disciplinary research. If other 

 spills had been more thoroughly investi- 

 gated, would more serious impacts 

 have been discovered? Further research 

 can answer this question. Workers in 

 the field of oil pollution have identified 

 the following research needs including 

 long-term effects of spills, field studies 

 of ecosystems where chronic contam- 

 ination exists, and combined field and 

 laboratory studies addressing the sig- 

 nificance of sublethal effects. The West 

 Falmouth spill has emphasized the im- 

 portance of the persistence of oil and 

 the significance of sublethal effects. 



Such research is costly, especially 

 offshore oceanographic research which 

 involves the use of ships and compli- 

 cated hardware in the field, and long 

 hours of laboratory effort for sample 

 processing. Analysis of data is also 

 costly because of the need for compu- 

 ters in state-of-the-art analyses. But 

 this research can answer important 

 questions about the effects of 

 pollution. 



What Is the Federal 

 Government Doing? 



Federal agencies are conducting 

 research to learn more about spilled oil 

 and its ecological effects. The principal 

 research programs are administered by 

 the Department of the Interior, Bureau 

 of Land Management; the Department 

 of Commerce, National Oceanic and 

 Atmospheric Administration; National 

 Science Foundation; and the Environ- 

 mental Protection Agency. Research is 

 aimed at developing spill detection and 

 cleanup procedures, investigating 

 ecological effects, documenting base- 

 line environmental conditions and 

 projecting the likely impacts of offshore 

 petroleum resource development and 

 oil transport. 



The federal government is also con- 

 cerned with emergency response to oil 

 spills. The National Response Team 

 (NRT) is a multi-agency organization 

 that is responsible for oil spill contin- 

 gency planning at the national level. 

 The primary agencies represented on 

 the NRT are the Department of Trans- 

 portation (U.S. Coast Guard), Depart- 

 ment of Commerce (National Oceanic 

 and Atmospheric Administration), 

 Environmental Protection Agency, 

 Department of the Interior, and Depart- 

 ment of Defense. The NRT, through 

 the provisions of the National Contin- 

 gency Plan, ensures that appropriate 

 spill cleanup operations are undertaken. 

 The Environmental Protection Agency 

 supplies quick response technical sup- 

 port on national and regional levels to 

 provide the scientific expertise needed 

 to make decisions about cleanup 

 operations, to assess the ecological 

 damage resulting from a particular spill, 

 and to coordinate research efforts in 

 the spill area. Through these and 

 related programs, the federal govern- 

 ment is attempting to reduce the 

 frequency of oil spills, to effectively 

 mitigate the impacts of spills when they 

 occur, and to learn more about the ef- 

 fects of oil pollution . 



■ko-^ 



Mi^ 



'■.i':-'Si-r.L>Tg.-: 



27 



