What About Other 

 Spills? 



No other oil spill has been as thor- 

 oughly studied as was West Falmouth. 

 Indications are that every spill does not 

 cause the long-term damage observed 

 at West Falmouth, and it must be 

 remembered that this spill affected a 

 relatively small area. Offshore regions 

 and rocky habitats are thought to be 

 less sensitive than the marsh and 

 shallow tidal areas. Other factors that 

 are important in determining the sever- 

 ity of oil spill effects are: the size of the 

 spill, the toxicity of the spilled oil, the 

 time of year, and the sensitivity of the 

 organisms exposed to oil. In some 

 cases, it is clear that oil spills can cause 

 serious long-term damage. Ecosystems 

 may also be exposed to additional oil 

 spills before they have completely 

 recovered from previous pollution inci- 

 dents. For example, the oil spilled by 

 the Amoco Cadiz off the Brittany Coast 

 in 1978 impacted some of the same 

 areas as the Torres Canyon spill of 

 1967. Small local spills occur with great 

 frequency along all of our coastlines. 

 Because complete recovery of com- 

 munities can require up to ten years, or 

 perhaps longer, the possibility of per- 

 manently changing the biological sys- 

 tems of our coasts through chronic ex- 

 posure to spilled oil is a very real one. 



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26 



