1.6 Lessons learned for the management of oil spill investigations 

 (Olle Linden, Ragnar Elmgren, Lars Westin, and John Kineman) 



Oil spills are no longer thought of as unlikely chance events, but 

 rather as predictable results of the transport of oil by sea. New 

 dialogue has been suggested to reflect this change in outlook, specifi- 

 cally to begin discussing the "management" of oil spills. This empha- 

 sizes the recognition that future spills will occur and implies the need 

 for an organized approach to the conduct of events that follow. The 

 Tsesis oil spill study was primarily an ad hoc planning effort, except 

 for the fortunate existence of an ongoing marine science program. It 

 was also a unique experience on the part of the local scientists 

 involved--a typical situation for significant oil spills that have 

 occurred to date. If the eventual transition is to be made from ad hoc 

 planning to contingency management of events (including research) follow- 

 ing the predictable and possibly larger future spills, a determination 

 of important lessons to be learned from each incident is necessary. A 

 number of these lessons, made apparent during the Tsesis study, are 



rized for the purpose of improving future management of environ- 

 ntal investigations of oil spills. 



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1. Funding sources need to be identified in advance . In retrospect, 

 it is obvious that the uncertainty of funding for this investiga- 

 tion seriously hampered its successful realization. For a consid- 

 erable and probably very important period of time, the major part 

 of the studies was halted due to lack of financial support. 



Funding sources should be established immediately. This can 

 be done, for example, by setting up a fund financed by a tax on im- 

 ported oil (cp. the U.S. "super fund" legislation) from which 

 institutions and individuals could seek restitution for oil spill 

 damages to natural resources and ecosystems. This fund would also 

 be used for the support of research following oil spills to deter- 

 mine the extent of the damage. Such a plan has received much 

 discussion in the United States and a similar method of financing 

 has also been suggested in Sweden (MIST, 1979). 



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