ough examination has been made of the effect of 

 oU pollution on local marine life, except for fre- 

 quent references to the destruction of waterfowl. 

 One of these disasters attracted the general atten- 

 tion of the public and members of the Audubon 

 Society of New England. One night in 1952, two 

 tankers, the Fort Mercer and the Pendleton, went 

 aground on the shoal of Monomoy Point, Cape 

 Cod. Large amounts of oil spilled from the broken 

 vessels, spread long distances along the shore, and 

 were responsible for high mortality of ducks (scot- 

 ers and eiders). Many thousands of oil-smeared 

 dying birds were seen along the coast. Attempts to 

 save some of the birds by removing the oil with 

 various solvents failed. No published records are 

 found on the effect of this massive spillage on 

 aquatic life. According to the records of the Mas- 

 sachusetts Audubon Society, serious oil spreads 

 threatening fish and bird life have occurred at least 

 six times since 1923 along the beaches of Cape 

 Cod. The latest occurrence was on Sunday, 

 April 16, 1967. Heavy films of crude oil appeared 

 along the coast from Chatham to Provincetown, 

 Mass. and spread to Cape Cod Bay, Nantucket 

 Island, and Boston. The shores of the National 

 Seashore Park were seriously affected and hun- 

 dreds of ducks and brant were found dead or 

 dying. 



The massive spillage of oil may constitute a 

 disaster of a national and even international mag- 

 nitude as has been dramatically demonstrated by 

 the wreck in March 1967 of the super tanker Tor- 

 rey Canyon carrying 118,000 tons of crude oil. 

 About one-half of the load gradually spilled near 

 Seven Stones Reef, off the southern coast of Eng- 

 land, where the tanker was stranded. By the middle 

 of April, patches of crude oil began to appear on 

 the French coast in Brittany, threatening the pro- 

 ductive oyster farms in the inlets and estuaries. It 

 is obvious that a disaster of such magnitude is be- 

 yond the scope of an ordinary pollution problem 

 in coastal waters. The probability of a recurrence 

 of heavy oil spillage is, however, very real because 

 of the present trend in the methods of transporting 

 oil in very large and apparently vulnerable tankers. 

 It has been reported that Japan operates a tanker, 

 Idemitsu Maru, of 205,000 tons holding capacity. 

 A super tanker of over 300,000 tons capacity is 

 under consideration and a design of a 500,000- 

 ton tanker appeared in the press. 



the spillage, the investigators were engaged in a 

 study of bottom fauna and flora of the cove and 

 were in possession of background information 

 which made it possible for them to record the 

 changes that took place after the water of the cove 

 was contaminated by the 59,000 barrels of oil that 

 escaped from the wreck of the tanker Tampico on 

 March 29, 1957. Among the many dead and dying 

 species observed a few weeks after the disaster, the 

 most frequenfly found were abalones (Haliotis 

 julgens, H. rufescens, and especially H. crachero- 

 dii), lobsters (Panulirus interruptus) , pismo clams 

 (Tivela stultorum), mussels {Mytilus sp.), sea 

 urchins {Strongylocentrotiis franciscanus, S. pur- 

 puratus), and sea stars (Pisaster giganteus, P. 

 ochraceus). A slight improvement of the bottom 

 fauna was noticeable a few months after the dis- 

 aster, but extensive recovery became apparent only 

 2 years later. Four years after the accident, the 

 populations of abalones and sea urchins still were 

 reduced greatly and seven species of animals pre- 

 viously recorded in the cove had not been found 

 at all. 



Combined Effect of Oil and Sewage Pollution 



The oil and sewage pollution effects on aquatic 

 organisms of the Novorossiyak Bay (Black Sea, 

 U.S.S.R.) was recently studied by Kalugina, et al. 

 ( 1967) . For a number of years, this bay has been 

 receiving a mixed daily discharge of 15,000 to 

 30,000 cubic meters of petroleum refinery wastes 

 and domestic sewage. There is marked decrease of 

 various valuable species of moUusks {Spisula 

 subtruncata, Tapes nigatus, Pecten ponticus) and 

 complete destruction of oyster beds {Ostrea 

 taurica) due to the combined effect of pollution 

 and depradations by a carnivorous gastropod 

 (Rapana). Samples were collected 1 to 25 meters 

 from the outfall for bioassay. Copepods (Acartia 

 clausi) placed in samples taken 25 meters from 

 the outfall were killed in 24 hours. Larvae of 

 decapods and gastropods in samples taken 10 to 

 25 meters out perished in 3 to 4 days. Calamis was 

 killed in 5 days in samples taken 1 meter out, but 

 survived the 10-day test in the samples taken 5, 

 10, and 25 meters from the outfall. There also was 

 a noticeable change in the distribution and species 

 composition of benthic algae. 



Effect of Oil Spillage on Aquatic Life 

 of a Small Marine Cove 



W. J. North, et al. (1965) made a valuable 

 study of the effect of massive spillage of crude oil 

 into a small cove in lower California Bay. Prior to 



Color of Oil Film on the Surface of Water 



The color of the oil film on the water surface is 

 indicative of the thickness of the slick and may be 

 used as an indicator of the volume of oil spilled. 



71 



