load of sediment, nutrients and larvae 

 into coastal ecosystems. Such waves, 

 Pietrafesa says, might also carry oil. 



Using sophisticated wave and 

 current-monitoring gear, Pietrafesa 

 has accumulated a collection of data 

 that he says will help scientists predict 

 the path of an oil spill, should one oc- 

 cur. Such information is vital, since the 

 high-energy waves, winds and currents 

 off North Carolina would pose unique 

 problems during a spill. 



"Our coastline is clearly more 

 energetic than anyplace else on either 

 the Atlantic or Pacific coasts," 

 Pietrafesa says. 



And though the oil companies say 

 their engineers can design drilling rigs 

 to withstand such forces, they are tak- 

 ing a hard look at the high currents 

 and deep waters. Wally Worthington, 

 offshore district drilling engineer for 

 Arco Oil and Gas Company, a division 

 of Atlantic Richfield, says that his 

 company's leases are in water 1500 to 

 2000 ft. deep. When Arco begins its 

 test-drilling, perhaps sometime in 

 1984, it will use drill ships and the cost 

 will run about $100,000 a day. 



"We have drilled in waters fifty- 

 eight hundred feet deep in the 

 Mediterranean," Worthington says, 

 "The technology isn't new; it's just 

 unproven, particularly in a high- 

 current area. We have drilled in high 

 currents but not in deep water with 

 high currents. That's why we check, 

 double-check and triple-check our 

 planning." 



To help protect themselves from 

 liability in the event of an oil spill, 

 companies have allied to hire a single 

 contractor to look after their oil-spill 

 cleanup operations in the Atlantic. 

 The contractor, Haliburton Services, 

 says it will set up shop in Morehead 

 City sometime before drilling begins, 

 and will keep gear, such as floating oil- 

 containment booms, ready to go. The 

 firm estimates that it could have a 

 team on the site of a spill two hours af- 

 ter it occurs. 



But as is the case with drilling rigs, 

 the techniques for containing oil are 

 untested in conditions like those off 

 North Carolina. And, while the booms 

 perform well in the calm waters of the 

 Gulf of Mexico, they are not designed 

 for seas greater than eight or 10 feet. 



And what if oil does spill, does evade 

 the cleanup, and then makes its way to 

 shore? The familiar pictures of oily 

 shorebirds and blackened beaches con- 



vey the ugliness of an oil spill, but not 

 much about its effects on the environ- 

 ment. Most scientists agree that the ef- 

 fects of an oil spill on beaches seem to 

 be moderate and reversible. Studies of 

 coastal oil spills have for the most part 

 shown that, although some marine 

 organisms die off immediately follow- 

 ing a spill, their populations are 

 reduced by no more than occurs during 

 seasonal variation. The most toxic 

 parts of an oil spill — the aromatic 

 compounds — evaporate soon after a 

 spill, so that often only the heavier, 

 less deadly "tars" reach shore. 



Photo by Hilda Livingstone 



Tar-like remains of oil slick 



For three weeks in 1970, an es- 

 timated 65,000 barrels of crude oil 

 were discharged from a Chevron oil- 

 production platform 11 miles east of 

 the Mississippi River Delta, in the 

 Gulf of Mexico. Researchers estimated 

 that between 25 and 30 percent of the 

 oil evaporated during the first 24 

 hours. Ten to 20 percent was cleaned 

 from the surface of the water. Less 

 than one percent dissolved, and less 

 than one percent turned up in sedi- 

 ments within a five-mile radius of the 

 platform. The remaining oil emulsified 

 and dispersed to undetectable levels, 

 biodegraded or photo-oxidized. 



Oddly enough, few regions of the 

 country have had more experience 

 with spilled oil than the Outer Banks 

 of North Carolina. During the first six 

 months of 1942, German U-Boats sunk 

 100 merchant ships off the East Coast, 

 spilling about 484,200 metric tons of 

 petroleum products into American 

 coastal waters. Nearly one-quarter of 

 this petroleum was concentrated in the 



waters surrounding Cape Hatteras. 



In a report published in 1977 by Sea 

 Grant at the Massachusetts Institute 

 of Technology, researchers concluded 

 that fourteen slicks totalling about 

 161,500 barrels of fuel oil were released 

 near Ocracoke Island during 1942. 

 Three of the slicks reached shore. Resi- 

 dents elsewhere on the Outer Banks 

 remember oil on the beaches almost 

 constantly during the period. The 

 report states that although there are 

 no data available on the impact of 

 fisheries and wildlife, residents and 

 newspaper reports claimed that fishing 

 and duck-hunting "were as good as 

 ever." 



The scientists also found that the 

 Outer Banks acted as a natural barrier 

 to drifting oil, protecting the more sen- 

 sitive and productive inland waters of 

 Pamlico Sound. 



The report concludes: "It would be 

 desirable to draw from these results 

 the conclusion that nature would 

 recover its losses in all cases given the 

 required amount of time. Although 

 this may be true, the results of this 

 study will not prove this assertion. It 

 can, however, be said that in two cases, 

 regional wildlife and economy survived 

 with minimal difficulty." 



In fact, the most serious damage to 

 North Carolina beaches from a modern 

 oil spill might be economic: tarred 

 beaches put a damper on tourism and 

 slicks can temporarily disrupt fishing 

 and boating. But if oil did make its 

 way into marshes and estuaries, the 

 stakes would be much higher. 



Scientists say that much more study 

 is needed before they can be sure of the 

 effects of oil spills on marshes and es- 

 tuaries. In some areas, the damage has 

 been dramatic. After the Amoco Cadiz 

 spill in 1979, miles of invaluable marsh 

 and wildlife habitat along the Brittany 

 Coast of France were destroyed. 

 (Researchers Ernie Seneca and Steve 

 Broome of North Carolina State Uni- 

 versity have been helping the French 

 re-establish new marsh with planting 

 techniques they developed during a 

 UNC Sea Grant project.) 



And even when the results are less 

 obvious, oil causes subtle changes in 

 marsh ecosystems. Frederick Phaen- 

 der, a scientist from the University of 

 North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has 

 studied the effects of petroleum on 

 marsh grasses in experiments near 

 Morehead City. Phaender and a stu- 

 dent, Earl Buckley, used a synthetic 



