|
North Cape Oil Spill
The North Cape oil spill in Rhode Island in January 1996 hit home for me (only about 5 miles away). A tugboat pulling a barge loaded with heating fuel oil grounded in a storm on Moonsotne beach, in front of a wildlife refuge, spilling more than 800,000 gallons (EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND). You could smell the oil miles from the beach.
Heating oil is much lighter tha crude, and the heavy surf churned much of it into the water column, poisoning a large volume of water. There were PILES of dead baby lobsters and sea clams for miles down the beaches. The sight of this tragedy brought tears to my eyes.
From NOAAH website for North Cape ---
"The Trustees determined that in the marine environment, 9 million lobsters were killed by the spill, as well as 19 million surf clams, 4.2 million fish, and over half a million kilograms of marine biomass such as worms, crabs, and mussels. In the salt ponds, 6.5 million worms and other amphipods, more than one million crabs, shrimp, clams and oysters, and another half-million fish were killed. Birds were also harmed by the spill; 2,300 marine birds were killed, including 402 loons. In addition, there were five to ten fewer piping plover chicks hatched at Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge"
Crude oil will glob up and float around, washing ashore and creating problems with contact, but I don't think it poisons the water column as much as the lighter oil does, and not that thats acceptable at all. It makes a terrible mess and needs to be physically cleaned up. WIth time, the lighter stuff does disperse/evaporate, but uless you remove the crude, it will stick around much longer.
If this is any consolation, the fishing after the North Cape spill (months after the event) was ok, and has been decent since, but who knows what long term damage was done to the whole system with the loss of that much marine life.
|