WHY ARE OIL SPILLS DANGEROUS?

Oil spills, whether from platforms or tankers, cause enormous short-term and long term harm to both the deep ocean and coastal environments. Not only is marine life smothered, but oil spills cause mass mortality and contamination of fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals.

Effects of Oceanic Oil Spills

• Marine Life: Birds are the most vulnerable to the effects of an oil spill. When birds dive for food, they ingest oil (through the water and on the food they pick up) -- an extremely toxic substance. The oil also coats a bird's body, leading to a loss of thermal insulation and affecting their ability to fly. If mammals have fur, they are impacted by losing thermal insulation (causing them to freeze to death) and affecting their buoyancy (causing them to drown). For mammals that don't have fur, such as dolphins and orcas, oil fills their "blow hole", causing them to suffocate and drown. Oils toxicity effects fish, poisoning fish that is eaten by us, and by other aquatic life.
• Beyond Sea Life: Oil spills persist in the environment for years, and eventually making their to shores and smothering the roots of swamps and wetlands (killing the animal and marine life who inhabit these ecosystems).
• Economics: There is a massive cost associated with oil clean ups and remediation (click here for costs on the Exxon Valdez tanker spill and its ensuing legal battle). Tainted waters and shores also affect tourism, pollutes fisheries (decreasing our fish supply and increasing the level of toxicity in the fish we eat), and diminishes coastal property values. In addition, industries that rely on sea water, like power plants and desalination plants, are deeply effected by oily water.

CLEANING UP OIL SPILLS
When an oil spill happens, it spreads in the water (primarily on the surface); depending on the oil itself and the environment, it may form a cohesive slick or break up with rough seas. Waves, weather, and the movement of the ocean can cause slicks to spread great distances (making clean up and remediation more difficult). When oil partially evaporates, it becomes thicker. Some of the oil may sink, but most eventually ends up in sticky tar balls. Over time it will deteriorate and disintegrate, but this can take a long time.

The clean up is impacted by what kind of oil is spilled, how much, and where in the ocean it is spilled. The first step in cleaning up is usually to try and contain a slick and removing the oil (which is done by skimming it, combusting it, or using microorganisms to eat it up). Part of the strategy is also to break the slick up into much tinier particles, so it will deteriorate and degrade faster naturally.

On-shore, there attempts to clean birds, but, other than penguins, most don’t survive, and mammals as well as clean up the shoreline. Mistakes have been made. After the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 clean-up crews essentially power washed the shore. While this seemed like a good quick solution, the power washing disposed of all the good bacteria that would have sped up the breakdown of the oil and killed marine life with the hot, high-powered water.

REAL SOURCE AND IMPACT OF OIL IN OUR SEAS

Oil spills a part of a global "Oil Web" - an intricate weave of environmental, political, human rights, and big business issues that place a stranglehold on our way of life. When it comes to mixing oil and water, oceans suffer from far more than an occasional devastating spill. While tanker oil spills make headlines and are made out to be disasters, the fact is hundreds of millions of gallons of oil quietly end up in the seas every year, mostly from non-accidental sources (see table right).

Down the Drain: 363 Million Gallons
Used engine oil can end up in waterways. An average oil change uses five quarts; one change can contaminate a million gallons of fresh water. Much oil in runoff from land and municipal and industrial wastes ends up in the oceans. Every year oily road runoff from a city of 5 million could contain as much oil as one large tanker spill (think of the number of large cities on our coasts -- New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Miami, Houston/Galveston, Los Angeles/Long Beach, San Francisco/Oakland, and Seattle. That's a lot of oil going down the drain, and our cities are only growing in size.).

Routine Maintenance: 137 Million Gallons
Every year, bilge cleaning and other ship operations release millions of gallons of oil into navigable waters, in thousands of discharges of just a few gallons each. To read more about the damaging effects of oil, especially diesel fuels, in our waters and ports, visit our primary campaign, www.CleanPorts.org.

Up in Smoke: 92 Million Gallons
Air pollution, mainly from cars and industry, places hundreds of tons of hydrocarbons into the oceans each year. Particles settle, and rain washes hydrocarbons from the air into the oceans.

Natural Seeps: 62 Million Gallons
Some ocean oil "pollution" is natural. Seepage from the ocean bottom and eroding sedimentary rocks releases oil.

Big Spills: 37 Million Gallons
Only about 5 percent of oil pollution in oceans is due to major tanker accidents, but one big spill can disrupt sea and shore life for miles. Click here for details on some of the largest oil spills in history.

Offshore Drilling: 15 Million Gallons
Offshore oil production can cause ocean oil pollution, from spills and operational discharges. While off-shore oil platforms rarely collapse, the second largest oil spill in history occurred at an off-shore drilling site in the Gulf of Mexico. On June 3, 1979, the Ixtoc I suffered a blow out and between 10,000 and 30,000 barrels of oil spilled into the gulf every day, for the next 9 months (the largest oil spill took place in 1991, when anywhere between 42 to 462 million of gallons of oil spilled into the Persian Gulf; making it anywhere between 5 to 27 times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill). The greatest number of oil spills have occurred in the Gulf of Mexico and the Northeastern United States. For a list and details of all recorded oil spills from 1967-1991, see National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) case history report.

MINIMIZING OUR IMPACT

As shown above, most of the oil that ends up in our oceans is not a result of disastrous oil spills, but from non-accidental sources. In order to minimize the amount of oil we are leaking into the ocean, we must change our behavior, and declare our independence from oil. Visit our Kick the Habit section for more information on how you can minimize your impact on your environment and encourage your friends and neighbors to do the same.