RIASSUNTO
Abstract
New and evolving environmental laws and regulations impose substantial costs and greater potential liabilities on industry. These standards on emissions and assessments of impacts place increasing importance on scientifically based environmental studies. Moreover, technological improvements have provided measurement techniques that detect hydrocarbons that are far below levels significant to the environment. In such situations, it is important for companies and government agencies to design and implement environmental programs that can distinguish meaningful environmental effects due to effluent discharges and spills from those effects associated with natural ecological variation or numerous other factors influencing ecosystems.
This paper describes the environmental-assessment process implemented following the Exxon Valdez spill. This is the most extensively studied oil spill in history and the conclusions drawn from the studies may have a significant effect on future regulations and liability. Unquestionably, large spills can have acute effects: the issue is the ecological significance and duration of those effects.
Conflicting claims have been made about the severity and longevity of spill impacts in the case of the Valdez spill. This paper summarizes studies that show shorelines, birds, and mammals have essentially recovered in the four years following the spill. They further demonstrate that fish, the most important commercial and subsistence resource present in the area, were minimally impacted.
The paper highlights the pitfalls of studies that do not carefully evaluate spill impacts by using sophisticated and sound scientific techniques or which fail to consider spill impacts within the context of natural variability and other environmental factors.
Introduction
Highly publicized events such as the Ixtoc Blowout and the Santa Barbara Channel, Torrey Canyon, Amoco Cadiz, and Exxon Valdez spills have focused attention on oil spills and have contributed to a number of legislative and regulatory actions including the Clean Water Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liabilities Act (CERCLA), and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. These laws and regulations necessitate scientifically sophisticated environmental assessments.
As a result of an increasing tendency toward more comprehensive scientific evaluations and the public attention focused on the Exxon Valdez spill, it has become the most heavily studied spill in history. It is likely that what has been learned from the Valdez environmental assessment studies will strongly influence the way oil spills are dealt with in the future, both in terms of response and liability.
However, the significance of the Valdez spill goes beyond the oil industry. It offers broad and valuable lessons for all industries subject to environmental regulation.
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