Assess the effectiveness of the strategies used to manage oil spill on coastal areas

Dramatic oil spills from damage to tankers result in 5% of leaked oil, a huge amount coming from spills during routine operations such as transferring the oil from tanker to terminal. One of the most famous and memorable oil spill of the past decade was the BP oil spill in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. This affected more than 120 species, such as the Brown Pelican which were poisoned or unable to fly due to oiling of feathers. The Bottlenose dolphins were also affected, but not as quickly, instead the rate of dolphins giving birth to dead offspring increased massively. This shows how oil spills can have both long term and short term affects on wildlife. Due to the harm on the animals around the Gulf of Mexico, 25,000 turtle eggs were relocated to the coast of Florida, to enable them to grow up in a safer environment without the toxicity of the oil affecting them. This was done quickly and meant that the baby sea turtles were able to grow up in a cleaner environment, protecting them both short and long term. After the BP oil spill, 4,000 km of protective booms were placed in the ocean to reduce the spread of oil and to absorb the oil itself. This in the short term decreased some of the oil in the sea. However these were only effective to a point, as the absorbent booms needed to be replaced regularly, instead they were left without any more capability to soak up oil. After the Amoco Cadiz ran aground near the coast of Brittany, containing over 1 and a half million barrels of crude oil, measures were put in place to reduce the effects. 35,000 French military were involved in collecting surface deposits for a month. However, once deposits have got into coastal sediment, cleaning is not effective once the oil has seeped into coastal sediment and this was an impractical and time consuming way to clean the oil. Therefore, to manage oil spills in future, bacteria consuming and irrigating the sediment to accelerate the breakdown of oil have been attempted, as well as chemical dispersants. Although the chemical dispersants have been found by some to be more toxic that the oil itself, proving in the future oil spills will still affect the wildlife just as negatively. Overall, some strategies such as relocation of animals seem to be effective. However it is not viable to relocate all animals that will be affected, so the impacts of oil spills will always be present regarding coastal and marine wildlife. Man made attempts to reduce the effects of spills such as booms are extremely useful, but need to be implemented consistently to work, which takes a lot of time and effort. However, in the future, there may be technologies for ships to prevent oil spills and more technologies to reduce the effects.