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In November 1979, an international conference was held in Brest
sponsored by CNEXO. Investigators sponsored by the Joint NOAA/CNEXO
Scientific Commission, as well as a number of other scientists, gave
papers at this conference. The proceedings of this conference entitled
" Amoco Cadiz : Fates and Effects of the Oil Spill" make a very good
summary of the first one and one-half year study after the spill.
Following the second meeting of the Joint Commission, Dr. Hess left
NOAA and was replaced as
Office of Ocean Programs
co-chairman
in NOAA.
by Dr. Joseph W. Angelovic from the
The third meeting of the Joint Commission was held in Paris, France,
October 28, 1980, in conjunction with the meeting of the U.S. -French
Cooperative Program in Oceanography. The previous work was reviewed and
the final year of the research program was planned.
Now the three-year study is over and attempts are being made to
bring together the findings of the investigators. A workshop was held in
Charleston, South Carolina, on September 17-18, 1981, to report on the
physical and chemical studies. A second workshop was held in Brest,
France, on October 28-30, 1981, to report on the biological effects
studies. This document is the report of those workshops and forms the
body of the final report to Amoco from the Joint NOAA/CNEXO Scientific
Commission.
Speaking for all who worked on the spill, we would like to thank the
Amoco Transport Company for sponsoring this three-year study of the
effects of the spill. Without Amoco 's help, we would be nowhere near our
present state of knowledge of what the effects of the spill were or how
the recovery back to normal conditions has proceeded. Other studies have
been carried out, sponsored by the French Government and other sources,
but an important part of the work has been sponsored by Amoco.
Mr. Russ Mallatt, Dr. James Marum, Mr. John Lamping, Ms. Carol
Cummings and others from Amoco attended meetings of the Joint Commission
and the scientific sessions. They were always helpful and supportive of
the Commission's work and never intruded on the design or conduct of the
program.
We have, through this cooperative effort, obtained more detailed and
more useful knowledge of the effects of this oil spill than of any other
large oil spill in history. A major reason for this is that the
biological communities present before the spill had been studied in great
detail by French scientists.
Today many of the areas impacted by the spill appear to the casual
observer to be recovered from the effects of the oil. However, investigations
have shown that differences still exist between some of the
current ecosystems and those present prior to the spill. Hopefully other
studies will continue to watch and document the recovery processes.
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