Before and after an oil spill

Joanna Burger

In January 1990, New York Harbor suffered a major oil spill when an underwater pipe at an Exxon refinery leaked into the Arthur Kill, the fifteen-mile strait that runs between New Jersey and Staten Island, New York. The waterway is home to herons and egrets, fiddler crabs and sea turtles, and a favorite place for recreational fishing, bird-watching, hiking, and boating. It is also lined with refineries and a busy corridor for oil tankers. Because this industrial activity posed such a threat to the fragile ecosystem, biologists had been monitoring the region's water, soil, vegetation, and wildlife for some time before the oil spill. Thus, we have before-and-after data about the habitat - the only oil spill anywhere for which this is true. . This unique book discusses the human consequences of the oil spill as well as providing detailed studies of its effects on the plants and animals...

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