Chapter
Seven Conclusions
The
ecological effects of oil pollution on the marine environment will
be an important consideration in energy policy decisions in the
future. Public pressures and legal mandates, such as the National
Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control
Act, will insure this. Changes in policies governing oil imports
will affect the possibilities of accidental spills. International
agreements concerning intentional shipping discharges will be
formulated. Decisions will be made on where to allow offshore oil
exploration and production, and on the types of pollution
prevention technology required in these production fields.
Superports will be planned, as will coastal refineries.
At present,
assessment of the environmental impact of such developments must be
made in considerable ignorance and uncertainty because of large
knowledge gaps and conflicting opinions. Because so many serious
questions remain unanswered, and because of the alarming
implications of some of the information available, we recommend
great caution in making policy decisions involving oil and the
marine environment. Given the diverse and often equivocal
evaluations offered by the scientific community, it falls to
society to decide what level of confidence to place in available
information concerning the consequences of oil pollution of the
marine environment. Do we assume a pollutant is "innocent" until
proven "guilty," as we have often done in the past? Or do we assume
it is "guilty" until proven "innocent," as we currently do with
drugs? Or shall we scrupulously avoid making assumptions and seek
the full range of scientific information needed to arrive at
well-considered judgments?
The only
remedy for our uncomfortable ignorance is more and better research
into the problem—especially into the more neglected aspects,
such as chronic pollution and sublethal effects. It is interesting
to note that, while not implying that oil pollution is a
necessarily equivalent problem, it took many years of research on
persistent pesticides—much more time than has been spent on
the effects of oil—to affect policy decisions resulting in
the control of