9 THE 1986 APEX HOUSTON OIL SPILL IN CENTRAL CALIFORNIA: SEABIRD INJURY ASSESSMENTS AND LITIGATION PROCESS

Over a decade of biological and legal efforts to address impacts to seabirds from the 1986 Apex Houston oil spill in central California are summarized. This relatively-small spill (616+ barrels) was conservatively estimated to have killed about 9,900 seabirds, including 6,300 Common Murres Uria aalg...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Harry R. Carter, Valerie A. Lee, Gary W. Page, Michael W. Parker, R. Glenn Ford, Gordon Swartzman, Stephen W. Kress, Bernard R. Siskin, Steven W. Singer, D. Michael Fry
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2003
Subjects:
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.390.3549
http://www.prbo.org/cms/docs/oilspill/Carter2003.pdf
Description
Summary:Over a decade of biological and legal efforts to address impacts to seabirds from the 1986 Apex Houston oil spill in central California are summarized. This relatively-small spill (616+ barrels) was conservatively estimated to have killed about 9,900 seabirds, including 6,300 Common Murres Uria aalge, as modified from earlier sources. Direct mortality was modeled using data from beached bird surveys, rehabilitation centers, at-sea surveys, and oil trajectories. Long-term impacts to depleted local populations of Common Murres and Marbled Murrelets Brachyramphus marmoratus were documented and restoration plans were developed. This incident demonstrated that small oil spills can have serious impacts to seabirds and that the amount of injury and costs of restoration must be measured before judging