How long did the clean-up take? Were there long term implications for marine and coastal wildlife?
The main at-sea response was completed in a little over a month, but the on-shore response took much longer, and extended well into the summer. The main clean-up activity was completed in about six months, but some difficult and recurrently polluted locations saw clean-up operations lasting for over 18 months. There were certainly long term implications for a wide range of species, from seashore animals to birds. In some cases, it took several years for communities of seashore animals and plants to re-establish normal structures, but in all but a small handful of local cases recovery to a undisturbed state was completed within five years. • Do you think this sort of thing could happen again? Certainly – there will always be human error and resulting accidents. Hopefully we will not see another major spill here, but there will be big and environmentally serious spills again. Remember, we have already had the Erika and Prestige spills in the Bay of Biscay in 1999 and 2002. There is no do
