Title: 
Headings: 

Content: photo © Gary Braasch/Wheeler Pictures, Woodfin Camp & Associates 
NOAA scientist collects samples from a rock sole after an oil
spill, 1989
Even if oil exposure isn't immediately lethal, it can cause long-term harm. Bottom-dwelling fish exposed to compounds released after oil spills may develop
liver disease and reproductive and growth problems. photo Northwest Fisheries Science Center/National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration 
Mangroves stand in oil from a ruptured refinery tank, Panama,
1986
Smithsonian Institution scientists monitored effects of this 1986 spill,
one of the largest in tropical North America. Five years later, mangrove
sediments still held fairly fresh, toxic oil. It may take the mangroves fifty
years to recover fully. photo © Carl C. Hansen  
Cleanups
Treaty treats pollution
problems
International cooperation has greatly reduced accidental and
operational oil discharges from tankers. MARPOL (for MARine
POLlution) is shorthand for a United Nations treaty (the
Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships) that
became effective in 1983. MARPOL is largely credited for
reducing oil pollution from shipping by about 60 percent
worldwide during the 1980s §. Workers install a machine for cleaning waste oil off the sides of
the ship's cargo tanks 
MARPOL requires installation and use of oil-pollution prevention
equipment on tankers and other ships, and prohibits discharges
within certain distances of land §. photo © International Maritime Organization 
More
do-it-yourselfers are doing it right
More than half of all Americans change their own oil, but only
about one-third of the used oil from do-it-yourself oil changes
is collected and recycled. §