“HOW CLEAN IS CLEAN” – PROPOSED METHOD FOR DETERMINING ENDPOINTS AND EVALUATING RESULTS OF OIL SPILL CLEAN UP OPERATIONS

摘要

Determining endpoint in clean up operations after oil spill is considered a necessary action to appoint appropriate methods, equipment and levels of clean up. Today international standards to assist decision making in these questions are not commonly spread. In this article a first step for developing guidelines for determining endpoints is presented. The proposed method considers four parameters; quantity of oil, type of oil, ecological sensitivity and time of year. In different combinations the parameters give criteria for when clean up should be ended as further actions might cause more harms than benefits. The method focuses on environmental aspects and therefore mainly ecological effects are considered.