Reducing Problems of the Public in an Oil Spill: S Case Study of the NEPCO 140 Incident, the St. Lawrence River, June, 1976.

摘要

The methodology sociologists have developed for natural disaster research is applied to a large pollution event. Questionnaires, interviews, and documentary fieldwork in the riparian communities on the U.S. side of the St. Lawrence River between Mason's Point, Jefferson County, New York, and Massena, St. Lawrence County, New York, provide the data. Conditions before the pollution event are reviewed for their influence on the emergency behavior of citizens. The public's immediate reaction to the spill, their alert and self-protective measures, their search for organization and information, their evaluation of the work of the pollution contractors and Coast Guard, and their evaluation of the effects of the spill are analysed through narrative and simple statistical procedures. The report concludes that the area residents' planning for and response to a massive river pollution even needs improvement and that the Coast Guard's handling of public problems in a pollution event can also be improved. Recommendations are made which could be applicable to Coast Guard public relations and spill planning on the St. Lawrence River as well as other water bodies. (Author)