Sources of environmental disturbance associated with offshore oil and gas developments

Abstract

This paper discusses whether fishes around North Sea oil and gas platforms are tainted by oil summarizing a number of previous studies. From the last paragraph of the paper: “There is no doubt that a very small proportion of flatfish living around platforms acquire some degree of oily taint and that some flatfish and roundfish accumulate hydrocarbons in their flesh and livers, although they are not assessed as being tainted. The level of taint found in flatfish in the above studies was, however, too low to be recognized by the consumer at large.”