rvice of Environment Canada) personnel. However, many other agencies contributed professional advice to EPS, including the Atlantic Geoscience Center (coastline assessments), Canada Center for Remote Sensing (reconnaissance surveys), Department of Fisheries and Oceans (sensitivity maps), advice from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans personnel, Parks Canada personnel, and Nova Scotia Department of Environment. The harsh weather in the days after the breakup of the Kurdistan proved a problem in the effort to track the escaped oil. Continuous surveillance of the shoreline by Coast Guard helicopters revealed that there was no contamination of the ice or of the shores in the initial days. In an effort to increase surveillance capabilities, an airplane specially fitted with remote sensing devices developed Environment Canada's Arctic Marine Oil Spill Program, was employed. Initially, the remote sensing missions centered on establishing the location extent of the oil. Later, the missions provided images for the study of the behavior of oil in ice. Although remote sensing apparatus was measurably successful, locating the oil at sea and tracking it proved to be a practically unbeatable problem throughout the lengthy period of the oil cleanup.The C.G. flew several reconnaissance missions daily over the affected area, ships in the area were asked to maintain a lookout for floating oil, and fisheries officers and park wardens maintained a shoreline search. However, a great deal of this effort was in vain and oil continued to come ashore, without warning, along length of the eastern Nova Scotia shoreline and the southern coast of Newfoundland throughout the summer of 1979.The difficulty in locating the oil resulted directly from the fact that the oil often did not float at the surface, but remained some distance below. The oil had to be dealt with on a "clean it up as it comes" basis, and when reports of oiling of various parts of the shoreline...
