The spill of 3.5 million gallons of Bunker ' C ' oil from the "Arrow" contaminating 190 miles of coastline in Richmond and Guysborough Counties will never be forgotten.

What is memorable from this tragedy is how unprepared the Captain, the owners and the task force were to avoid a grounding, combat an oil spill in cold waters, recover oil from a submerged vessel, or clean up rocky or sandy shores. The methods of clean up were continually changed and the task force bickered as lawyers, politicians, businessmen, scientists, and salvage people pointed fingers. While this went on, oil washed ashore for weeks and months.

Eventually changes were made to the methods of oil spill response, clean up and recovery, which would leave positive long, term environmental legacies. Political reforms allowed those affected by future spills to be fully compensated by government and the owners. This spill also changed the perceptions of Canadians as to the short and long term consequences of oil pollution in Canadian waters.

Unfortunately for those living around the Bay, these positive results came far too late. Oil washing ashore, tainted shores and fouled boats, wharves, and fishing gear. Native and valuable species from plankton, to lobsters were affected, as were the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen who missed weeks of fishing to clean their gear. Many along the Bay complained of smaller catches and ineffective bureaucrats who quickly dashed any hope of compensation. Compensation was also unavailable for those who could no longer swim, picnic, or sight-see around the Bay, nor for those who feared the extinction of the area's lucrative tourism industry and who owned businesses dependant on the industry.

What is even more tragic is that local people learned the lessons of the spill long before those in other parts of Canada. Despite the fact they had no hand in the spill, they took part in the clean up, helped advance new techniques, and followed every instruction from the government and the task force. But months after the spill, when they asked for the government to build the residents of Isle Madame a pool as compensation, their appeal was denied.

Local people are the forgotten players in the saga, but they will not soon forget what happened to them in February 1970 because the oily evidence remains on both sides of the Bay, even today. When the residents of the Bay think back on this time, it will not be with fondness, but of how the system ignored and mistreated them. And that is the biggest shame of the "Arrow" oil spill in 1970.