Damage of Exxon Valdez endures

Oil from the massive Exxon Valdez spill, which coated 1,200 miles of Alaskan coast when the tanker ran aground in March 1989, continues to threaten the damaged ecosystem there long after experts believed it would dissipate.

When the ship hit Bligh Reef, it released as much as 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's pristine Prince William Sound and parts of the Gulf of Alaska. The spill was the largest in U.S. history, the Environmental Protection Agency says, and killed an untold number of fish, birds, seals and sea otters.

According to a study out Feb. 15 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Geological Survey and Alaskan agencies found that oil levels in the sands around the sound are much the same as they were when tests were done five years ago. The study says oil has seeped down 4 to 10 inches.

The oil is a continuing, "far-ranging" problem for fish and wildlife, says Kim Trust, science director of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, an Alaska-federal partnership that works to repair the environmental damage. A 2006 council report found that two species — Pacific herring and pigeon guillemots — are not recovering. Populations of clams and mussels are still affected by the lingering oil, as are sea otters and birds such as harlequin ducks and black oystercatchers.

The new report states that subsurface oil poses a contact hazard for foraging otters, ducks and shorebirds, creates a chronic source of low-level contamination, discourages subsistence and "degrades the wilderness character" of protected lands.

from USA Today