Word: oiling
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Twenty years since the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground on the night of Mar. 24, 1989 - spilling nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil, which would coat 1,300 miles of coastline - Alaska's Prince William Sound is still feeling the effects. Despite the extensive, years-long clean-up effort, oil can still be found in spots on the Alaskan coast, especially under the surface. (See pictures of the Exxon Valdez disaster...
...Alaskans like Colburn are worried that on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Valdez accident, the spill and its toll are in danger of being forgotten - even as new offshore oil and gas exploration is being considered in Alaska. In 2007, former President George W. Bush ended a long-standing executive ban on offshore oil drilling in Bristol Bay in the southeastern waters of the Bering Sea, potentially opening up what's been called America's "fish basket" to the fossil fuels industry. Although the Obama Administration has slowed the process, it hasn't stopped it - and Alaska...
...oil industry claims that safety standards have improved, and that the chances of another accident are small. But to environmentalists, the Valdez is still a looming reminder that oil will always threaten the vulnerable marine environment - and that a single mistake can have ramifications that last for decades. "If it's lost, it's lost forever," says Margaret Williams, the Alaska director for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which is calling for Bristol Bay and other parts of the Arctic to be made "no-go zones" for oil and gas development. "There are lessons to be learned from the Exxon...
...those lessons is that the Arctic ecosystems are unusually vulnerable to oil spills, according to long-term research funded by some of the $1 billion settlement from Exxon. Scientists found that, thanks in part to the cold environment, oil lingered in the area for years, some of it still biologically active and toxic. Because many Arctic species have long lifespans and slow reproductive cycles, wildlife recovery has been slow. Pacific herring - a keystone of both the commercial fishing industry and the marine food web in Prince William Sound - were spawning at the time of the spill, and were hit particularly...
...Another catastrophic spill or accident notwithstanding, even the work of setting up offshore oil drilling could impact the marine environment. The oil industry uses seismic blasts as part of initial exploration, and environmentalists fear that sound waves could harm nearby fish. But if there were an accident on the scale of the Valdez in Bristol Bay, where more than 40% of all wild seafood consumed in America is caught, the result would be not just an environmental disaster, but also an economic one. The Bristol fisheries bring in over $2 billion to the Alaskan economy annually - losing the bay even...