Word: spills
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Birds like the arctic tern and the endangered Kittlitz's murrelet can be seen skimming the astonishingly beautiful Alaskan coastline while sea otters backstroke through the cold, clear waters of the Sound. It is a remarkable turnaround since the Exxon spill, the worst man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history - the immediate shock of which killed hundreds of thousands of shorebirds that made their home in the Sound along with sea otters that choked on the crude. Over the long term, populations of orcas, killer whales, herring and other species would be injured by the accident. (Read "Remembering the Lessons...
Today, the coast is clear and clean. But clean is not the same as pristine. Decades ago, some of the spill found its way to a beach on Knight Island in the Sound, a site that scientists studying the accident would designate KN-102 but which during the multiyear cleanup would earn another name: Death Marsh...
...brackish oil. The crude can be chemically typed to the Exxon Valdez, and more oil can be found beneath the beach at Death Marsh and at a number of islands around the Sound. "I wouldn't have possibly believed the oil would last this long," says Lindberg. "Studying the spill has been a great learning experience, but if we had known in the years after the spill what we know now, we would have been looking for oil much earlier...
What scientists like Lindberg know now is that the legacy of the Exxon Valdez is still visible - physically, on the beaches of Prince William Sound and in the animal populations in these sensitive waters that have yet to rebound fully. Using funds from the original spill settlement between Exxon and the state of Alaska, scientists from NOAA have carried out major studies that show oil still remains just beneath the surface in many parts of the Sound - close enough for animals to be affected by it. "The oil may not leak out in quantities that are immediately visible, but that...
...matter how many National Guard troops are sent to the U.S.-Mexico border, violence and death will not stop until drug demand in the North Atlantic is curbed. And those who think the violence is likely to spill over into the U.S. are right. There have already been kidnappings in Phoenix and gang wars in Vancouver. This is a shared social dilemma, and a joint effort is needed to reach a solution...