Oil Slick Found Off Park; Exxon Cleanup Scored

The Exxon oil slick was spotted just off another national park Friday as state and federal officials criticized the giant corporation’s “entirely inadequate” cleanup.

A 40-square-mile slick was reported 3 miles from Cape Douglas in Katmai National Park, park spokesman John Quinley said. Oil continued to wash ashore along the coast at nearby Kenai Fiords National Park, he said.

Katmai, on the mainland west of the Kodiak Islands, is 250 miles southwest of Bligh Reef, where the Exxon Valdez went aground March 24.

Bruce Erickson, an environmental engineer for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said oil churned into a thick mousse by waves was sighted at Shuyak Island, and an oil sheen was off Afognak Island.

Officials fear that lucrative crab, salmon, herring and other fisheries around the islands may be destroyed by the spill.

The oil could threaten Kamishak Bay, a major herring fishery north of Cape Douglas, and the mouth of the McNeil River, which feeds the bay, Quinley said. The river is a game sanctuary that attracts photographers from around the world to take pictures of brown bears feeding on salmon.

Earlier reports had placed the oil only as far south as the Barren Islands, the northernmost in the Kodiak archipelago and a prime breeding habitat for sea birds.

Dennis Kelso, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, said his department has been left on standby three weeks after the spill of more than 10 million gallons. Officials are awaiting Exxon’s plan to clean 3,000 shore sites.

“No plan has been submitted,” Kelso said. “I do not think there is a written plan.”

Gov. Steve Cowper and Coast Guard Commandant Paul Yost returned to survey the hundreds of miles of twisting, oily coastline. Yost set a deadline of today for Exxon to produce a cleanup plan for the spill, which officials said was not breaking up as fast as they had hoped.

Controversial Cleaning Method

Authorities said they probably would have to use high-pressure hot water spray to cleanse many beaches, a controversial technique because it kills organisms on and beneath the surface of the beach.

“This is a war,” Yost said. “Don’t look for a miracle on beach-cleaning. We need hundreds of people, maybe multi-hundreds, maybe multi-thousands.”

Cowper, who arrived Friday wearing faded jeans and rubber boots, said he was pleased that Yost had taken over command of the cleanup.

“We were not satisfied with the way the operation was being coordinated,” he said. “I think it’s obvious that we, the state and the Coast Guard, are not satisfied with the way Exxon has performed.”

Exxon had good intentions, he said, but “good intentions and good performance are two separate items.”

Cowper led loud denunciations of Exxon by state officials last week, threatening even to shut down the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. But officials had been more muted this week until Kelso’s latest comments.

“We’ve been frustrated by the in-the-water cleanup. We don’t want to see that replicated on the shoreline,” Kelso said, calling Exxon’s efforts “entirely inadequate.”

Yost said: “I’m not satisfied with the beach cleanup program. I want a lot of people on the beach cleaning up.”

Exxon officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier, officials had placed the lead section of the spill at the Barren Islands, said Larry Dietrich, director of environmental quality for the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Recent storms broke up the slick less than officials hoped, he said.

“We’re concerned that it’s holding together,” Dietrich said. “I don’t think it’s dispersing as well as people had hoped that it might.”

Thousands of sea birds and mammals have died in the oily muck. But damage has been greatest on the oiled beaches. Of the 3,000 separate cleanup areas on islands in Prince William Sound, 44 are ready for cleanup crews, Kelso said.

Workers are already at a few beaches, shoveling up oil, scraping rocks and using low-pressure hoses to flush the oil back into the water where it is trapped and recovered.

Dietrich said: “It’s going to be difficult to launch a cleanup effort on the beaches until the floating product is removed.”

The total oil recovered so far was about 9% of the spill, or 882,000 gallons, Dietrich said, with some of the remaining material having the consistency of asphalt.

Cowper said it isn’t known whether the steam-cleaning machines will work in Alaska’s rugged wilderness because fresh water was used in previous operations, and crews in Prince William Sound will be using salt water.