Alaskan Spring a Season of Death : Outlook for Recovery From Oil Spill Unclear

They are beginning to talk about the dead in the midst of spring’s unfolding.

The dead loons, grebes and goldeneyes. The dead murres, murrelets and cormorants. The dead sea otters and bald eagles.

They are talking about an experimental incinerator for these victims of the nation’s largest marine oil spill.

“At this point in time, they are in freezers. At this point in time we have no capability to burn them,” said Bill Lomoreaux of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Usually, this point in time is a season of rebirth and promise.

Along the shallow shorelines and bays the turquoise waters are clouded with milky white patches of herring sperm, and Alaskans watch the horizon for the first signs of millions of migrating shore birds and waterfowl returning from warmer climes.

All around Prince William Sound, the streams and petrified waterfalls shake off their icy paralysis, and blankets of snow are turned back to uncover tundra that yawns awake and stretches skyward.

It is a place where the rugged Kenai Mountains rise vertically from flooded fiords and where nature displays its works on so grand a scale that the comings and goings of man would seem inconsequential.

But man produced an oil spill to match these mountains. And his capacity for destruction, however accidental, has exceeded his capacity to restore.

The season of life has become a season of dead zones.

Now, in the wake of the March 24 spill of more than 10 million gallons of crude oil from the tanker Exxon Valdez, teams of biologists, pathologists, toxicologists, water quality experts and other scientists are descending on this wilderness outpost to begin assessing the environmental damage.

Information is limited and preliminary assessments differ dramatically.

“In two to three years--maybe four--you won’t be able to tell it. The storms will clean up the shoreline,” Hal Alabaster of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said of visible pollution on the shorelines. As for overall impacts, Jim Styers of the Marine Animal Training Center in Costa Mesa said: “I think what they’ll find is it won’t be nearly so bad . . . . Mother nature has a way of taking care of things.”

Others, however, are pessimistic.

“I would say that that spill has the ingredients for being classified as a potentially major ecological disaster, with long-lasting adverse effects on the local environment in that region,” said Jeffrey Hyland, a marine biologist at UC Santa Barbara’s Marine Science Institute.

Hyland’s assessment is based on several factors: the size of the spill, the high toxicity of many of the 1,500 compounds in Prudhoe Bay crude compared to many other crudes, the fact that large quantities of oil washed up on fragile shorelines within confined areas and the fact that colder Alaskan temperatures will slow down the weathering or breakdown of the oil.

The Exxon Valdez could not have run across Bligh Reef at a worse time. This is the most biologically sensitive season of the year.

Pacific herring are spawning and the salmon runs are about to begin. Ten million shore birds and a million waterfowl are due to pass through Prince William Sound any time on their way to breeding areas, temporarily adding their numbers to the 300,000 to 400,000 resident birds.

Watching Birds Return

“Spring is usually an exciting time a year for Alaskans. You watch the birds and all the animals come back, and this year you just wish spring wouldn’t even come,” said Sue Libenson, executive director of the Alaska Center for the Environment.

The grim toll in the immediate aftermath became clear within days. So far, officials have counted nearly 500 dead sea otters, more than 2,800 dead birds, the cancellation of the $12.5-million, 11,000-ton herring season and a small shrimp harvest and hundreds of miles of oil-choked beaches, inlets and bays. Of the 8,000 to 10,000 otters that live in the sound, 2,500 are believed to be at risk.

These numbers are believed to be only an indication of the true damage. The vast majority of fatalities will sink to the bottom or be washed out to sea without a trace.

Several bald eagles, the national symbol, are turning up dead from eating the oiled carcasses of other birds.

Scientists have been startled by the immediate effects on otters. They expected the mammals to die of hypothermia. Oil on just 20% of their coats will double their metabolic rate as their bodies try in vain to maintain heat.

But they were not prepared for the oil’s toxic effects on internal organs, which they believe was caused by ingesting the oil as otters attempted to clean their luxuriant insulating coats, or by inhaling the fumes.

Pathologists have found emphysema, lesions in lungs and liver damage.

Otters Ingest Oil

“They’re curled up on the beaches and had the look and feel of crude oil coming out of the anus. They’re ingesting the oil somehow and it must be wreaking havoc in the gastrointestinal tract,” Ken Hill, a veterinarian involved in otter research, said.

“We saw two cases of severe trauma--chewing the skin right off their feet right down to the bone and rubbing the skin right off their ears. Those are two places where they don’t have hair. It’s possible that the chemicals were affecting those areas to such an extent they felt like grooming themselves,” Hill said.

Similar effects have been observed in birds. Alice Berkner of the Berkeley-based International Bird Rescue Center said she has seen rescued birds that appeared to be starving. “They cease normal behavior to constantly work on cleaning the feathers,” she explained.

A number of seals have been found exhibiting “unusual behavior.” They are lethargic and people on boats are able to get much closer to them than they normally can. Their eyes have been damaged by the toxic water.

Dramatic as the immediate effects have been, state and federal officials say the long-term effects, while not nearly as visible, could be equally as tragic.

“We just don’t know what’s going to take place here, or how much they can tolerate. It’s creating a dead zone in the middle of Prince William Sound,” said Hill.

Some See Decades of Harm

“A number of us see this as a very long-term situation, a matter of several decades,” said Tom Williams, a veterinarian at the Monterey Bay Aquarium who flew here to assist in the otter rescue operation.

Fifteen research projects are being launched by the state over the next several years to find out the impact on salmon, herring, crab, shrimp, clam and rockfish fisheries. Water samples are also being gathered to measure concentrations of toxic compounds from the oil.

“The body count is nowhere near what there is out there,” Hill said. “Instead of hundreds of sea otters I would suspect you’ll see a thousand or thousands of sea otters are going to die from this. Instead of thousands of birds you’ll have ten thousands of birds.”

What is known leads scientists and others to both hope and despair.

There is evidence that the kill-off of microscopic plant and animal plankton at the base of the food chain has been transitory. The ocean currents that sweep into Prince William Sound from the Gulf of Alaska are bringing with them new populations of plankton to replace those immediately killed by the spill.

Nature Helping Out

So far, the black tide has been held back from invading the salmon hatcheries, and ocean currents have flushed all but an estimated 10% of the oil that remains on the water from the sound into the Gulf of Alaska. Indeed, nature seems to have done far more than man in speeding the recovery.

Some studies, for example, have found that, although fish eggs in general are vulnerable to benzene and dissolved oil, salmon eggs are “extremely tolerant.”

Only very low concentrations of hydrocarbons have been detected in deep water. “Oil doesn’t mix much down in the water,” said Jerry Galt, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

But he cautioned that biologically rich shoreline and intertidal areas are “a different story. We’ve got lots of oil there.”

The breakup of the oil has been slower than expected, probably because of the relatively cold water temperatures (about 30).

The emulsion of oil and water continues to threaten shorelines and marine life wherever it is found. It has moved hundreds of miles beyond the site of the spill and jeopardizes the rich fisheries of Kodiak Island, Seward and Homer. Toxic compounds in a petroleum mousse whipped up by wave action can persist for up to 15 months.

Oil at Birth Sites

Such sustained presence of the emulsion may not pose a hypothermia problem with seals, since they are insulated by blubber instead of hair. But there is great concern for newborn pups, because, although seals mate in the water, they give birth on land. There are disturbing indications that seals and sea lions are not abandoning their favorite “haul out” areas, despite the fact that the areas are coated with oil.

The emulsion may also pose long-term threats to marine life that, if not lethal, could affect reproduction and lead to mutations.

More than 654 million salmon are soon to be released from five hatcheries in the sound to begin their remarkble journey to the sea. Next month, adult salmon return home to oil-tainted waters after a one- to six-year odyssey at sea.

“If the oil is right there in front of them, they have to go right through it or be feeding on plankton that has been affected. The results could be very injurious,” Sheila Nickerson of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said.

Toxic compounds entrapped in organic matter that settles to the bottom could pose additional threats to crabs, lobsters and clams--not to mention pink and chum salmon, which in their early life stages feed off tiny bottom-dwelling shrimp-like creatures and other crustaceans. In the case of sockeye salmon, the effects may not be known until they return in six years.

Chromosome Damage Feared

There is evidence from previous spills that the oil results in damage to chromosomes or chromosome functions, resulting in mutations.

Reproduction can be damaged as well. Petroleum compounds and whole oils are known to interfere with fish eggs at very low concentrations. The hatching of bird eggs is reduced, often when oil concentrations are very low.

“Any small amount of oil in birds just before breeding will impair reproduction . . . . A small amount of oil will kill eggs,” said Michael Fry, a pollution toxicologist at the UC Davis Department of Avian Sciences. He said a single drop of oil will penetrate the shell and kill the embryo. Stress responses will suppress reproduction as well.

In an effort to stave off an avian catastrophe, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is drafting plans to scare off birds from favorite but heavily oiled rookeries. In non-oiled areas, pilots are being urged to fly above 1,000 feet in order not to disturb birds and scatter them to polluted areas.

Delayed development of crab, lobster and shrimp and fish larvae has been noted when oil concentrations are as low as 1 microgram per liter.

Various Effects on Life

But the effects vary among living things and among the various stages of their development. Marine worms, snails and very small crustaceans seem to suffer no lasting damage, according to the National Academy of Sciences.

But corals, clams, oysters, crabs, lobsters and shrimp, for example, “can suffer marked and sometimes long-term (years) reproductive damage at oiled sites,” the academy reported in its 1985 volume “Oil in the Sea: Inputs, Fates and Effects.”

After the Amoco Cadiz spill off the coast of Brittany in 1978, field studies turned up fin erosion in 80% of flatfish up to nine months after the spill, but this decreased to about 10% over the next 11 months. Abnormal growth of chloride cells in invertebrates was also observed.

But the academy said that “mortalities among commercially important species were insignificant.”

Chronic pollution--which is expected to occur in portions of Prince William Sound as oil trapped in the rocks and sediments slowly returns to the water--will likely cause long-term problems. Oil has been found to have penetrated some shoreline beaches as deep as eight inches.

Birds Vulnerable

“It is a long-term release of oil in low, chronic levels which will affect reproduction capabilities of benthic (bottom-living) organisms . . . . Otters may see some impact on reproduction because of ingestion of oil. Birds are particularly vulnerable,” said Brad Hahn, a scientist with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

During the Amoco Cadiz spill, numerous sub-tidal razor clams and heart urchins were killed in the first weeks. A year later, scientists followed the disappearance of bottom-dwelling crustaceans as the oil found its way into the sediments.

In other oil spills, damage to clams, mussels, and other species that either live on the bottom or in intertidal areas, which are exposed to air during low tide, has been readily apparent.

In the inlets and bays of Prince William Sound, as well as many of its islands, intertidal areas were covered with thick, mud-like oil from the Exxon Valdez.

Oil concentrations as low as 1 part per million kill or result in mutations in 50% of the herring stock affected, Alaska Fish and Game spokesman Jon Lyman said. Wild stocks of pink and chum salmon, as distinguished from hatchery stocks, spawn in the intertidal zones of freshwater streams, many of which have been overrun by oil.

Care Needed in Cleanup

“That in itself is a concern as far as cleaning of beaches. We have to be very careful about what areas do get cleaned. We could lose significant numbers of wild stocks,” Lyman said.

Charles J. DiBona, president of the American Petroleum Institute, nevertheless remains hopeful. “The studies suggest that the longer-term impacts, the biological impacts, are very small,” he said. Based on past spills, he said “long-term” could be defined as about a year.

But Jay D. Hair, president of the National Wildlife Federation, compares the tragedy to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in the Soviet Union and the Union Carbide disaster at Bhopal, India, in which more than 2,000 were killed in December, 1984.

“We will never see Prince William Sound again as it was on March 23, 1989,” Hair said of the day before the spill. “It’s every bit as severe as Union Carbide’s Bhopal or the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. In terms of the long-term environmental ramifications, Prince William Sound ranks as one of the country’s and world’s worst environmental disasters.”

Scientists, however, say the jury is still out.