The Oil Spill 5 Months Later : Alaska’s Wounds Appear to Be Slowly on the Mend

Five months ago, Prince William Sound was a caldron awash with nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil from the stricken tanker Exxon Valdez.

Its blackened shores were littered with dead and dying birds. Eventually 30,000 sea birds and 127 bald eagles died. At least a thousand otters were dying of hypothermia as oil matted down the luxuriant hair that insulates them from the icy waters, or of acute poisoning after ingesting the oil as they groomed themselves.

Today, that picture may be changing for the better.

Tidal action and strong currents have swept the waters free of most surface oil, which is good news for the birds and otters.

There are strong indications that concentrations of oil mixed in the water itself may be negligible, which would be good news for fish.

“We’re at the point where we’ve seen all the acute effects,” said Parmely (Hap) Prichard of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

For many, however, Alaska remains a Paradise Lost.

On more than 1,300 miles around Prince William Sound, the Gulf of Alaska, the lower Cook Inlet and parts of Kodiak Island, black stains mark the high tide line like a bathtub ring.

Oily residue stubbornly clings to rocks and boulders, even on beaches cleaned by Exxon, which marshaled a small navy and 11,000 cleanup workers at a cost expected to reach $1.2 billion. Pockets of crude are as easy to find as kicking over a rock or slipping a hand into a crevasse.

“It’s definitely not restored to its original condition and to tell you the truth, we’ll never get it back to its original state until nature does its work,” said Cmdr. Gary Reiter of the U.S. Coast Guard, which oversees Exxon’s cleanup operations.

On five islands in Prince William Sound that are prime nesting areas for bald eagles, not a single bald eagle chick was born this year, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey found. On Knight Island, all but 11 of 118 nests were barren. On Naked Island, all but two out of 20 were empty.

“We don’t see the sea lions we used to see. The sea otters are a lot fewer--which I’m happy about,” said Al Johnson of Homer Ocean Charters, who, like most fishermen, considers otters a nuisance and competitors for his catch.

Scientists also worry about the toll to marine life over the long haul from chronic exposure to relatively low levels of toxic compounds.

No one knows, for example, what will happen to the state’s economically vital salmon and herring fisheries. Millions of salmon fry were released shortly after the spill. Only when they return home to spawn over the next several years will experts know how well the fish survived the apocalypse. Most of the salmon season was shut down this year.

Exxon spokesman Everett McGehee ventured: “We really think from the information in our studies that fish have not been affected to any large (degree).”

Sketchiest Idea

Scientists at this point have only the sketchiest idea of the oil’s impact on other marine life. Much will depend on the amount of oily contaminants that have found their way into the sediments on the ocean floor and intertidal areas--either from the cleanup operations or natural runoff and tidal action--where varieties of marine life live, including sea worms, crabs and clams.

What is known is that the oil struck capriciously, hitting some areas hard while bypassing others. Some clam beds have been devastated by the spill and it will probably be years before they recover. Only now, for example, are clam beds hit by the catastrophic 1964 earthquake returning to normal.

“The shoreline dropped from inches to feet and in some of the places where shoreline dropped several feet or more we’re just now starting to see the animals resettle those areas,” said biologist Jim Hemming of Dames & Moore, a Los Angeles-based engineering and environmental consulting firm under contract to Exxon.

Similarly, “Some shorelines are just horrible (as a result of the spill). There are oil deposits in the sediments and lots of oil on the surface,” said chief scientist Erich Gundlach of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Hemming added: “There’s no question that on heavily oiled shorelines especially there’s obvious mortality. Our big interest in those cases is how long does it take to recover.” Researchers are also interested in learning whether recovery takes even longer after shoreline cleaning has driven contaminated sediments deeper into intertidal areas, he said.

Expected to Die

More bald eagles are expected to die in the months ahead after the salmon runs end and eagles resume preying on sea birds that may continue to get mired in oil.

“Even if they are lightly oiled, the eagle can spot a (stressed) bird quicker than you can spot a Model-T in a parking lot full of Cadillacs. When that happens he’s going to go down and pick it up. That’s why the eagles got into trouble this year,” said Jim Scott, an Anchorage veterinarian and an authority on bald eagles and other birds of prey.

“I think we’re going to fight problems from this for a long time,” Scott said.

But, there are encouraging signs.

For the oiled otters that survived the first two weeks of trauma, the prognosis is good. By the end of this month, all of the remaining 25 captured otters in Valdez will be returned to the wild. Those that have been released are doing well.

“They’re swimming really well,” said Randall Davis of the Sea World Research Institute in San Diego, who led the otter recovery effort here that so far has cost Exxon $14 million. That works out to $40,000 for each of the 350 animals picked up and treated. Some 922 dead otters were recovered, a number believed to represent a small percentage of those actually killed. The otter population in the Sound is estimated at between 8,000 and 10,000.

Early fears have proven unfounded that captured otters would be tamed, and when released back to the wild would endanger themselves by swimming too close to humans.

“We were all concerned. We thought they would be fat and lazy. But they’re diving and retrieving their own food. They seem to be acting in every way like (wild) sea otters,” said Terrie Williams, a research physiologist working with Davis in the recovery effort. She added that the otters, some of which have been fitted with radio transmitters, are avoiding boats.

Much Unknown

But Davis, like other scientists, said much remains unknown. “There may be long-term effects. Oil is toxic at high concentrations. It is carcinogenic at lower concentrations,” he said.

How quickly the environment recovers will depend in large part on whether oil continues to find its way into sediments.

“We think that very little of the oil sank during the early part of the spill,” said Jacqueline Michel, a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s scientific support team at Valdez.

But she said there is a “big concern” that as the winter storms arrive and runoffs from streams and rivers into Prince William Sound pick up, they will carry oily particles still on the shoreline into the intertidal zone--the area between high and low tides--and to the ocean floor.

Of greatest concern are the bays and inlets that are protected from the brunt of the storms because the contaminated sediments would be less likely to be dispersed once they settle.

Toxic compounds attached to sediments could pose a long-term risk to crabs, lobsters and clams, as well as pink and chum salmon which in their early stages of development feed off tiny bottom-dwelling shrimp-like creatures and other crustaceans.

Evidence from other spills points to chromosomal damage, resulting in mutations. Reproduction can be damaged as well. Petroleum compounds and whole oils are known to interfere with fish and bird eggs at very low concentrations.

Exxon plans to shut down cleanup operations Sept. 15 for the winter, when weather and storm conditions would make the efforts dangerous, leaving behind a small crew to handle any cleanup emergencies. The oil company, which hopes Alaska’s fierce winter storms will scour the shoreline, has promised that it will return next year to finish the job if so directed by the Coast Guard.

But, there appears to be mounting scientific evidence for not resuming certain kinds of cleanup methods, especially those involving the use of high pressure hoses to direct streams of 140-degree water at oily shorelines.

Shorelines Sterilized

Government scientists from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, NOAA and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation said the tactic has sterilized shorelines, killing microorganisms. The hosing of all kinds has also also washed toxic oily sediments further into intertidal zones, upsetting the natural biosphere.

“It appears now after the cleaning occurred there’s a substantial change for the worse,” ventured David Kennedy, scientific support coordinator in Valdez with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“We’re seeing large plumes of sediment redeposited in sub-tidal (below the low tide line) areas. You can’t help but have some negative impact,” he said. NOAA is an arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The cleanup has spawned a number of other environmental problems as well. The oily waste and debris that has been collected has itself become a controversy. Exxon has imported incinerators to burn the waste. Other wastes have been shipped out of state, a fact that has underscored the point that Alaska has been ill equipped to deal with toxic wastes.

Controversy also continues over the use of kerosene-based oil dispersant, known as Corexit 9580, on shore to break up thick layers of oil. Until now, the use of such dispersants has been restricted to the open ocean because of their toxicity. NOAA and the state have recommended against its further use. Exxon used it on three sites on Smith Island covering 25,000 square feet of beach. But, the state said it thinned the oil so well that it flowed into the water and could not be skimmed, while also loading more toxics into the sound.

Meanwhile, there are promising signs that nature may succeed where Exxon has failed, especially if it is given a boost.

The EPA has endorsed a so-called “bioremediation” effort in which fertilizer is applied to oiled shorelines to speed the growth of oil eating bacteria, which are naturally present. The fertilizers of nitrogen and phosphorus help the bacteria more readily synthesize the carbon found in the oil. The bacteria consume 50% to 60% of the carbon and leave a relatively nontoxic asphalt residue behind.

Camp David Dinner

EPA Administrator William K. Reilly is so enthused he recounted a dinner recently at Camp David with President Bush and quoted the President as having asked: “Bill, are those bugs eating as fast and as much as you hoped?”

They are. Instead of taking upwards of 10 years to rid the shorelines of the oil’s most toxic components, it may take just three to five years.

“It looks promising. Our scientists are encouraged,” Reilly said.

“The real beauty of this is we have so much natural degradation of oil. A lot of us didn’t expect that,” Prichard said.

The bacteria can easily get to all the nooks and crannies that Exxon missed. Prichard of the EPA said that only 17% of the oil has been removed from shorelines by physical processes.

There has been a slight increase in algae after two weeks from the nutrients in the fertilizers, but the increase is not significant, according to Fran Kremer, a senior environmental engineer with the EPA who has been monitoring test plots on several Prince William Sound islands.

Because of the chance of oxygen-depleting algae blooms in the water, the bioremediation technique is not permitted in areas where flushing by currents is minimal.

There is one other drawback. Bioremediation is less effective on heavily oiled shorelines because the bacteria are active only on the surface of the oil where oxygen and water are present.

In a real sense, the cleanup operation is writing the book on how to respond to massive spills in Arctic waters.

Immediately after the spill Exxon rushed in scientific teams to strategic points along the Alaskan shoreline to grab samples of water and marine life before the oil arrived. The information is being used as a starting point to determine the impacts after the oil hit those same areas.

“Up until now we’ve had a fair number of spills. But we’ve never been able to tool up fast enough to study them and learn from them. Fortunately on this one we got out early enough to start getting some answers,” Hemming said.

Kelp Growth

Based on the “before and after” samples taken here, Hemming said there is evidence that the growth of kelp has been retarded by the spill. But no firm conclusions can be made yet. He said last year’s unusually severe Alaskan winter may also be a factor.

Scientists have also learned how much oil it takes to kill an otter from damage to the mammal’s lungs, liver and other internal organs. Otters with hydrocarbon concentrations in their blood of more than 200 parts per million eventually died. Those with less than 200 p.p.m, lived.

“The first two weeks were critical to an effective response. Unless something is in place, your (rescue) effort is blunted,” Davis said.

But, it is a hard way to learn.

“We know it’s going to occur again. We saw it this summer with three other spills,” Williams said.

“People need to stay mad. They need to be reminded how chaotic it was here. They need to be ready. We need to keep the presure up. They need to change things or we’re going to see it all over again,” Williams said.