Twenty years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, little remains in Prince William Sound to remind the

eye of 1989s striking images of oiled birds and sea otters, or of armies of workers in protective gear toiling to clean blackened beaches. Today, the waters of the sound are turquoise and the shorelines bristle with life, almost none of it human. But researchers are still studying the spills persistent aftereffects: Even as many species have recovered, others continue to struggle. Some may still come in contact with the oil that lingers, tucked away below the rocky surfaces of the beaches. Scientistssome of whom have studied the spill for the entire 2 decades and are now looking to retireare taking stock of their results and working to determine how (and whether) they might encourage further recovery of the ecosystem. This month, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, which oversees research and restoration, released its summary report. Its not just research for the sake of research, says Catherine Boerner, a restoration specialist with the Trustee Council. The science now looks squarely at how to manage the injured species, she says, such as by opening a fishery or culling predators. Before the incident, researchers had limited understanding of the long-term effects of a big spill. The Valdez studies are the largest, longest, and most expensive ever done. They suggest, for example, that oil

may persist much longer than expected, affecting intertidal organisms, and that chronic exposure to low levels of oil can inflict subtle damage on wildlife. Many of the hundreds of scientif ic reports are incredibly influential papers that will be cited for a long time, says marine chemist Christopher Reddy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who did not work on the spill. Despite the mountain of studies, government-funded and Exxon-funded scientists still clash over the spills long-term effects and whether Exxon should pay the government an additional $92 million for yet more research. Government scientists say Exxon researchers dont accept good evidence, while Exxon scientists charge bias, too. Government-funded studies tend to be bleak and negative, says Alan Maki, an environmental scientist who oversaw Exxons research until he retired in late 2007. This spill has not behaved much differently than what you would expect from studies of other spills, he says. Some questions provoke less rancor but still may never be answered, such as why the Pacific herring populations crashed. In part, because of the complexity of the ecosystem, well never know, says Stanley Rice, who manages research on the oil spill at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAAs) Auke Bay Laboratories in Juneau.
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Aftermath of a disaster The spill occurred just after midnight on 24 March 1989, when the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound. Forty million liters of crude oil ended up in the sea and on the beaches, making it the largest spill in U.S. waters. The immediate impact was dramatic: About 250,000 sea birds died, along with 22 killer whales, 2800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, and untold numbers of fish eggs. Scientists rushed to study the ongoing effects. Their efforts received a huge boost in 1991, when Exxon agreed to pay $900 million in a civil settlement with the U.S. and Alaskan governments to restore Prince William Sound. The Trustee Council has dedicated some $180 million to research, with the rest used to preserve land and reimburse cleanup expenses. The research efforts will continue indefinitely thanks to an endowment fund, currently about $100 million. The company now known as ExxonMobil has sponsored its own research, and the scientists it funds have published or presented more than 400 peer-reviewed papers and talks. Over the years, their conclusions have often clashed with those of the governmentfunded researchers. For example, one of the largest efforts has been to track the fate of the oil remaining in the sound years after the spill. In 2001, a team led by Jeffrey Short, a chemist then

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tonsand the fishery opened. But then in 1993, the population crashed: Only 20,000 tons of herring appeared. with NOAA, randomly sampled 91 beaches Was this due to the spill? Many scientists in the oiled parts of the sound, digging think not. A poor bloom of plankton in 1992 9000 pits. Short estimated that 55,000 liters left the fish hungry and vulnerable to disof oil remained, spread across and underneath ease, says fish pathologist Gary Marty of 11 hectares of beaches. the British Columbia Ministry of AgriculDavid Page, an Exxon-funded chemist at ture and Lands in Canada, who has been Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, studying the herring since the spill. He and insisted, after conducting his own sampling, Terrance Quinn of the University of Alaska, that the government estimate was too high. Fairbanks, developed a model that he says Even though he later came to accept Shorts can describe every blip in the population results, he and others still questioned for the past 15 years. whether the lingering oil is affecting But Richard Thorne, an acoustics wildlife. They argue that other sources of researcher at the Prince William Sound hydrocarbon pollution outweigh what little Science Center, says hydroacoustic monitoroil remains from the 1989 spill. The remaining results suggest that the spilland the ing oil, says Page, is sequestered. If it were subsequent 3 years of f ishingcaused available to be harming wildlife, it would the population to crumble. In 1993, he have been long gone. started conducting annual hydroacoustic Government researchers challenge those surveys, which use sonar to count fish. He claims. In 2005, Shorts team resampled 10 and Gary Thomas, a fisheries scientist at the of the beaches where oil University of Miami, noted that remained in 2001. They reported the acoustic results correlate in 2007 in Environmental Science well with aerial surveys of & Technology that the oil was herring spawn, which have been decaying at just 0% to 4% per done every year for more than year. It will persist for decades 30 years, and suggest the decline up to a century, says Short, who began in 1989. retired from NOAA a few months Unfortunately, most herring ago and now works for Oceana, a studies stopped after 1990, so marine conservation group. In neither side in this debate has another study reported last year in data about the critical precollapse Marine Environmental Research, years. As a result, researchers Shorts team found that biologimay never know for sure, says cally active contaminants in the George Rose, a fisheries conserregion were predominantly from vation expert at Memorial Unithe oil spill; he also thinks that versity in St. Johns, Canada. In biomarkers such as a particular Swimming against the odds. One killer whale pod is slowly recovering from the a way, it doesnt matter, says liver enzyme reveal that organ- oil spill, but another is headed for extinction. NOAAs Rice. We need to know isms have been exposed to oil. why they dont come back. These conflicting claims have fiscal con- remain low in some heavily oiled areas Thats where $2 million of this years sequences: The 1991 settlement contained a where oil lingers in the intertidal zones. research has focused. With a better underso-called reopener clause allowing the gov- U.S. Geological Survey biologist James standing of factors such as disease, predators, ernment to claim up to $100 million more if Bodkin f itted 16 otters with time-depth and climate change, researchers hope to help by 2006 unanticipated damages from the recorders and reported in February at a the fish rebound. Ideas include establishing a spill appeared. That year, the government meeting of the Alaska Forum on the Envi- herring hatchery or targeted fishing for some asked Exxon for $92 million to f ind and ronment that shallow intertidal digging of the herrings predators, like pollock. The remove the remaining oil, arguing that it was represented about 18% of female sea best thing for the fish may simply be to propersisting longer than expected. Both sides otters dives. Theyre going to get expo- tect them from fishing and other causes of have agreed to postpone negotiating the sure to oil, says Rice. mortality, Rose says: In rebuilding natural reopener until the government finishes more Most scientists do agree about the fate systems, the main ingredient is patience and oil studies, perhaps 2 years from now, says of at least one injured species: Pacific her- the other one is protection. Patience indeed Craig OConnor, a lawyer with NOAA. ring, whose populations are only 15% of is called for, many researchers agree. Two their prespill numbers. In the late 1980s decades may span most of a scientific career, A pod dwindles before the spill, the herring f ishery in but they hardly register in the transformation Scientists on both sides agree that many Prince William Sound was worth $12 mil- of an ecosystem. species have recovered in Prince William lion and the population was at a record LILA GUTERMAN Sound, including bald eagles, cormorants, high. The year after the spill, the population Lila Guterman is a science writer in Washington, D.C. salmon, and river otters. But the oil, govern- seemed high againestimated at 120,000 With reporting by Jacopo Pasotti.
Digging for oil. Oil rises from below the surface on a Prince William Sound beach.

ment scientists think, has had severe impacts on at least two photogenic animals: killer whales and sea otters. The two pods of whales photographed and identified in the oil slick in 1989 each lost about 40% of their members around the time of the spill, says Rice. That is just totally unprecedented, he says. One pod is recovering slowly, but the other, originally comprised of 22 whales, has lost all of its females of reproductive age and is down to seven or eight members. Eventually, Rice says, theyre going to become extinct. Because the two unrelated pods declined so suddenly and at the same time, researchers argued last year in Marine Ecology Progress Series , the deaths were almost certainly caused by the spill when the whales breathed oil fumes or ate contaminated prey. But Exxon scientists say the deaths cant be conclusively linked to oil. Meanwhile, sea otters have rebounded in most of the sound, but populations

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