2. • What is the environment?
• What is your personal environment?
• Why should we protect the environment?
• We have not inherited the earth from our
forefathers , we are borrowing it from our
children…
9. ANCHORAGE, Alaska--About 85 tons of residual oil from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill remains
on the beaches of Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska, according to a study by scientists
from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration slated for publication Feb. 15.
The study, which will be published in Environmental Science & Technology, the journal of the
American Chemical Society, is based on evaluations of beaches made between 2001 and 2005,
although surveys were also done in 2006 and are scheduled to be conducted annually.
The oil is disappearing at a rate of only 3 percent to 4 percent in Prince William Sound, the study
said. In the Gulf of Alaska, the rate of degradation is even slower because of the physical
characteristics of the oil, which has been whipped into an emulsified, mousse-like consistency that
effectively creates a shell, said NOAA scientist Jeff Short, one of the report's main authors. "So
probably what's there is going away even slower, as in potentially not at all," Short said.
The persistence poses risks for sea otters, ducks, and shorebirds that forage for food in the
intertidal zone, the report said. It also creates a source of chronic, low-level contamination; could
discourage subsistence food harvesting in certain spots; and degrades the wilderness character of
protected lands, the study concluded.
The findings--both in terms of oil volume and persistence--were surprising, Short said. The
researchers found that the characteristics of the shorelines caused the oil that reached them to
percolate below the surface and stay there, he said. "There's some very unusual factors that
conspire in the Gulf of Alaska and Prince William Sound beaches to prolong this persistence. Most
other places in the world, it would not be so persistent," he said.
In Prince William Sound, the less-viscous oil easily seeped into low-particle beaches, while in the
Gulf of Alaska, the oil--more viscous as it was whipped into its mousse-like consistency--trickled
into the cracks of the rock- and boulder-plated shores, he said
