Reply #12: What people are forgetting... [View All]

[Octafish]

Once oiled, beaches never really recover -- at least in a normal human lifespan.



Publicity Stunt, Prince William Sound, Alaska, 1989

Exxon Valdez cleanup holds lessons for Gulf oil spill

Oil from the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989 may take centuries to disappear, says Exxon. How long will the Gulf oil spill linger?

By Yereth Rosen, / Correspondent / May 13, 2010
Christian Science Monitor

Two decades after the Exxon Valdez supertanker ran aground and ripped open its cargo tanks, the spill still marks Alaska's environment. Pockets of fresh crude are buried in beaches scattered around Prince William Sound and segments outside it, in isolated spots along more than 1,200 miles of coastline that received oil in 1989.

The discovery confounded earlier predictions that remnant crude would quickly weather and disperse as waves washed it into the sea.

"At this rate, the remaining oil will take decades and possibly centuries to disappear entirely," concluded the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, the federal-state panel that administers the $900 million civil settlement struck in 1991 between the governments and Exxon for natural resource damages.

The lingering oil was a revelation to scientists like Gail Irvine of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), who found some still-fresh crude hundreds of miles away from Bligh Reef, along the Alaska Peninsula far outside Prince William Sound. "I was surprised," she says. "It was still goopy and aromatic. It was not asphalt."

CONTINUED...

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0513/Exxon-Valdez-cleanup-holds-lessons-for-Gulf-oil-spill

I know you know, SammyWinstonJack. This is news to many, many others...