Prince William Sound

As Alaska Airlines Flight 93 from Seattle made a slow turn on its final approach to Anchorage Airport, pilot Steve Tillman made an announcement: "Folks, if you look down to the right, you'll see the port of Valdez, Alaska. You'll see a lot of tanker activity. Valdez is where the Alaska pipeline ends. It's also the site of that great Exxon spill last year. "If you look carefully at the tankers leaving the harbor, you'll notice two other ships with each tanker.

When the earth shook off the coast of Japan on Friday, the magnitude 8.9 quake became the fifth strongest since 1900. According to records kept by the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Information Center, the largest quake remains the one in Chile in 1960 that measured 9.5. That was followed by the 1964 quake in Prince William Sound, Alaska, at 9.2; the 2004 quake off of Sumatra, at 9.1; and the 1952 quake in Kamchatka, a peninsula in eastern Russia...

CORDOVA, Alaska -- A year after the Exxon Valdez ground onto a reef in the middle of a frigid March night in 1989, unleashing the worst environmental disaster in U.S history, a striking thing happened. Amid oil-blinded sea otters and beached whales and the limp black carcasses of 250,000 shorebirds came the slow, sure swim of the pink salmon. The 1990 run was 44.5 million fish, the highest on record, almost four times higher than the year before 11 million gallons of oil spilled into Prince William Sound.

After spending around half a billion dollars, scientists paid by the government to study the Exxon Valdez oil spill over the last two decades still cannot answer some of the most important questions about the damage it caused or about whether Prince William Sound will fully recover. We're in danger of ending up just as ignorant after the BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, as once again, our legal, political and economic systems hobble scientists and pervert the search for answers.

The only way to get to this picturesque town is a six-hour ferry ride or a plane trip into the Merle K. (Mudhole) Smith Airport. Many of the 2,600 residents like it that way, enjoying their isolation on the edge of Prince William Sound, beneath the shadow of steep, spruce-covered hills and separated from the North American road system by forests, rivers, glaciers and a wall of mile-high, snow-covered mountains.

A meeting of agencies charged with assessing natural-resource damage from Exxon's Alaska oil spill has fueled suspicions among environmentalists and Alaska state officials about federal intentions. They fear that the federal government--particularly the Justice Department--won't adequately press Exxon to restore Prince William Sound. Exxon has spent about $2 billion so far cleaning up the oil, and this week announced that it would continue that effort this year.

Angry that President Bush has yet to visit the oil-stained beaches of Alaska's Prince William Sound, the National Wildlife Federation sent pieces of the fouled shoreline to the White House today. The environmental group delivered to Bush and leaders of his Administration zip-lock plastic bags containing blackened, slime-covered stones from a beach twice treated by Exxon after its disastrous oil spill six months ago. Each bag was labeled, "A Prince William Sound rock called 'clean' by Exxon."

Alaska May Sue Exxon: Alaska Gov. Steve Cowper said the state would probably file a lawsuit against Exxon Corp. if the company's cleanup of oil-fouled Prince William Sound is not completed by September as planned. Cowper, speaking in Los Angeles on the effects of the March 24 Exxon Valdez oil spill on state tourism, said the state hoped to recover some of the $55 million he estimated Alaska has spent dealing with the spill.

The Exxon Valdez should be allowed to return to Alaska's Prince William Sound, where it spilled 11 million gallons of oil in 1989, the tanker's owner told an appeals court Wednesday. The Exxon Valdez, which now sails between the Middle East and Asia, has been barred from the sound since 1990, when Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act. The act prohibits any tanker that has spilled more than 1 million gallons since March 22, 1989, from entering Prince William Sound. Lawyer E.

Exxon Not Liable for High Gas Prices After Valdez Spill: The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has ruled that the oil company and other firms associated with the 1989 Prince William Sound oil spill won't have to pay Californians for gasoline price increases that followed in its wake. The relevant law applies only to those damages from the "physical effects" of spills, not their "remote and derivative" consequences, Judge Mary Schroeder said in the ruling.

The small boat approached four pelicans perched on a rusty platform emerging from the flat green waters of the Gulf of Mexico on this steaming hot and windless day. They peered down their long beaks at the vessel. Then, as if teasing the humans spying on them through binoculars, two of the birds spread their wings and soared away just as the boat drew near. But two remained behind, and they were the ones wildlife biologist Haven Barnhill eyed with concern. Earlier that morning, with the nation's worst-ever oil spill gushing uncontained for the sixth week, Barnhill had found a dead pelican in these waters, its feathers slick with oil, its life lost to a slow creep of poison.

I SCRAMBLED OFF MY bunk toward the cabin door through smoke so dense that I fell into a hole where the stairs usually were. Elbow-crawling onto the deck, I realized one of my crewmates had folded back the steps to scope out the fire. Fire was raging in the engine room, and the one-ton net used to haul up fish was stacked in the hold, blocking the door. It was clear that only a person my size could squeeze into the crevice, reach through the sizzling metal pipes and hope to drown the flames.

The Exxon Valdez should be allowed to return to Alaska's Prince William Sound, where it spilled 11 million gallons of oil in 1989, the tanker's owner told an appeals court Wednesday. The Exxon Valdez, which now sails between the Middle East and Asia, has been barred from the sound since 1990, when Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act. The act prohibits any tanker that has spilled more than 1 million gallons since March 22, 1989, from entering Prince William Sound. Lawyer E.

A tunnel linking the Prince William Sound port of Whittier to the Alaska road system opened Wednesday amid protests, high wind and pelting rain. Until now, the town has been accessible only by rail or water. About 1.4 million visitors a year are projected to pour into the quiet community en route to the sound and its glaciers, dense forests, soaring peaks and abundant wildlife.

A year after the Exxon Valdez ground onto a reef in the middle of a frigid March night in 1989, unleashing the worst environmental disaster in U.S history, a striking thing happened. Amid oil-blinded sea otters and beached whales and the limp black carcasses of 250,000 shorebirds came the slow, sure swim of the pink salmon. The 1990 run was 44.5 million fish, the highest on record, almost four times higher than the year before 11 million gallons of oil spilled into Prince William Sound.

Exxon Valdez $5-Billion Verdict Affirmed by Judge: The federal judge overseeing the Exxon Valdez case affirmed the punitive-damages award against Exxon Corp. for causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The decision, which was expected, was issued Friday by U.S. District Judge H. Russel Holland in Anchorage, Alaska. Exxon immediately said it will appeal what it called an "unjust verdict."

Oil Spill Claims Questioned: A geochemist working independently of Exxon Corp. has found evidence supporting the company's claim that not all of the oil fouling Alaska's Prince William Sound came from the Exxon Valdez spill, The New York Times reported in today's editions. The information could complicate billions of dollars in claims against Exxon resulting from the March, 1989, spill. Keith A. Kvenvolden, a geochemist working for the U.S.

More than 14 months after the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill, seven bald eagle victims of the spill are returning to the wild, including "Miracle," who was delivered in a coma one year ago and nursed back to health. Wildlife workers took the birds from their enclosures at the Ft. Richardson Army post north of Anchorage, stuffed them into large portable dog kennels and flew them to Cordova for today's freedom flight from an unoiled Prince William Sound beach.

Oil Spill Claims Questioned: A geochemist working independently of Exxon Corp. has found evidence supporting the company's claim that not all of the oil fouling Alaska's Prince William Sound came from the Exxon Valdez spill, The New York Times reported in today's editions. The information could complicate billions of dollars in claims against Exxon resulting from the March, 1989, spill. Keith A. Kvenvolden, a geochemist working for the U.S.