Sam Wagner
Section: Friday
PWS Geography and Baseline
Group #1

PWS Geography and Baseline The Exxon Valdez oil spill and the effects on Prince Williams Sound and the surrounding areas is the main focus of this first topic. The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred on Good Friday in 1989. The oil spill had a major toll on the environment when it occurred. Many birds, sea otters, and fish died, and many beaches and were covered with the oil. There were some people that compared the Valdez oil spill to Chernobyl, Bhopal, and Hiroshima. Many people doubted if Prince William Sound would ever be able to recover from the oil spill. However, seven weeks after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, many beaches were still covered, but there were no more dead birds or sea otters to be found. The original thoughts of comparing the oil spill to Chernobyl or Hiroshima were way off base and were based off of an overreaction of the media and the general public. Although much of the general public overreacted, most scientists were not as dramatic when developing their predictions of what effect the oil spill would have on the environment. Even though, most scientists knew that the effects of the oil spill would not be as catastrophic as the media was portraying it, scientists experienced difficulty in providing pure “black and white” answers to the general public. Another problem that scientists faced was that much of the investigation was “litigation-sensitive.” As a result, many of the scientists’ findings were aligned with the bias of the studies’ main sponsors. This caused many of the scientists’ findings to be mostly useless and ineffective. There are two weather patterns that regularly occur in Prince William Sound. The most common is a southeast wind accompanied with rain, and the other type of weather pattern is a northern wind provides fair weather to the area. Prince Williams sound is fifteen times larger than the area of San Francisco. The area has calm waters, which allows bears to go far off of the shore to catch fish twice a day. Prince Williams Sound is also rainy most of the time, but there are few storms because the storms are blocked from moving inland and can hold for days. Prince Williams Sound also lies above one of the world’s most active seismic zones. As a result, hurricanes are very active in Prince William Sound and have reset the area between the land and the ocean. The wildlife living on Prince Williams Sound is numerous and includes a wide range of species. Prince Williams Sound is home to seabirds, sea otters, salmon, herring, killer whales, periwinkles, jellyfish, kittiwakes, and eagles. The Valdez oil spill had an immediate impact on all of these species. The sea is much more resilient to land; it is able to respond more quickly from disasters, whether they are man-made or natural. A researcher by the name of Pete Mickelson created a table qualitatively comparing the species of animal before and after the Valdez oil spill. Mickelson found that over twenty species of bird and two species of mammal saw a dramatic change in their population after the oil spill. The water’s current in Bligh Reef was much lower than usual in March of 1989. The current was too slow to move icebergs. Since the ice bergs in Prince Williams Sound were much more numerous than usual, this caused the captain of Valdez to head onto Bligh Reef to avoid these icebergs. Unfortunately this is where the Valdez ship was hit and caused the disaster of the Valdez oil spill. There were so many conditions that could have gone differently to prevent this accident from occurring. The Exxon Valdez spill on Prince Williams Sound shows the resiliency of Mother Nature, and also how careful humans must be to ensure that we do not permanently destroy the world we live in.

What was the biggest impact on the wildlife as a result of the Valdez oil spill?
Are there any lasting effects from the Valdez spill still present today?
What were the main conclusions of scientists on the lasting effects resulting from the incident?