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Paula Martin, newest member of the council's Scientific Advisory Committee, clearly recalls the fish kills, the raw sewage and the pollution that in the 1960's infamously fouled the waters of Lake Erie near her childhood home in Buffalo, New York, spawning headlines such as "The lake is dead!"

"It was totally disgusting," Martin said. "It smelled and there were dead fish piled up to my waist along the shores.

"The Buffalo incident was very much a formative experience for me in terms of my interest in water quality."

This event early in her life inspired her to head to Berkley, California for college. It was one of the few schools in the country that had a program in aquatic entomology, where she could study the use of insects as indicators of water quality.

After completing graduate work at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Martin spent several years as a college professor and instructor. Martin often used the case of the Exxon Valdez oil spill to spark conversations with her students about the benefits and disadvantages that come with different energy resource choices.

"The reality of accidents has to be part of the story when we think about the use of resources because those accidents can have dramatic impacts and can be difficult to prevent," Martin said.

"To try to plan for energy policies or research using approaches that assume that we won't have accidents is probably not a good idea."

Martin led and helped establish environmental science programs at universities in Pennsylvania and Georgia, before moving to Alaska in 2007. She is now the Assistant Director for Academic Affairs at the Kenai Peninsula College in Soldotna.

Martin said she loves living in Alaska, which she describes as, "absolutely the most amazing place to live when you are interested in the environment, because the environment here is still pretty intact compared to the Lower 48."

"I really enjoy my work with the council because a big part of the mission is to try to protect that environment."

"One of the things I like about the council's approach is it gets the voice of the local community directly connected to the decision makers," Martin said, "so the citizens of Prince William Sound have a voice in what happens in their area. They may not have control over it at all times, but at least the council provides them a seat at the table."

Martin joined the council's science committee last year. "I have been quite impressed with the focus of the group on issues of particular importance not just for Prince William Sound, but that have applications globally," Martin said.

One example is the committee's interest in the use of chemical dispersants on oil-spills. The council has long had concerns about the use of dispersants and their effectiveness in Alaskan waters. After the unprecedented use of dispersants during 2010's spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which Martin said is becoming more common, interest in dispersant research has become even more of a priority.

"Not only has the group, over time, collected a great deal of information about dispersants, but it is also looking to have that information brought up to date. The committee also wants to expand the studies to understand more about the effect of dispersants on ecosystems, particularly cold water ecosystems." Martin said.

Another area of interest for Martin is the science committee's work on aquatic nuisance species. These non-native species can travel from port to port in the ballast water that ships take on to help balance when they have no cargo, and by attaching themselves to the outside hulls of ships. Alaska has so far been spared the kinds of devastating invasions that have occurred elsewhere, but it may be only a matter of time before the state's waters are successfully invaded by a harmful new species, threatening valuable native species such as commercial fish. The council has been part of a collaborative effort with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and the San Francisco State University to monitor for non-native tunicates and to study changes in native marine invertebrate populations. 

"Alaska has shipping, those ships come from all over the world, and things get transported," Martin said. "Having some monitoring going on so there is a chance for fast response is a good thing."