Council staff visited Eleanor Island in central Prince William Sound this past August to look for residual oil from 1989’s Exxon Valdez oil spill. While several staff experienced the Exxon Valdez spill first-hand, many had never seen the oil other than in photographs and in small sample jars collected each year and displayed in our offices.
The group was accompanied by David Janka, owner of Auklet Charters. Each year, Janka visits several beaches in the Sound where oil can still be found. He documents the locations and collects samples which he shares with the council.
This area of Prince William Sound was hardest hit with oil.
Alicia Zorzetto, who joined council staff in January, says she remembers the spill only vaguely, as she was 6 years old at the time. The images of the dead animals on TV were memorable because they were scary for a young kid. Later, her environmental politics classes in college discussed the spill through an historical lens.
“It’s one thing to study in a classroom, and then to come here and see and imagine what the fishermen and the locals had to go through, it’s like looking into a little part of our dark history,” said Zorzetto.
The experience was a reminder that the council’s mission to promote environmentally safe transportation of oil in Prince William Sound is an important one.
“We live with oil, we need oil, and we appreciate our oil industry and all it does for our state,” said Mark Swanson, the council’s executive director, “but we really have to be mindful that a lot of protection is required to make sure we don’t have another spill because the consequences just don’t go away.”
