On March 24, 1989, at 4 minutes past midnight, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Alaska's breath-taking Prince William Sound. Instantaneously, the quiet waters of the sound became a sea of black. "We've fetched up - ah - hard aground north of Goose Island off Bligh Reef, and - ah - evidently leaking some oil," Joseph Hazelwood, captain of the ship, radioed the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office back in Valdez. That "some oil" turned out to be a total of 11,000,000 gallons of crude oil leaking from the ruptured hull of the ship. By the time a containment effort was put forth, a weather storm had helped to spread the oil as much as three feet thick across 1,400 miles of beaches.
             A little over ten years have passed since the largest oil spill and the greatest environmental disaster in American history, but the waters and its surroundings are still recovering. At first, many people repeated what was then thought as common knowledge, "oil dissipates, nature heals quickly, all will be well in a year or two." This has not been the case with the Exxon Valdez. This massive 987-foot tanker has left a lingering, long-term effect on the natural habitat that surrounds these pristine waters, along with an enormous socio-economic effect that has left many people wondering when and where the next oil spill will be. Many associated with the recovery process, and its more than one hundred projects per year, say it will take longer than a human lifetime to determine if a full recovery is possible (Fine 1999).
             The Exxon Valdez oil spill was initially thought of as a two to three year clean-up project. As time went ahead, scientists and clean-up crews realized that it would take a longer period of time and require a lot more effort than originally planned. Up to this point, the oil has contaminated a national forest, four wildlife refuges, three national parks, five state parks, four "critical habitat areas" and a state game sanctuary...