Ten Years Later

 

This is an image of four healthy sea otters in Prince William Sound.

This image was taken from community.webshots.com.

 

Is all the oil gone?

This question is very debatable. A lot of scientists have struggled to answer this question. Many people believe that the answer to this question is yes. How ever, there are still traces of oil on the rocks of Prince William Sound and the area around it. Some scientists have observing various rocks in different spots for over ten years. They started observing them about 15 months after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

 

Mearns Rock is a rock that scientists have been studying for over ten years. It is in Snug Harbour on Knight Island, Prince William Sound, Alaska. This is an area that was oiled during the spill. This area was thought to be clean. No one actually did clean it, but people thought it was cleaned by the weather. Here is a picture of Mearns Rock.

The picture above is of Mearns Rock in 1984. This picture was taken from response.restoration.noaa.gov. The picture below is of Mearns Rock in 1994. The picture is from response.restoration.noaa.gov

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