1998 SHORELINE CONDITIONS IN THE EXXON VALDEZ OIL SPILL ZONE IN PRINCE

After the March 24, 1989 grounding of the Exxon Valdez and the release of 258,000 barrels of Alaska North Slope (ANS) crude oil into the marine environment of Prince William Sound (PWS), Alaska, a number of scientific studies were conducted from 1989 to 1998 to assess the fate and effects of the spill. These included the shoreline ecology program (SEP) of 1990 and 1991 which detected little measurable impact of the spill, except at certain heavily oiled sites. In 1998, these 1990 and 1991 studies were updated The 1998 study found that small remnants of the spill from originally heavily oiled sites represent a minute fraction of the total shoreline area of PWS. Any isolated deposits of remaining oil residues from the spill were generally found at the top of the tide zone and were highly weathered and therefore not in a form and location that is available and toxic to biota. Between 1991 and 1998, there was a dramatic decrease in