In the words of folksinger Utah Phillips, "the past didn’t go anywhere." Eleven million gallons of crude oil were spilled into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, covering 1,200 miles of shoreline, when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground in 1989. Recent National Marine Fisheries Service studies have found that the remaining oil buried in beaches is still leaching out and poisoning wildlife. Eventually, it will weather into a relatively harmless state, but after fourteen years, the effects of the spill are still being felt. Harlequin ducks and sea otters are still struggling, though sea otters in non-oiled areas are doing so well that the region’s sea otter population as a whole is not in danger. Exxon was ordered to pay $5 billion in punitive fines for damages to the livelihood of fishermen, Alaska Natives and other residents of the affected area. An appeals court ruled the fine was excessive, and last month Judge H. Russel Holland lowered it to $4 billion.
