Nearly a decade after the nation's worst oil spill fouled Alaska's Prince William Sound, some fish and bird populations are beginning to rebound, scientists said Friday.
But various ecological problems linger years after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster, said scientists from federal and state agencies and several universities attending a two-conference."There's a lot of signs of recovery in the sound. This doesn't mean there's total recovery yet," said Molly McCammon, executive director of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council.
The council is a made up of state and federal officials who oversee the $900 million that Exxon has pledged to pay to settle the governments' civil complaints about the spill.
Salmon and herring populations, after some disastrous years, appeared to be in better shape, McCammon said, but ecological problems lingered in the sound and in nearby areas of the Gulf of Alaska.