Project Information

Title: Lingering Oil on Boulder-Armored Beaches in the Gulf of Alaska 22 Years after the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill 11100112-A

Project Year and Number: 2012: 11100112-A

Other Fiscal Years and Numbers for this Project: None

Principal Investigator (PI): Gail Irvine (USGS)

Managing Agency: USGS

Assisting Personnel: Mark Carls, Dan Mann

Research Location: Gulf of Alaska

Restoration Category: Research

Injured Resources Addressed: Not Specified

Abstract: This FY12 amendment to Project 11100112 solely requests funding to complete sampling that was detailed in the original proposal, but which could not be accomplished in 2011 because of extremely bad weather. Costs, primarily in logistics (contracts) and personnel time, were incurred in the attempted sampling and form the main part of our request. In 2011 we were on a vessel in Cook Inlet/Shelikof Strait for 7 days and were only able to sample on 2 low tides. After five days of bad weather, when it became clear that we could not sample our suite of sites, we concentrated on accomplishing Objective 2 (determining if oil is leaking out of the sites), which involved placing passive samplers at just 2 sites and nearby controls. Since these samplers are extremely sensitive to waterborne hydrocarbons, finishing Objective 2 reduces the conflict between that sampling and some of our traditional sampling that can disrupt the oil at a site (e.g., taking oiled sediment samples, and assessing the depth of subsurface oil via dip stones). Thus, even though we visited two sites – and visually observed appreciable persistent oil at both, we could not do those disruptive forms of sampling which are extremely important components of the long-term monitoring. This amendment to our proposal will allow the complete re-sampling of our 6 Gulf of Alaska long-term monitoring sites in 2012. Our overall objectives have not changed, but we have modified the due dates for this study and have provided a budget that addresses the additional costs required.


Proposal: View (60 KB)

Reports:
Final Report: Not Applicable to this Project

Publications from this Project: None Available