ALASKAN CLEANUP CAMPAIGNS SHOW PROGRESS

The last vessels and crews from Exxon Co. U.S.A.'s 1990 Alaskan cleanup campaign in Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska are demobilizing at Seward and Valdez.

That winds up what the company calls "a successful summer cleanup program" in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Cleanup efforts ended Sept. 15 to protect personnel from winter storms.

"Extensive cleanup efforts, coupled with natural cleansing by winter storms, have resulted in a rapid recovery of Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska from the Valdez oil spill," said Otto Harrison, Exxon's Alaska general manager.

Although 1990-91 winter storms are expected to remove most remaining oil, Exxon will return to the shorelines in the spring of 1991 for a joint, multiagency survey and will continue cleanup work next year if the Coast Guard determines that such work would result in a net environmental benefit.

In other Alaskan cleanup efforts, ARCO Alaska Inc. reported that more than 10,000 tons of reuseable scrap metal, including one old camp, have left the North Slope for a recycling center in the Pacific Northwest. The flotilla of barges was destined for Tacoma, Wash.

ARCO Alaska last year organized a similar cleanup effort, along with more than 20 oil field service companies that belong to the Prudhoe Bay Environmental Alliance.

WHAT EXXON ACCOMPLISHED

Harrison said Exxon this year completed all the cleanup work identified in joint surveys with government agencies and employed the least intrusive methods that would provide a net environmental benefit.

Studies conducted in 1990 show that the environment in the sound and gulf is undergoing a robust recovery, Harrison said.

Field observations confirm that:

Shoreline life is thriving in previously oiled areas.
Levels of hydrocarbons in the water are well within normal ranges.
Wildlife populations are rebounding from the spill and are abundant throughout Prince William Sound.
The 1990 pink salmon fishing season in Prince William Sound garnered a record catch.

Harrison said the small amount of surface oil remaining is widely scattered, patchy, highly weathered, and poses little risk of causing a threat to wildlife or human activity. Remaining subsurface oil is widely scattered and generally in discontinuous lenses.

No recoverable oil on the water was found during the winter of 1989-90, and none has been observed during the 1990 work season.

The number and volume of sheens attributable to the oil spill are very small, continuing to decrease with time, and pose virtually no threat to the environment, Harrison said.

Resources committed to the effort this year peaked at 1,030 persons, 68 vessels, and 34 aircraft. About 5,000 tons of waste materials were disposed of in a Lower 48 landfill.

NORTH SLOPE BACKHAUL

Owners of the Prudhoe Bay oil field made the scrap metal backhaul possible again this year by giving Deadhorse, Alas., contractors access to three barges used in the 1990 sealift.

ARCO Alaska, BP Exploration, and Exxon allowed free third party use of the West Dock, and several Deadhorse contractors agreed to haul scrap metal to the dock at cost.

The scrap includes junked vehicles, buildings, pipe, and drilling rig components. It has been sold to General Metals, a scrap metal dealer on the West Coast.

Last year's scraplift generated more than $150,000 for the Prudhoe Bay Alliance.

"We're expecting this year's backhaul to generate about $200,000," said Bill Earl, investment recovery coordinator for ARCO Alaska.

The money is used by the Prudhoe Bay Environmental Alliance to fund a health, safety, and environmental education program for the oil field service industry.

In addition to the scrap metal backhaul, ARCO Alaska is recycling an old, modular camp that was installed in the 1960s to house about 1,000 contract workers. The camp was replaced in 1986 with the main construction camp, 60,000 sq ft living quarters, a medical unit, and dining and recreation rooms.