SYMPOSIA PAPER Published: 01 January 1995
STP19872S

Shoreline Impacts in the Gulf of Alaska Region Following the Oil Spill

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Forty-eight sites in the Gulf of Alaska region (GOA-Kodiak Island, Kenai Peninsula, and Alaska Peninsula) were sampled in July/August 1989 to assess the impact of the March 24, 1989, Exxon Valdez oil spill on shoreline chemistry and biological communities hundreds of miles from the spill origin. In a 1990 companion study, 5 of the Kenai sites and 13 of the Kodiak and Alaska Peninsula sites were sampled 16 months after the spill.

Oiling levels at each site were estimated visually and/or quantified by chemical analysis. The chemical analyses were performed on sediment and/or rock wipe samples collected with the biological samples. Additional sediment samples were collected for laboratory amphipod toxicity tests. Mussels were also collected and analyzed for hydrocarbon content to assess hydrocarbon bioavailability.

Biological investigations at these GOA sites focused on intertidal infauna, epifauna, and macroalgae by means of a variety of common ecological techniques. For rocky sites the percentage of hard substratum covered by biota was quantified. At each site, up to 5 biological samples (scrapes of rock surfaces or sediment cores) were collected intertidally along each of 3 transects, spanning tide levels from the high intertidal to mean-lowest-low-water (zero tidal datum). Organisms (down to 1.0 mm in size) from these samples were sorted and identified. Community parameters including organism abundance, species richness, and Shannon diversity were calculated for each sample.

As expected for shores so far from the spill origin, oiling levels were substantially lower, and beached oil was more highly weathered than in Prince William Sound (PWS). Samples of oiled GOA shoreline sediment were not statistically more toxic in bioassay tests than sediment from unoiled reference sites.

As a consequence of the lower oil impact, the biological communities were not as affected as those in the sound. Biological impacts, although present in 1989 in the GOA, were localized, which is consistent with the patchy and discontinuous nature of much of the oiling in GOA. Some organisms were locally reduced or eliminated in oiled patches but survived in unoiled patches nearby. In areas where oiling occurred, impacts were generally limited to middle and upper intertidal zones.

Analyses of mussel samples indicate that by 1990 little of the shoreline oil remained bioavailable to epifauna. Quantifiable measures of the overall health and vitality of shoreline biological communities, such as organism abundance, species richness, and Shannon diversity for sediment infauna, show few significant differences between oiled and reference sites in 1990.

Author Information

Gilfillan, ES
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME
Suchanek, TH
University of California, Davis, CA
Boehm, PD
Arthur D. Little, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Harner, EJ
West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV
Page, DS
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME
Sloan, NA
Dames and Moore, Seattle, WA EVS Consultants, North Vancouver, B. C., Canada
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Developed by Committee: E47
Pages: 444–481
DOI: 10.1520/STP19872S
ISBN-EB: 978-0-8031-5293-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-8031-1896-6