I'm on top of the world! ...and it's in trouble

I'm sure everybody's heard about oil spills in Alaska, but what happens after the environmental groups leave. New research has shown that even though the oil spill is cleaned up there can still be oil left behind. Environmental groups tend to only clean up oil spills on the surface, but oil can also seep underground and stay there unnoticed. One prime example is Prince William Sound.


















Prince William Sound is an sound just off the coast of Alaska. A sound is a long, wide ocean inlet. In 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez hit a reef just off the coast of Prince William Sound, spilling 10.8 million US gallons of crude oil. The oil spill severely damaged the environment, killing nearly 256,000 animals, including seabirds, sea otters, various fish, bald eagles, seals and killer whales.














After the oil spill was cleaned up on the surface, the environmental groups left thinking that they had cleaned up the oil completely. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The oil under ground remained there uncleaned, and because of the sounds ultra dense soil and remote location, unextractable.