Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, March 24, 1989

FILE - An oil covered bird is examined on an island in Prince William Sound, Alaska, in April 1989. A massive oil-slick resulted after the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground about 25 miles from Valdez, Alaska. 

FILE - People in Kodiak carry signs to protest the Exxon oil spill in Anchorage, Alaska, May 27, 1989.

FILE - Crews use high-pressure hoses to blast the oil off rocks on this beach front on Naked Island, Alaska, April 21, 1989. This is one of two beaches that are being worked on, out of 58 beaches in the Prince William Sound.

FILE - The Exxon Valdez is pictured being towed out of Prince William Sound in Alaska by a tug boat and a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter, June 23, 1989.

FILE - Thick crude oil washed up on the cobble beach of Evans Island sticks to the boots and pants of a local fisherman in Prince William Sound, Alaska, April 11, 1989.

FILE - A local fisherman inspects a dead California gray whale on the northern shore of Latoucha Island, Alaska, April 9, 1989. Wildlife experts later determined that the whale died before the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred on March 24.

FILE - Steve Provant, Alaska's on-scene clean-up co-ordinator, examines oily rocks on Green Island, June 25, 1989, in Prince William Sound. The Coast Guard, which is overseeing Exxon's clean-up effort, declaring crews had "completed removal of gross contamination." But the oil came back.