How do we recover after an oil spill? Coastal Pollution Tutorial

Once the oil has been cleaned up, scientists carry out projects that help habitats, wildlife, and coastal communities recover. Beach habitat restoration was part of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill recovery (Credit: NOAA).

When a person gets sick, a doctor evaluates their symptoms, diagnoses a problem, and then prescribes a treatment to help them get better. That’s what NOAA scientists do after an oil spill: they evaluate what happened, assess the impacts, and then figure out what needs to be done to restore the impacted area. Restoration isn’t the same as cleanup, but they work together to maximize the recovery of the ecosystem. Examples of restoration projects include:

Creating wetland habitats by removing invasive species and planting native vegetation.
Enhancing beaches and shorelines with plants and natural structures that prevent erosion.
Creating oyster reefs and shellfish habitat by using recycled oyster shells as a structural starting point for new oysters to settle on and grow.
Restoring coral reefs and seagrass beds by transplanting new coral into damaged areas or keeping recovering seagrasses free from disturbance.

Restoration projects speed up the time it takes for different habitats and species to recover. Usually, the law requires the group responsible for the oil spill to pay for the cleanup and restoration efforts. In addition to restoring habitats, that group may also need to restore access to the impacted natural spaces by constructing parks, boat ramps, and fishing piers.

After restoration projects are completed, scientists continue to monitor the impacted areas to see how well they are recovering. Different habitats and the wildlife living within them can take varying amounts of time to recover.

Decades after the Exxon Valdez spill, some animal communities have fully recovered while others are slowly improving or not recovering at all (Credit: NOAA). View and print this infographic and see the description below

Ecological recovery can be difficult to define and measure. It is not always realistic to expect that environments will completely return to pre-spill conditions. For example, Prince William Sound, Alaska, was a pristine and sensitive ecosystem before the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. Decades after the spill, some animal communities have fully recovered while others are slowly improving or not recovering at all.

*Sea otters rescued from Prince William Sound rehabilitating in sea pen (Credit: Alaska Public Archives).*

From 1989 to 2000, NOAA biologists studied the long-term effects of the spill. Their goal was to learn more about the effects of the oiling and the cleanup treatments on different habitats in Prince William Sound. This let them know how quickly, and in what ways, shoreline habitats around the sound were recovering.

Some parts of the environment were severely damaged not only by the oil spill, but also by the methods used in the spill response. Oiled rocks and beaches were treated with high-pressure hot water to clean off the oil, but this caused more harm to the wildlife in those rocky intertidal areas. Fortunately, these sites have recovered, despite the challenges.

Many ecological communities in Prince William Sound have recovered since the oil spill, including bald eagles, common loons, sea otters, salmon, rockfish, and other birds, fish, mammals, and invertebrates. However, to this day, oil remains in Prince William Sound, and key species such as herring and killer whales have a long way to go.

Once an oil spill happens, it can devastate the environment—from microscopic organisms all the way to dolphins and whales—and the effects can last for decades afterward.

Infographic Description

This graphic shows a timeline of recovery from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. A sidebar provides additional context and description:

“25 Years Later: The tanker Exxon Valdez spilled almost 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, injuring 28 types of animals, plants, and marine habitats. How long has it taken them to recover from this spill? Twenty-five years later, which ones have not yet recovered?
“Here is a timeline showing when natural resources are considered to be ‘recovered’ by NOAA, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, and the U.S. Geological Survey. Actual recovery could have occurred earlier than presented in this timeline.”

The timeline starts at 1989, marked by an icon of the Exxon Valdez tanker and an illustration of oil spilling toward the foreground of the graphic. Along the timeline, species and habitats are labeled as “Recovered” in green shading with associated dates, “Recovering” in yellow shading, “Not Recovering” in red shading, and “Status Unknown” in orange shading. They are labeled as follows:

Recovered species and habitats (1989-2014):
- 1992: Rocky Intertidal (NOAA Determination)
- 1996: Bald Eagle
- 1999: River Otter
- 2002: Common Murre, Sockeye Salmon, and Pink Salmon
- 2006: Cormorant, Harbor Seal, Dolly Varden, and Common Loon
- 2010: Subtidal Communities, Rockfish, and Cutthroat Trout
- 2013: Sea Otter (USGS determination) and Harlequin Duck (USGS Determination)
Recovering species and habitats
- Clams
- Black Oystercatcher
- Mussels
- Killer Whale Pod AB
- Barrow’s Goldeneye
- Intertidal Communities
- Designated Wilderness
- Sediments
Species and Habitats not Recovering
- Herring
- Killer Whale Pod AT1
- Pigeon Guillemots
Status Unknown
- Kittlitz’s Murrelet
- Marbled Murrelet