document: From a helicopter , the wave-washed beach looks as if the worst oil spill in U.S. history had never touched it . Silvery sticks of driftwood poke through a deep blanket of snow , and smooth gray pebbles roll in the surf under the gaze of a bald eagle perched in a shoreside spruce . But the view does n't impress Joe Bridgman of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation . Dashing out as the chopper lands , he digs into the cobble beach and quickly finds what he knew he would . `` Oil , '' he says . `` Smell it ? '' The pungent odor of petroleum wafts through the air as the hole turns black with crude oil , an oozing remnant of the 10.8 million gallons spilled into Prince William Sound last March 24 by the tanker Exxon Valdez . Bridgman scoops up a shovelful of gravel , lugs it to the water 's edge and dumps it in . A rainbow sheen of oil spreads across the water . `` Hundreds of gallons of oil are locked up under this beach , '' he says . `` And this is n't isolated . There are hundreds of beaches all over the sound that are still oiled , and the oil is slowly bleeding out . `` The beaches can look beautiful at the surface , but you can dig down , in this case just a few inches below the surface , and find lots of oil . Now , is that a threat or is n't it ? '' A year after the wreck of the Exxon Valdez , the question clings like the oil under this Perry Island beach . Certainly , the worst is over ; thousands of dead birds no longer wash up on shorelines as they did last summer . But assessing the continuing damage wrought by the nation 's most extensive _ and expensive _ oil spill has just begun . As a growing slick of lawyers haggles over who is to blame , Exxon Corp. and government agencies debate how to clean up what 's left and scientists track wildlife populations ' first steps on the long road to recovery . Any hope of a quick solution faded last summer as oil from the Exxon Valdez spread across 1,100 miles of Alaska 's wild southern coast . A cleanup army of 12,000 workers polished rocks by hand , blasted beaches with hot water and sprayed fertilizer to promote the growth of oil-eating microbes . But when Exxon suspended its $ 2 billion cleanup in mid-September , it had recovered only 5 percent to 9 percent of the oil spilled , state officials estimate . About 20 percent to 40 percent is believed to have evaporated . That leaves 50 percent to 75 percent of the oil in the water , on the ocean bottom or on beaches . Some was soaked up by unwilling sponges : the seabirds , eagles and sea otters whose carcasses now lie frozen in five vans in an Anchorage storage yard , awaiting their day as physical evidence in court . Workers found more than 1,000 dead otters , a sizable chunk of the spill area 's total population of 15,000 to 22,000 . Many of Prince William Sound 's 3,000 bald eagles also suffered ; at least 151 died , most poisoned by scavenging the oily remains of some of the 34,400 dead seabirds recovered . Those numbers alone make the Valdez spill the most lethal ever , but scientists say the actual death count is much higher , estimating that up to 90 percent of the seabirds caught in oil sank from sight or drifted out to sea . Exxon notes the spill did not wipe out any species and says surviving animals and birds will rebuild populations . But that may take up to 70 years for some hard-hit seabird colonies , U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service researchers say . `` We never claimed that the spill put any animal on the endangered species list , but that 's missing the point , '' said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Bruce Batten . `` It 's still the greatest human-caused wildlife disaster that this agency knows about . '' Oily carcasses were an obvious measure of the spill 's impact , but victims also included less visible members of the ecosystem , such as young salmon and tiny intertidal creatures . Assessment studies for these populations are not finished , and even preliminary findings are hard to come by _ researchers have been told by lawyers to save their findings for court , where it seems nearly everyone involved in the spill is headed . Capt. Joseph Hazelwood , skipper of the Exxon Valdez , is on trial this month in Anchorage on charges including criminal mischief and drunken driving of his vessel , and a federal grand jury recently issued criminal indictments against Exxon , starting a case that could take years to finish . Exxon already faces more than 150 civil lawsuits . Fishermen sued because of lost seasons . Tour-boat operators sued because fewer people wanted to cruise an oiled sound . The state sued , claiming the company was negligent in responding to the spill , only to be countersued by Exxon , which claimed state officials hindered the use of chemical dispersants that could have broken up large quantities of oil early on . Information about the spill is filtered through this litigious atmosphere , making much of it suspect . Exxon distributes before-and-after pictures of cleaned beaches ; Bridgman and other state officials , accusing Exxon of `` myth-making , '' eagerly make room for journalists on flights to oiled beaches . State officials cite an October survey that showed 117 miles of shoreline remained moderately or heavily oiled , with oil more than two feet deep in some spots . They say observers flying over the sound still report 15 to 20 oil sheens bleeding off beaches daily . Exxon officials , meanwhile , say their winter monitoring of 64 sites shows wind and waves have scoured away , on average , more than half the surface oil left in September , and up to 80 percent of the buried oil . `` From a layman 's point of view , what 's left out there is really insignificant , '' said Exxon scientist Andy Teal .
extractive_keyphrases: oil spill environmental conservation crude oil tanker exxon valdez wildlife populations criminal indictments civil lawsuits
abstractive_keyphrases: human-caused wildlife disaster capt. joseph hazelwood