SFOS on scene of Aleutian Island oil spill

Submitted by Doug Schneider
Phone: (907) 474-7449
12/10/04

Unalaska, Alaska-- Less than a year after arriving in Unalaska as the Aleutian Island’s first Marine Advisory Program agent, Reid Brewer finds himself in the midst of a human and environmental disaster that has likely claimed the lives of six people and triggered what is almost certainly the largest oil spill since the Exxon Valdez gushed 11-million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989.

On Wednesday, December 8, the Malaysian freighter, Selendang Ayu, carrying a load of soybeans and 500,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel, foundered in heavy seas after its engines failed, and then broke apart on the rocks in Skan Bay, near the fishing port of Dutch Harbor.

Visit the School of Fish and Ocean Sciences website or the Anchorage Daily News for more information.