barbara oil spill earth day actually started because of this in massachusetts buzzards bay where there have been close to 10 major oil spills since the 1940s the most recent occurring in april 2003 scientists have found that the fiddler crab is chronically impaired seemingly drunk on oil and in alaska where the 1989 exxon valdezoil spill released close to 11 million gallons of crude the herring population still has not fully recovered twentyone years later a thick oily residue can be found in much of the rocky coast of prince william sound and more than 21000 gallons of oil infest the shore in the case of ixtoc tunnell said the us and mexican governments ceased funding research when the cleanup effort ended he said that while exxon was forced to fund studies not many others in the oil industry have given money for that purpose according to tunnell since the spill in april bp has given 500 million for such studies an oil spill is a big experiment that we should take advantage of its an opportunity its a very very sad opportunity for those of us who have been studying the environment and training students when it occurs its an experiment for us to study to see what the impacts are on all aspects of the environment tunnell said bp oil spill normal life should return in 5 years tunnell said tourism would return to the gulf area in about a year but that it would take five years for the beaches to recover he did not think the shrimp industry would die as many local fishermen have feared if the dispersants do their job then the process of degradation takes place faster so it may not affect the shrimp on the bottom tunnell said he was not so sure about the oysters thats a difficult call thats where it gets into the oyster reefs and thats different from the oysters on the roots of the red mangroves in texas theyre growing on oyster reefs that might be right up at the surface or several feet deep if those get heavy oil that would be impossible to clean up he said tunnell said it will take decades for th eoil to be completely gone from all habitats when tunnell returned to mexico this month 31 years after the ixtoc spill he found oil tar in the marshes fishermen said that the oysters still had not returned but the shrimp catch was like it was before the blast the oil went into the shorelines where oysters are and directly hit the oysters on the roots of the mangrove trees whereas shrimp live on the bottom and oil floated primarily on the surface and so it went onto the shoreline from there so the shrimp probably missed the majority of the oiling he said