In the early morning hours of March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker sliced into Prince William Sound’s Bligh Reef, spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil into pristine Alaskan waters. It is considered one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters. Twenty-five years later, impacts from the spill remain. Liesel Ritchie, assistant director of CU-Â鶹ӰԺ’s Natural Hazards Center, spent years researching the impact the spill has had on the residents of Cordova, considered ground zero for the spill.