PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND

irregular inlet of the Gulf of Alaska, U.S. It lies east of the Kenai Peninsula and spans about 90 to 100 miles (145 to 160 km). Hinchinbrook and Montague islands are at its oceanward entrance. The area lies within the Chugach National Forest and has supported considerable fishing, mining, and forestry. Shipping is centred at the port of Valdez, the southern terminal for the trans-Alaskan pipeline, and at Cordova. The sound was named by the British navigator Captain George Vancouver in 1778 to honour the third son of King George III. Prince William Sound was the site of a massive oil spill in 1989, when an Exxon Corporation tanker, the Exxon Valdez, ran aground on Bligh Reef at 12:04 AM on March 24. Because of delayed efforts to contain the spill and because of naturally strong winds and waves, about 10.9 million gallons of North Slope crude oil poured into the sound and eventually polluted thousands of miles of indented shoreline, as well as adjacent waters, as far south as the southern end of Shelikof Strait between Kodiak Island and the Alaskan Peninsula. An intensive effort was subsequently mounted to clean up the oil spill and restore the sound's damaged ecosystem.