Prince William Sound Environmental Milestones: from 1989 Disaster to Today
By Marcus Vance
Beyond its industrial transit lanes, the sound functions as a critical corridor for civic life and nature-based tourism. The Alaska Marine Highway System provides a dependable transit link via the ferry connecting Whittier and Valdez. Motorists enter Whittier through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, a single-lane, shared rail-and-vehicle corridor bored through Maynard Mountain, before boarding state ferries that cruise across calm waters framed by Blackstone Bay and Port Wells.
This public ferry service cuts hours off mainland highway routes between Anchorage and Valdez while providing travelers an up-close perspective on the region's marine recovery. Simultaneously, high-speed glacier cruise tours out of Whittier and Valdez ferry thousands of visitors each summer to the edge of the Columbia Glacier. Columbia has retreated more than 12 miles since the early 1980s, shedding billions of tons of ice into the bay and leaving newly exposed bedrock fjords that challenge mariners with drifting growlers and icebergs.
Marcus Vance is a cybersecurity auditor and technology writer dedicated to educating the public about online safety, data privacy regulations, enterprise security, and emerging cyber threats.
